S-Adenosyl-L-methionine:phosphoethanolamine N-methyltransferase (PEAMT; EC 2.1.1.103) catalyzes the key step in choline (Cho) biosynthesis, the N-methylation of phosphoethanolamine. Cho is a vital precursor of the membrane phospholipid phosphatidylcholine, which accounts for 40 to 60% of lipids in nonplastid plant membranes. Certain plants use Cho to produce the osmoprotectant glycine betaine, ...

TLRs function as pattern recognition receptors in mammals and play an essential role in the recognition of microbial components. We found that the injection of glycoinositolphospholipids (GIPLs) from Trypanosoma cruzi into the peritoneal cavity of mice induced neutrophil recruitment in a TLR4-dependent manner: the injection of GIPL in the TLR4-deficient strain of mice (C57BL/10ScCr) caused no i...

The effect of receptor occupancy on insulin receptor endocytosis was examined in CHO cells expressing normal human insulin receptors (CHO/IR), autophosphorylation- and internalization-deficient receptors (CHO/IRA1018), and receptors which undergo autophosphorylation but lack a sequence required for internalization (CHO/IR delta 960). The rate of [125I]insulin internalization in CHO/IR cells at ...

The de novo and salvage dTTP pathways are essential for maintaining cellular dTTP pools to ensure the faithful replication of both mitochondrial and nuclear DNA. Disregulation of dTTP pools results in mitochondrial dysfunction and nuclear genome instability due to an increase in uracil misincorporation. In this study, we identified a de novo dTMP synthesis pathway in mammalian mitochondria. Mit...

Reduced host cell reactivation (HCR) of a reporter gene containing 8-oxoguanine (8-oxoG) lesions in Cockayne syndrome (CS) fibroblasts has previously been attributed to increased 8-oxoG-mediated inhibition of transcription resulting from a deficiency in repair. This interpretation has been challenged by a report suggesting reduced expression from an 8-oxoG containing reporter gene occurs in all...

To evaluate the biosynthetic basis for decreased glycoprotein (GP) Ib-IX expression resulting from GP IX mutations described in three siblings with Bernard-Soulier syndrome, we introduced each mutation into the cDNA for GP IX by site-directed mutagenesis (GP IX Asp21 --> Gly and GP IX Asn45 --> Ser) and examined the associations of the mutants with the two other subunits of the GP Ib-IX complex...

We found a novel heterozygous mutation in the fibrinogen Bβ chain (c.490G>A) of a 3-year-old girl with congenital hypofibrinogenemia. To clarify the complex genetic mechanism, we made a mini-gene including a FGB c.490G>A mutation region, transfected it into a Chinese Hamster Ovary (CHO) cell line, and analyzed reverse transcription (RT) products. The assembly process and secretion were examined...

background: phic31 integrase is a dna site-specific recombinase integrates dna into the chromosomes between the two sites of attb and attp. several pseudo attps have been identified in mammalian genomes with critical features for long-term expression of transgene. in this manuscript, we report a novel intrinsic pseudo attp site named chol1 in the chinese hamster genome implementing an inverse p...

Estrogen receptors (ER) have been localized to the cell plasma membrane (PM), where signal transduction mediates some estradiol (E2) actions. However, the precise structural features of ER that result in membrane localization have not been determined. We obtained a partial tryptic peptide/mass spectrometry analysis of membrane mouse ERalpha protein. Based on this, we substituted alanine for the...

Retroviral insertional mutagenesis provides an effective forward genetic method for identifying genes involved in essential cellular pathways. A Chinese hamster ovary cell line mutant resistant to several bacterial ADP-ribosylating was obtained by this approach. The toxins used catalyze ADP-ribosylation of eukaryotic elongation factor 2 (eEF-2), block protein synthesis, and cause cell death. St...