肽激素是如何准备工作的?

研究人员似乎已找到了剪切肽激素和由其前体生产神经介质的酶。     

The nature and transport mechanism of hydrated hydroxide ions in aqueous solution

Compared to other ions, protons (H(+)) and hydroxide ions (OH(-)) exhibit anomalously high mobilities in aqueous solutions. On a qualitative level, this behaviour has long been explained by 'structural diffusion' the continuous interconversion between hydration complexes driven by fluctuations in the solvation shell of the hydrated ions. Detailed investigations have led to a clear understanding of the proton transport mechanism at the molecular level. In contrast, hydroxide ion mobility in basic solutions has received far less attention, even though bases and base catalysis play important roles in many organic and biochemical reactions and in the chemical industry. The reason for this may be attributed to the century-old notion that a hydrated OH(-) can be regarded as a water molecule missing a proton, and that the transport mechanism of such a 'proton hole' can be inferred from that of an excess proton by simply reversing hydrogen bond polarities. However, recent studies have identified OH(-) hydration complexes that bear little structural similarity to proton hydration complexes. Here we report the solution structures and transport mechanisms of hydrated hydroxide, which we obtained from first-principles computer simulations that explicitly treat quantum and thermal fluctuations of all nuclei. We find that the transport mechanism, which differs significantly from the proton hole picture, involves an interplay between the previously identified hydration complexes and is strongly influenced by nuclear quantum effects.     

发现癌转移的新线索

细胞内主要信号传递路线中的一种缺失,可助长某些癌细胞的扩散趋势. 在3个洲独立地对完全不同的生物进行了研究,取得了具有深远影响的结果;癌生物学中主要的“神秘”问题,已成为研究的热门课题:造成体内肿瘤细胞     

迈向B型血友病基因治疗的第一步

迈向Ｂ型血友病基因治疗的第一步ＪｅａｎＭａｒｘ著张随楷译对于患有遗传性出血疾病──血友病的儿童来说，用叫凝集因子的血蛋白来治疗，意味着生和死的差别。但是，目前应用的治疗方法不能治愈疾病，且有一些严重的后果。一个最大的威胁是它们有传播疾病的潜在危险，因...     

冠瘿病:自然界是遗传工程的工程师

这里三篇文章是关于遗传工程和脑生理的最新研究成果。《冠瘿病:自然界是遗传工程的工程师》,科学家根据这一奇特现象,证明了应用质粒把一种特殊的基因组移入细胞,设想培养新的固氮植物的可能性。《动物蛋白质的产生菌》则是遗传工程这一新技术取得的新进展,展现了微生物工业的美好前景。《性激素和脑发育》一文认为哺乳类、鸟类以及几乎肯定包括人类在内,脑发育都各经过一个关键期,在此期间性激素对脑的结构和功能发生永久性的影响,从而又能了解性行为的本质。     

移植对脑生长指导作用的探讨

脑移植对于解决哺乳类动物的行为和脑如何生长发育这些疑难问题,是最实用的研究工具。实验表明,胚胎脑组组片移植到受体动物脑内或其它部位时,不仅能够成活,而且生长良好。移植物常常能与靶神经元形成正确的联系,在某些实验动物还能使神经损伤得到恢复。本文讨论使用组织移植来研究有关脑生长状态的基本问题。     

癌基因研究带来治癌新方法

癌症研究者们即将开始试验几种新的洽癌方法:通过消除癌细胞生长和分裂所需的蛋白质而杀伤癌细胞.这些试验性的治疗是15年来对癌基因进行深入研究的首次临床应用.关于癌基因的研究表明,引起癌的基因是编码生长因子和其它控制细胞生长和分化所需蛋白质基因的异常形式.所以,通过对癌的研究,癌基因专家们获得     

Nucleotide analogues as probes for DNA polymerases

Transmission of the genetic information from the parental DNA strand to the offspring is crucial for the survival of any living species. In nature, all DNA synthesis in DNA replication, recombination and repair is catalyzed by DNA polymerases and depends on their ability to select the canonical nucleobase pair from a pool of structurally similar building blocks. Recently, a wealth of valuable new insights into DNA polymerase mechanisms have been gained through application of carefully designed synthetic nucleotides and oligonucleotides in functional enzyme studies. The applied analogues exhibit features that differ in certain aspects from their natural counterparts and, thus, allow investigation of the involvement and efficacy of a chosen particular aspect on the entire complex enzyme mechanism. This review will focus on a depiction of the efforts that have been undertaken towards the development of nucleotide analogues with carefully altered properties. The different approaches will be discussed in the context of the motivation and the problem under investigation.Received 16 March 2005; received after revision 5 May 2005; accepted 8 June 2005     

酪氨酸磷酸酶引起生物学家的兴趣

随着研究人员对于在细胞生长控制和癌变中起关键作用的一类酶的研究,酪氨酸磷酸酶的数量在迅速增加。在过去2年里,一个使生物学家感到惊讶的新研究领域得到迅速发展,这就是对以前并未预料到的蛋白酪氨酸磷酸衡的研究。它使人们非常兴奋,因为它可能就是长期寻找的,对抗一类人们所熟知的所谓酪氮酸激酶的酶。