Stenopsyche marmorata larvae spin underwater adhesive silk for constructing nests and capture nets. The silk can be divided into fiber and adhesive regions, according to their function. The silk fiber region has a two-layer structure: a core layer situated at the center of the fiber and S. marmorata fibroin, the major component of the silk. In the anterior part of the anterior silk gland, the m...

Lipid-based biomarkers for research and diagnosis are rapidly emerging to unpack the basis of person-to-person and population variations in disease susceptibility, drug and nutritional responses, to name but a few. Hence, with the advent of MALDI Mass Spectrometry Imaging, lipids have begun to be investigated intensively. However, lipids are highly mobile during tissue preparation, and are solu...

Molecular chaperones are involved in the protection of cells against protein damage through their ability to hold, disaggregate, and refold damaged proteins or their ability to facilitate degradation of damaged proteins. Little is known about how these processes are spatially coordinated in cells. Using a heat-sensitive nuclear model protein luciferase fused to the traceable, heat-stable enhanc...

Occludin is an integral membrane protein localizing at tight junctions in epithelial and endothelial cells. Occludin from confluent culture MDCK I cells resolved as several (>10) bands between 62 and 82 kD in SDS-PAGE, of which two or three bands of the lowest Mr were predominant. Among these bands, the lower predominant bands were essentially extracted with 1% NP-40, whereas the other higher M...

The mammalian protein ASIP/PAR-3 interacts with atypical protein kinase C isotypes (aPKC) and shows overall sequence similarity to the invertebrate proteins C. elegans PAR-3 and Drosophila Bazooka, which are crucial for the establishment of polarity in various cells. The physical interaction between ASIP/PAR-3 and aPKC is also conserved in C. elegans PAR-3 and PKC-3 and in Drosophila Bazooka an...

PURPOSE Senile cataracts are associated with oxidation, fragmentation, cross-linking, insolubilization, and yellow pigmentation of lens crystallins. This process is partially explained by advanced glycation end products (AGEs) from ascorbic acid (ASA), as the authors unequivocally demonstrated in an hSVCT2 transgenic mouse. The authors present the first pharmacologic intervention study against ...