Rapid spread of an inherited incompatibility factor in California Drosophila

In Drosophila simulans in California, an inherited cytoplasmic incompatibility factor reduces egg hatch when infected males mate with uninfected females. The infection is spreading at a rate of more than 100 km per year; populations in which the infection was rare have become almost completely infected within three years. Analyses of the spread using estimates of selection in the field suggest dispersal distances far higher than those found by direct observation of flies. Hence, occasional long-distance dispersal, possibly coupled with local extinction and recolonization, may be important to the dynamics. Incompatibility factors that can readily spread through natural populations may be useful for population manipulation and important as a post-mating isolating mechanism.     

Hsp104 is a highly conserved protein with two essential nucleotide-binding sites

Most eukaryotic cells produce proteins with relative molecular masses in the range of 100,000 to 110,000 after exposure to high temperatures. These proteins have been studied only in yeast and mammalian cells. In Saccharomyces cerevisiae, heat-shock protein hsp104 is vital for tolerance to heat, ethanol and other stresses. The mammalian hsp110 protein is nucleolar and redistributes with growth state, nutritional conditions and heat shock. The relationships between hsp110, hsp104 and the high molecular mass heat-shock proteins of other organisms were unknown. We report here that hsp104 is a member of the highly conserved ClpA/ClpB protein family first identified in Escherichia coli and that additional heat-inducible members of this family are present in Schizosaccharomyces pombe and in mammals. Mutagenesis of two putative nucleotide-binding sites in hsp104 indicates that both are essential for function in thermotolerance.     

Humoral and cell-mediated immune responses to live recombinant BCG-HIV vaccines

Several viral and bacterial live recombinant vaccine vehicles are being developed to produce a new generation of vaccines against a broad spectrum of infectious diseases. The human tuberculosis vaccine Mycobacterium bovis bacillus Calmette-Guerin (BCG) has features that make it a particularly attractive live recombinant vaccine vehicle. BCG and other mycobacteria are highly effective adjuvants, and the immune response to mycobacteria has been studied extensively. With nearly two billion immunizations, BCG has a long record of safe use in man. It is one of the few vaccines that can be given at birth, it engenders long-lived immune responses with only a single dose, and there is a worldwide distribution network with experience in BCG vaccination. Recently developed molecular genetic tools and methods for mycobacteria have provided the means to introduce foreign genes into BCG. Here we report that a variety of human immunodeficiency virus type 1 polypeptides can be expressed in BCG recombinants under the control of the mycobacterial hsp70 promoter and that the foreign polypeptides produced in BCG can induce antibody and T-cell responses. These results demonstrate that BCG can be used as a live recombinant vaccine vehicle to induce immune responses to pathogen proteins produced by the bacillus.     

Running energetics in the pronghorn antelope

The pronghorn antelope (Antilocapra americana) has an alleged top speed of 100 km h-1, second only to the cheetah (Acionyx jubatus) among land vertebrates, a possible response to predation in the exposed habitat of the North American prairie. Unlike cheetahs, however, pronghorn antelope are distance runners rather than sprinters, and can run 11 km in 10 min, an average speed of 65 km h-1. We measured maximum oxygen uptake in pronghorn antelope to distinguish between two potential explanations for this ability: either they have evolved a uniquely high muscular efficiency (low cost of transport) or they can supply oxygen to the muscles at unusually high levels. Because the cost of transport (energy per unit distance covered per unit body mass) varies as a predictable function of body mass among terrestrial vertebrates, we can calculate the predicted cost to maintain speeds of 65 and 100 km h-1 in an average 32-kg animal. The resulting range of predicted values, 3.2-5.1 ml O2 kg-1 s-1, far surpasses the predicted maximum aerobic capacity of a 32-kg mammal (1.5 ml O2 kg-1 s-1). We conclude that their performance is achieved by an extraordinary capacity to consume and process enough oxygen to support a predicted running speed greater than 20 ms-1 (70 km h-1), attained without unique respiratory-system structures.     

A coat subunit of Golgi-derived non-clathrin-coated vesicles with homology to the clathrin-coated vesicle coat protein beta-adaptin

Four high-molecular-weight proteins form the main subunits of the coat of Golgi-derived (non-clathrin) coated vesicles. One of these coat proteins, beta-COP, is identical to a Golgi-associated protein of relative mass 110,000 (110K) that shares homology with the adaptin proteins of clathrin-coated vesicles. This connection, and the comparable molecular weights of the coat proteins of Golgi-derived and clathrin-coated vesicles, indicates that they may be structurally related. The identification of beta-COP as the 110K protein explains the blocking of secretion by the drug brefeldin A.     

A homologue of the bacterial heat-shock gene DnaJ that alters protein sorting in yeast

Heat-shock proteins have been implicated in assembly of protein complexes, correct protein folding and uptake of proteins into organelles. In Escherichia coli, the heat-shock protein DnaJ and the Hsp70 homologue, DnaK, act together to disassemble a protein complex involved in bacteriophage lambda replication. We report the identification of SCJ1, a gene in the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae that encodes a homologue of the bacterial DnaJ protein. SCJ1 was identified by a genetic screen in which increased expression of candidate genes results in missorting of a nuclear-targeted test protein. The predicted amino-acid sequence of SCJ1 is 37% identical to the entire E. coli DnaJ protein. Hybridization experiments indicate that there is a family of yeast genes related to SCJ1. These findings suggest that the Hsp70 DnaK-DnaJ interaction is general to eukaryotes.     

New use of BCG for recombinant vaccines

BCG, a live attenuated tubercle bacillus, is the most widely used vaccine in the world and is also a useful vaccine vehicle for delivering protective antigens of multiple pathogens. Extrachromosomal and integrative expression vectors carrying the regulatory sequences for major BCG heat-shock proteins have been developed to allow expression of foreign antigens in BCG. These recombinant BCG strains can elicit long-lasting humoral and cellular immune responses to foreign antigens in mice.     

Complex patterns formed by motile cells of Escherichia coli

When chemotactic strains of the bacterium Escherichia coli are inoculated on semi-solid agar containing mixtures of amino acids or sugars, the cells swarm outwards in a series of concentric rings: they respond to spatial gradients of attractants generated by uptake and catabolism. Cells also drift up gradients generated artificially, for example by diffusion from the tip of a capillary tube or by mixing. Here we describe conditions under which cells aggregate in response to gradients of attractant which they excrete themselves. When cells are grown in semi-solid agar on intermediates of the tricarboxylic acid cycle, they form symmetrical arrays of spots or stripes that arise sequentially. When cells in a thin layer of liquid culture are exposed to these compounds, spots appear synchronously, more randomly arrayed. In either case, the patterns are stationary. The attractant is a chemical sensed by the aspartate receptor. Its excretion can be triggered by oxidative stress. As oxygen is limiting at high cell densities, aggregation might serve as a mechanism for collective defence.