A small GTP-binding protein dissociates from synaptic vesicles during exocytosis.

Low-molecular-weight GTP-binding proteins are strong candidates for regulators of membrane traffic. In yeast, mutations in the sec4 or ypt1 genes encoding small GTP-binding proteins inhibit constitutive membrane flow at the plasma membrane or Golgi complex, respectively. It has been suggested that membrane fusion-fission events are regulated by cycling of small GTP-binding proteins between a membrane-bound and free state, but although most of these small proteins are found in both soluble and tightly membrane-bound forms, there is no direct evidence to support such cycling. In rat brain a small GTP-binding protein, rab3A, is exclusively associated with synaptic vesicles, the secretory organelles of nerve terminals. Here we use isolated nerve terminals to study the fate of rab3A during synaptic vesicle exocytosis. We find that rab3A dissociates quantitatively from the vesicle membrane after Ca2(+)-dependent exocytosis and that this dissociation is partially reversible during recovery after stimulation. These results are direct evidence for an association-dissociation cycle of a small GTP-binding protein during traffic of its host membrane.     

Face Recognition Based on Support Vector Machine and Nearest Neighbor Classifier

Support vector machine (SVM), as a novel approach in pattern recognition, has demonstrated a success in face detection and face recognition. In this paper, a face recognition approach based on the SVM classifier with the nearest neighbor classifier (NNC) is proposed. The principal component analysis (PCA) is used to reduce the dimension and extract features. Then one-against-all stratedy is used to train the SVM classifiers. At the testing stage, we propose an al-     

The Huntington's disease candidate region exhibits many different haplotypes.

Analysis of 78 Huntington's disease (HD) chromosomes with multi-allele markers revealed 26 different haplotypes, suggesting a variety of independent HD mutations. The most frequent haplotype, accounting for about one third of disease chromosomes, suggests that the disease gene is between D4S182 and D4S180. However, the paucity of an expected class of chromosomes that can be related to this major haplotype by assuming single crossovers may reflect the operation of other mechanisms in creating haplotype diversity. Some of these mechanisms sustain alternative scenarios that do not require a multiple mutational origin for HD and/or its positioning between D4S182 and D4S180.     

Oberflächenspannung und Schallgeschwindigkeit

Summary The preceding empirical relation was found between the surface tension of liquids, the specific weight of liquids, and the velocity of sound:=6.3 · 10^{–4 3/2}. In place of the vèocity of sound can be used, with suitable changes in the equation, the compressibility or, in the case of solid substances, the elasticity of the material in question. The range of validity of this relation is so large that it is possible by means of it to calculate the surface tension of solid substances and of gases.     

Solid-state Synthesis of Carbon-nanostructures

1 Results In addition to single wall and multiwall carbon nanotubes[1], several structures,which are more or less related to fullerenes,including carbon nanohorns[2a], carbon nanospheres[2b] and onion like carbon structures[2c] have been reported.A new simple straight forward method to access some of these structures is the solid-state pyrolysis of different organometallic complexes in a sealed vessel,which led so far to carbon nanotubes[3a,b], carbon nanocables[3c] and onions[3d].