The growth of the eucaryotic microorganism Dictyostelium discoideum in liquid culture was completely inhibited by the aspartic acid analog hadacidin (N-formylhydroxyamino-acetic acid). Growth arrest occurred both in chemically defined medium and in complex growth medium containing aspartic acid and AMP precursors such as adenine and adenosine. Although these compounds could not overcome the eff...

The cell wall compositions of 41 strains of oral filamentous bacteria belonging to the genera Fusobacterium, Leptotrichia and Bacterionema were examined by paper chromatography. Leptotrichia walls showed principally alanine, glutamic acid, DAP, glycine and aspartic acid. The genus Bacterionema had the same amino acids but aspartic acid appeared to be a minor component and was not detected in th...

The occurrence of free D-amino acids and aspartate racemases in several hyperthermophilic archaea was investigated. Aspartic acid in all the hyperthermophilic archaea was highly racemized. The ratio of D-aspartic acid to total aspartic acid was in the range of 43.0 to 49.1%. The crude extracts of the hyperthermophiles exhibited aspartate racemase activity at 70 degrees C, and aspartate racemase...

Studies of the biochemical mechanisms evoked by conventional treatments for neoplastic diseases point to apoptosis as a key process for elimination of unwanted cells. Although the pathways through which chemotherapeutics promote cell death remain largely unknown, caspase proteases play a central role in the induction of apoptosis in response to a variety of stimuli including tumor necrosis fact...

In urea synthesis, according to the Krebs-Henseleit ornithine cycle (l), the transfer of nitrogen to citrulline to form arginine (Step II) was thought to occur from NH$. It was not until Cohen and Hayano (2) succeeded in demonstrating rapid arginine synthesis in liver homogenates from glutamic acid and citrulline that the transfer from an amino acid rather than from NH, was recognized as a main...

The l-amino acid ligase RizA from B. subtilis selectively synthesizes dipeptides containing an N-terminal arginine. Many arginyl have salt-taste enhancing properties while Arg-Phe has been found to antihypertensive effect. A total of 21 variants were created by site-directed mutagenesis eight amino acids in the substrate binding pocket. recombinantly produced E. coli and purified affinity chrom...

Taste aversion studies have demonstrated that rats conditioned to avoid monosodium glutamate (MSG) with amiloride added to reduce the intensity of the sodium component of MSG taste, generalize this aversion to aspartic acid and to L-AP4, but not to ionotropic glutamate receptor agonists. That is, MSG, L-AP4 and aspartate have similar tastes to rats. However, conditioned taste aversion methods a...

Two cytoplasmic "petite" (rho-) clones of Saccharomyces cerevisiae have been selected for the retention of the aspartic acid tRNA gene. The two clones, designated DS200/A102 and DS200/A5, have tandemly repeated segments of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) with unit lengths of 1,000 and 6,400 base pairs, respectively. The DS200/A102 genome has a single tRNA gene with a 3'-CUG-5' anticodon capable of re...