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[
J Biol Chem,
1998]
A novel L-3-hydroxyacyl-CoA dehydrogenase from human brain has been cloned, expressed, purified, and characterized. This enzyme is a homotetramer with a molecular mass of 108 kDa. Its subunit consists of 261 amino acid residues and has structural features characteristic of short chain dehydrogenases. It was found that the amino acid sequence of this human brain enzyme is identical to that of an endoplasmic reticulum amyloid beta-peptide-binding protein (ERAB), which mediates neurotoxicity in Alzheimer's disease (Yan, S. D., Fu, J., Soto, C., Chen, X., Zhu, H., Al-Mohanna, F., Collison, K., Zhu, A., Stern, E., Saido, T., Tohyama, M., Ogawa, S., Roher, A., and Stern, D. (1997) Nature 389, 689-695). The purification of human brain short chain L-3-hydroxyacyl-CoA dehydrogenase made it possible to characterize the structural and catalytic properties of ERAB. This NAD+-dependent dehydrogenase catalyzes the reversible oxidation of L-3-hydroxyacyl-CoAs to form 3-ketoacyl-CoAs, but it does not act on the D-isomers. The catalytic rate constant of the purified enzyme was estimated to be 37 s-1 with apparent Km values of 89 and 20 microM for acetoacetyl-CoA and NADH, respectively. The activity ratio of this enzyme for substrates with chain lengths of C4, C8, and C16 was approximately 1:2:2. The human short chain L-3-hydroxyacyl-CoA dehydrogenase gene is organized into six exons and five introns and maps to chromosome Xp11.2. The amino-terminal NAD-binding region of the dehydrogenase is encoded by the first three exons, whereas the other exons code for the carboxyl-terminal substrate-binding region harboring putative catalytic residues. The results of this study lead to the conclusion that ERAB involved in neuronal dysfunction is encoded by the human short chain L-3-hydroxyacyl-CoA dehydrogenase gene.
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[
Southeast Asian J Trop Med Public Health,
2006]
We are reporting a case of an eye lesion caused by an adult Brugia malayi. The patient was a 3-year-old Chinese boy from Kemaman District, Terengganu, Peninsular Malaysia. He presented with a one week history of redness and palpebral swelling of his right eye. He claimed that he could see a worm in his right eye beneath the conjunctiva. He had no history of traveling overseas and the family kept dogs at home. He was referred from Kemaman Hospital to the eye clinic of Hospital Tengku Ampuan Afzan, Kuantan, Pahang, Malaysia. On examination by the ophthalmologist, he was found to have a subconjunctival worm in his right eye. Full blood count revealed eosinophilia (10%). Four worm fragments, each about 1 cm long were removed from his right eye under general anesthesia. A thick blood smear stained with Giemsa was positive for microfilariae of Brugia malayi. A Brugia Rapid test done was positive. He was treated with diethylcarbamazine.
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[
Genetics,
2015]
Ellsworth Dougherty (1921-1965) was a man of impressive intellectual dimensions and interests; in a relatively short career he contributed enormously as researcher and scholar to the biological knowledge base for selection of Caenorhabditis elegans as a model organism in neurobiology, genetics, and molecular biology. He helped guide the choice of strains that were eventually used, and, in particular, he developed the methodology and understanding for the nutrition and axenic culture of nematodes and other organisms. Dougherty insisted upon a concise terminology for culture techniques and coined descriptive neologisms that were justified by their linguistic roots. Among other contributions, he refined the classification system for the Protista.
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[
Curr Biol,
2004]
Jonathan Hodgkin graduated from Oxford in 1971 and then did a PhD with Sydney Brenner at MRC LMB in Cambridge, studying behavioural genetics in the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans. Later, after a couple of years working with myxobacteria as a postdoc in Dale Kaiser''s lab at Stanford, he returned to LMB as a staff member, where he remained for most of the subsequent two decades. In the year 2000, he moved to Oxford as Professor of Genetics in the Department of Biochemistry, switching his major research interests from developmental genetics and sex determination to the study of host-pathogen interactions in the worm. For the past ten years, he has acted as curator of the C. elegans genetic map and gene nomenclature, and he is currently President of the Genetics Society of Great Britain.
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[
Nature,
1997]
Who scapes the lurking sepent's mortal sting? Not he that sets his foot upon her back. Even the smallest of worms will turn, when trodden on.
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[
Analyst,
2021]
Most of the ONOO- fluorescent probes have restricted applications because of their aggregation-caused quenching (ACQ) effect, long response time and low fluorescence enhancement. Herein, we developed a novel AIEgen fluorescent probe (PE-XY) based on a benzothiazole and quinolin scaffold with high sensitivity and selectivity for imaging of ONOO-. The results indicated that probe PE-XY exhibited fast response towards ONOO- with 2000-fold enhancement of fluorescence intensity ratio in vitro. Moreover, PE-XY exhibited a relatively high sensitivity (limit of detection: 8.58 nM), rapid response (<50 s), high fluorescence quantum yield (delta = 0.81) and excellent selectivity over other analytes towards ONOO-in vitro. Furthermore, PE-XY was successfully applied to detect endogenous ONOO- levels in living HeLa cells, C. elegans and inflammatory mice with low cytotoxicity. Overall, this work provided a novel fast-response and highly selective AIEgen fluorescent probe for real-time monitoring ONOO- fluctuations in living systems.
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[
Worm Breeder's Gazette,
1992]
EXPRESSION AND LOCALIZATION OF THE cha-l AND
unc-17 GENE PRODUCTS He-ping Han, Janet Duerr, and Jim Rand, Oklahoma Medlcal Research Foundation, Oklahoma Clty, OK 73104
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[
The New York Times,
1997]
His tall figure bent over a computer screen in his laboratory at the Massachusetts General Hospital, Dr. Gary Ruvkun rummages through a distant genetic data base for matches to a gene he believes is involved in diabetes. ?You learn how to read these as they are ratcheting by,? he says, while lines of data streak up his screen. ?I think MTV is good training.?
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[
Autophagy,
2024]
Professor Richard (Rick) Morimoto is the Bill and Gayle Cook Professor of Biology and Director of the Rice Institute for Biomedical Research at Northwestern University. He has made foundational contributions to our understanding of how cells respond to various stresses, and the role played in those responses by chaperones. Working across a variety of experimental models, from <i>C</i>. <i>elegans</i> to human neuronal cells, he has identified a number of important molecular components that sense and respond to stress, and he has dissected how stress alters cellular and organismal physiology. Together with colleagues, Professor Morimoto has coined the term "proteostasis" to signify the homeostatic control of protein expression and function, and in recent years he has been one of the leaders of a consortium trying to understand proteostasis in healthy and disease states. I took the opportunity to talk with Professor Morimoto about proteostasis in general, the aims of the consortium, and how autophagy is playing an important role in their research effort.
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[
Cell,
2002]
In 1963, Sydney Brenner, one of the founders of molecular biology, had reached an intellectual impasse. He felt that there were few advances left in that field that would have the significance of the discovery of mRNA and the elucidation of the genetic code, both of which he had participated in, and in any case with so many Americans joining in, the chemical details of replication and so forth would all be worked out soon. Brenner thought large thoughts, and the questions that were left seemed too