To elucidate the detailed organization of corticostriatal projections from rodent somatosensory cortex, the anterograde tracers biotinylated dextran amine (BDA) and fluoro-ruby (FR) were injected into separate parts of the whisker "barrel" representation. In one group of rats, the two tracers were injected into different barrel columns residing in the same row; in the other group of rats, the t...

The (bya)8 barrel is the most commonly occurring fold among protein catalysts. To lay a groundwork for engineering novel barrel proteins, we investigated the amino acid sequence restrictions at 182 structural positions of the prototypical (bya)8 barrel enzyme triosephosphate isomerase. Using combinatorial mutagenesis and functional selection, we find that turn sequences, a-helix capping and sto...

MOTIVATION The β-barrel is a ubiquitous fold that is deployed to accomplish a wide variety of biological functions including membrane-embedded pores. Key influences of β-barrel lumen diameter include the number of β-strands (n) and the degree of shear (S), the latter value measuring the extent to which the β-sheet is tilted within the β-barrel. Notably, it has previously been reported that the ...

Gene duplication and fusion events that multiply and link functional protein domains are crucial mechanisms of enzyme evolution. The analysis of amino acid sequences and three-dimensional structures suggested that the ( )8-barrel, which is the most frequent fold among enzymes, has evolved by the duplication, fusion, and mixing of ( )4-half-barrel domains. Here, we mimicked this evolutionary str...

In building manuals of the 18 and 19 century, we can often read either that vaults don't exert any outward thrust at all, or that their thrust can be easily absorbed by very simple means. Although the theories which are formulated to support these statements are not correct, they have been largely applied even after having been refuted. In case-studies of the works of three builders of vault co...

The identification of the enzymes involved in the metabolism of simple and complex carbohydrates presents one bioinformatic challenge in the post-genomic era. Here, we present the PFIT and PFRIT algorithms for identifying those proteins adopting the alpha/beta barrel fold that function as glycosidases. These algorithms are based on the observation that proteins adopting the alpha/beta barrel fo...

Outer membrane protein (OMP) biogenesis is an essential process for maintaining the bacterial cell envelope and involves the β-barrel assembly machinery (BAM) for OMP recognition, folding and assembly. In Escherichia coli this function is orchestrated by five proteins: the integral outer membrane protein BamA of the Omp85 superfamily and four associated lipoproteins. To unravel the mechanism un...

Jacobson, A. (1967) The Banlu Dentition. Unpublished Ph.D. thesis. University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, pp 126-127. Redman, R. S., Shapiro, B. L., and C orun , R. J. (1965) Measurement of normal and reportedly malformed palatal vaults III. Down’s Syndrome. J. Pediat. 67: 162-165. Redman, R. S., Shapiro, U. L., and Gorlin. • 'R. J. (1966) Measurement of normal and reportedly malformed ...

Vault particles are naturally occurring proteinaceous cages with promising application as molecular containers. The use of vaults as functional transporters requires a profound understanding of their structural stability to guarantee the protection and controlled payload delivery. Previous results performed with bulk techniques or at non-physiological conditions have suggested pH as a parameter...