Recent results on hydrogen and hydration in biology studied by neutron macromolecular crystallography

Neutron diffraction provides an experimental method of directly locating hydrogen atoms in proteins, a technique complimentary to ultra-high-resolution [1, 2] X-ray diffraction. Three different types of neutron diffractometers for biological macromolecules have been constructed in Japan, France and the United States, and they have been used to determine the crystal structures of proteins up to resolution limits of 1.5-2.5 A. Results relating to hydrogen positions and hydration patterns in proteins have been obtained from these studies. Examples include the geometrical details of hydrogen bonds, H/D exchange in proteins and oligonucleotides, the role of hydrogen atoms in enzymatic activity and thermostability, and the dynamical behavior of hydration structures, all of which have been extracted from these structural results and reviewed. Other techniques, such as the growth of large single crystals, the preparation of fully deuterated proteins, the use of cryogenic techniques, and a data base of hydrogen and hydration in proteins, will be described.     

内蒙古白绒山羊不同放牧期瘤胃甲烷菌mcrA基因的RFLP分析

分析不同放牧期内蒙古绒山羊瘤胃中甲烷细菌的种群组成.选取甲烷菌mcrA基因的特异性引物序列,对瘤胃液中提取的细菌总DNA进行PCR扩增,建立甲烷细菌特异性的mcrA基因文库.用限制性内切酶TapⅠ对该文库特异性片段进行限制性内切片段长度多态性分析(RFLP).结果表明牧草生长幼嫩期、旺盛期和枯草期随机挑选的特异性克隆片段分别为115、105和112,分成6个RFLP类型,每期的不同类型占了所有分析克隆子的比例分别为36%、28%、20%、3.5%、3.5%和9%;38%、27%、18%、7%、5.5%和4.5%;35%、24%、18%、6.5%、3%和13.5%.     

Immigration of lymphoid precursor cells into the thymic rudiment inXenopus

Summary The origin of thymic lymphocytes was investigated, using a new reliable method to mark cells inXenopus. It was easily observed that extraneous cells immigrated into the thymic rudiment 4 days after fertilization and differentiated into a cell population identified as thymic lymphocytes in a fully developed thymus. Clearly, lymphoid precursor cells are of extrinsic origin.This work was supported in part by a grant from the Ministry of Education, Science and culture of Japan (No. 59770026).     

Nonspecific esterase activity in monkey thymus lymphocytes; study of distribution in lymphocyte subpopulation

Summary A subpopulation of monkey thymus lymphocytes was investigated by direct nonspecific esterase staining of Erosette forming lymphocytes. Thymus lymphocytes had high nonspecific esterase activity and E-rosette formation, but the level of their in vitro lectin responses was very low. *** DIRECT SUPPORT *** A2025117 00012     

A novel potent vasoconstrictor peptide produced by vascular endothelial cells

An endothelium-derived 21-residue vasoconstrictor peptide, endothelin, has been isolated, and shown to be one of the most potent vasoconstrictors known. Cloning and sequencing of preproendothelin complementary DNA shows that mature endothelin is generated through an unusual proteolytic processing, and regional homologies to a group of neurotoxins suggest that endothelin is an endogenous modulator of voltage-dependent ion channels. Expression of the endothelin gene is regulated by several vasoactive agents, indicating the existence of a novel cardiovascular control system.     

Nearest neighbor search algorithm for GBD tree spatial data structure

This paper describes the nearest neighbor (NN) search algorithm on the GBD(generalized BD) tree. The GBD tree is a spatial data structure suitable for two-or three-dimensional data and has good performance characteristics with respect to the dynamic data environment. On GIS and CAD systems, the R-tree and its successors have been used. In addition, the NN search algorithm is also proposed in an attempt to obtain good performance from the R-tree. On the other hand, the GBD tree is superior to the R-tree with respect to exact match retrieval, because the GBD tree has auxiliary data that uniquely determines the position of the object in the structure. The proposed NN search algorithm depends on the property of the GBD tree described above. The NN search algorithm on the GBD tree was studied and the performance thereof was evaluated through experiments.