Presenza di un principio antidiuretico nelle ghiandole salivari posteriori degli Octopodi

Summary Acetone and alcohol extracts of the posterior salivary glands ofOctopus vulgaris, Eledone moschata andEledone Aldrovandi contain a principle which strongly reduces the diuresis in hydrated rats.The antidiuretic principle is absent in all otherOctopus tissues as well as in the salivary glands ofOctopus macropus.It shows a high termostability and is strongly adsorbed by animal charcoal at any reaction.The salivary antidiuretic substance is not identical with the posterior pituitary principle nor with the other active substances found in the salivary glands of Octopoda.The injection of salivary extracts satisfactorily reduces polyuria and polydipsia in human diabetes insipidus.

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Le presenti ricerche sono state in parte sovvenzionate da un contributo straordinario del Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche.     

Probing met repressor-operator recognition in solution.

The three-dimensional crystal structure of the Escherichia coli methionine repressor, MetJ, complexed with a DNA operator fragment is described in an accompanying article. The complex exhibits several novel features of DNA-protein interaction. DNA sequence recognition is achieved largely by hydrogen-bond contacts between the bases and amino-acid side chains located on a beta-ribbon, a mode of recognition previously hypothesized on the basis of modelling of idealized beta-strands and DNA, and mutagenesis of the Salmonella phage P22 repressors Arc and Mnt. The complex comprises a pair of MetJ repressor dimers which bind to adjacent met-box sites on the DNA, and contact each other by means of a pair of antiparallel alpha-helices. Here we assess the importance of these contacts, and also of contacts that would be made between the C-helices of the protein and DNA in a previous model of the complex, by studying mutations aimed at disrupting them. The role of the carboxy-terminal helix face in operator binding was unclear, but we demonstrate that recognition of operator sequences occurs through side chains in the beta-strand motif and that dimer-dimer interactions are required for effective repression.