Soluble factors are required to mediate nuclear export of protein and RNA through the nuclear pore complex (NPC). These soluble factors include receptors that bind directly to the transport substrate and regulators that determine the assembly state of receptor-substrate complexes. We recently reported the identification of NXT1, an NTF2-related export factor that stimulates nuclear protein expo...

We propose a mean-field theory of chemical and physical planar brushes of linear gradient copolymers swollen in a selective solvent. The polymer chains are grafted to the substrate by the ends with the excess of insoluble monomer units, and the majority of the soluble units are located near the free ends of the chains. The grafting points are considered to be immobile (chemical brush) and mobil...

We studied the dephosphorylation pathway for Ins(1,3,4)P3 (inositol 1,3,4-trisphosphate) by liver homogenates and soluble and particulate subfractions incubated in media resembling physiological ionic strength and pH. Ins(1,3,4)P3 was dephosphorylated to two InsP2 (inositol bisphosphate) isomers, one of which is Ins(3,4)P2 [Shears, Parry, Tang, Irvine, Michell & Kirk (1987) Biochem. J. 246, 139...

G protein-coupled receptor kinases (GRKs) initiate pathways leading to the desensitization of agonist-occupied G-protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs). Here we report that the cytoskeletal protein actin binds and inhibits GRK5. Actin inhibits the kinase activity directly, reducing GRK5-mediated phosphorylation of both membrane-bound GPCRs and soluble substrates. GRK5 binds actin monomers with a Kd ...

Phosphatidate phosphohydrolase (EC 3.1.3.4) activity can be found in late gestational human amniotic fluid and is thought to originate in type II alveolar cells of the fetal lungs where it plays an important role in lung surfactant synthesis. In the present study, phosphatidate phosphohydrolase activity was detected and characterized in a 105 000 X g pellet of amniotic fluid using either [32P]p...

Lipoteichoic acid (LTA) is an important cell wall component of Gram-positive bacteria. The key enzyme responsible for polyglycerolphosphate lipoteichoic acid synthesis in the Gram-positive pathogen Staphylococcus aureus is the membrane-embedded lipoteichoic acid synthase enzyme, LtaS. It is presumed that LtaS hydrolyzes the glycerolphosphate head group of the membrane lipid phosphatidylglycerol...

Thrombin generates fibrin and activates platelets and endothelium, causing thrombosis and inflammation. Endothelial thrombomodulin (TM) changes thrombin's substrate specificity toward cleavage of plasma protein C into activated protein C (APC), which opposes its thrombotic and inflammatory activities. Endogenous TM activity is suppressed in pathologic conditions, and antithrombotic intervention...

The transport of the lumenal protein plastocyanin has been proposed to occur in two steps: 1) transport across the chloroplastic envelope to the stroma and 2) transport across the thylakoid membrane to the lumen where proteolytic maturation occurs. A partially processed stromal form of plastocyanin has been tentatively identified as a pathway intermediate and as the substrate for the second tra...

The cell-free, nerve growth factor-sensitive incorporation of radioactive phosphate into a 100,000-dalton protein (Nsp100), observed in a previous study (End,D., Tolson, N., Hashimoto, S., and Guroff, G. (1983) J. Biol. Chem. 258, 6549-6555), has been characterized and the system fractionated. It is shown here that the decrease in incorporation due to treatment of the cells with nerve growth fa...

Protein kinases exhibit substrate specificities that are often primarily determined by the amino acids around the phosphorylation sites. Peptides corresponding to protein kinase C phosphorylation sites in several different proteins were synthesized on SPOTs membrane which has recently been found to be applicable for studies of protein kinase specificity. After phosphorylation with protein kinas...