Mapping of the protein import machinery in the mitochondrial outer membrane by crosslinking of translocation intermediates.

Mitochondria contain a complex machinery for the import of nuclear-encoded proteins. Receptor proteins exposed on the outer membrane surface are required for the specific binding of precursor proteins to mitochondria, either by binding of cytosolic signal recognition factors or by direct recognition of the precursor polypeptides. Subsequently, the precursors are inserted into the outer membrane at the general insertion site GIP (general insertion protein). Here we report the analysis of receptors and GIP by crosslinking of translocation intermediates and by coimmunoprecipitation. Surface-accumulated precursors were crosslinked to the receptors MOM19 and MOM72, suggesting a direct interaction of preproteins with surface receptors. We identified three novel mitochondrial outer membrane proteins, MOM7, MOM8, and MOM30 that, together with the previously identified MOM38, seem to form the GIP site and are present in the mitochondrial receptor complex.     

DNA sequence determinants of CAP-induced bending and protein binding affinity

The sites of DNA bending induced by binding catabolite activator protein are identified and shown to coincide with positions where DNA grooves face the protein. The bendability of DNA with different sequences at these bend centres parallels the bending preference of the sequences in nucleosomal DNA. Anisotropic DNA bendability significantly affects the structure and strength of regulatory protein-DNA complexes.     

Spontaneous lactation is an adaptive result of pseudopregnancy

Lactation is almost exclusively associated with pregnancy and giving birth. Although lactation can be induced without a preceding pregnancy in some species, this requires exogenous hormones, artificially intense or extended suckling or both. Spontaneous lactation, lactation by females that have neither been pregnant nor experimentally manipulated, is extremely unusual among eutherians. Among nondomesticated animals, spontaneous lactation has been observed repeatedly only in the dwarf mongoose Helogale parvula. We report here spontaneous lactation by free-living dwarf mongooses using data on urinary oestrogen conjugate concentrations (n = 560, 65 females) and body weight (n = 3,096, 25 females) from a population in Serengeti National Park, Tanzania. We use demographic data from this population to demonstrate that spontaneous lactation, and thus the endocrine phenomena that induce it, increase the evolutionary fitness of lactating females.