Insights from von Willebrand disease animal models

von Willebrand disease is a genetic bleeding disorder that arises from abnormalities in von Willebrand factor, an adhesive glycoprotein involved in both primary hemostasis and coagulation. It is the most common inherited bleeding disorder in humans, and over the years several animal species have also been described as suffering from this disease whether through a spontaneous mutation (pigs, dogs) or a genetically engineered one (mouse). These different animal models are extremely useful in exploring the characteristics of von Willebrand disease and in testing new treatments. This review provides an update of the various von Willebrand disease models and the contribution that these models can make to a better understanding of human von Willebrand disease.     

2-Br-α-Ergokryptin: Beeinflussung von Fertilität und Laktation bei der Ratte

Summary The inhibitory actions of -ergocryptin on fertility and lactation in the rat are altered differentially in the 2-bromo derivative of this ergot alcaloid. It is therefore unlikely that the fertility inhibiting and the lactation inhibiting effects of 2-bromo--ergocryptin are governed by a single mechanism of action.     

Altered hyperemic response of the coronary arterial bed in alloxan-diabetes

Reactive hyperemic responses of the coronary arterial bed, provoked by asphyxia or clamping of the coronary artery, were compared in alloxan-diabetic and metabolically healthy dogs. In alloxan-diabetic dogs the response of the coronary arterial bed lasted longer, and its reactivity to hypoxia was lower. Treatment with adenosine caused less vasodilation in diabetic animals than in controls. These changes may be due to the altered reactivity of diabetic vascular smooth muscle.     

The European dimension for the mouse genome mutagenesis program

The European Mouse Mutagenesis Consortium is the European initiative contributing to the international effort on functional annotation of the mouse genome. Its objectives are to establish and integrate mutagenesis platforms, gene expression resources, phenotyping units, storage and distribution centers and bioinformatics resources. The combined efforts will accelerate our understanding of gene function and of human health and disease.     

APP dimer formation is initiated in the endoplasmic reticulum and differs between APP isoforms

The amyloid precursor protein (APP) is part of a larger gene family, which has been found to form homo- or heterotypic complexes with its homologues, whereby the exact molecular mechanism and origin of dimer formation remains elusive. In order to assess the cellular location of dimerization, we have generated a cell culture model system in CHO-K1 cells, stably expressing human APP, harboring dilysine-based organelle sorting motifs [KKAA-endoplasmic reticulum (ER); KKFF-Golgi], accomplishing retention within early secretory compartments. We show that APP exists as disulfide-bonded dimers upon ER retention after it was isolated from cells, and analyzed by SDS-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis under non-reducing conditions. In contrast, strong denaturing and reducing conditions, or deletion of the E1 domain, resulted in the disappearance of those dimers. Thus we provide first evidence that a fraction of APP can associate via intermolecular disulfide bonds, likely generated between cysteines located in the extracellular E1 domain. We particularly visualize APP dimerization itself and identified the ER as subcellular compartment of its origin using biochemical or split GFP approaches. Interestingly, we also found that minor amounts of SDS-resistant APP dimers were located to the cell surface, revealing that once generated in the oxidative environment of the ER, dimers remained stably associated during transport. In addition, we show that APP isoforms encompassing the Kunitz-type protease inhibitor (KPI) domain exhibit a strongly reduced ability to form cis-directed dimers in the ER, whereas trans-mediated cell aggregation of Drosophila Schneider S2-cells was isoform independent. Thus, suggesting that steric properties of KPI-APP might be the cause for weaker cis-interaction in the ER, compared to APP695. Finally, we provide evidence that APP/APLP1 heterointeractions are likewise initiated in the ER.     

p38alpha suppresses normal and cancer cell proliferation by antagonizing the JNK-c-Jun pathway

The mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) p38alpha controls inflammatory responses and cell proliferation. Using mice carrying conditional Mapk14 (also known as p38alpha) alleles, we investigated its function in postnatal development and tumorigenesis. When we specifically deleted Mapk14 in the mouse embryo, fetuses developed to term but died shortly after birth, probably owing to lung dysfunction. Fetal hematopoietic cells and embryonic fibroblasts deficient in p38alpha showed increased proliferation resulting from sustained activation of the c-Jun N-terminal kinase (JNK)-c-Jun pathway. Notably, in chemical-induced liver cancer development, mice with liver-specific deletion of Mapk14 showed enhanced hepatocyte proliferation and tumor development that correlated with upregulation of the JNK-c-Jun pathway. Furthermore, inactivation of JNK or c-Jun suppressed the increased proliferation of Mapk14-deficient hepatocytes and tumor cells. These results demonstrate a new mechanism whereby p38alpha negatively regulates cell proliferation by antagonizing the JNK-c-Jun pathway in multiple cell types and in liver cancer development.     

Improved molecular replacement by density- and energy-guided protein structure optimization

Molecular replacement procedures, which search for placements of a starting model within the crystallographic unit cell that best account for the measured diffraction amplitudes, followed by automatic chain tracing methods, have allowed the rapid solution of large numbers of protein crystal structures. Despite extensive work, molecular replacement or the subsequent rebuilding usually fail with more divergent starting models based on remote homologues with less than 30% sequence identity. Here we show that this limitation can be substantially reduced by combining algorithms for protein structure modelling with those developed for crystallographic structure determination. An approach integrating Rosetta structure modelling with Autobuild chain tracing yielded high-resolution structures for 8 of 13 X-ray diffraction data sets that could not be solved in the laboratories of expert crystallographers and that remained unsolved after application of an extensive array of alternative approaches. We estimate that the new method should allow rapid structure determination without experimental phase information for over half the cases where current methods fail, given diffraction data sets of better than 3.2?? resolution, four or fewer copies in the asymmetric unit, and the availability of structures of homologous proteins with >20% sequence identity.