Pore-forming toxins (PFTs) are secreted proteins that contribute to the virulence of a great variety of bacterial pathogens. They inflict one of the more disastrous damages a target cell can be exposed to: disruption of plasma membrane integrity. Since this is an ancient form of attack, which bears similarities to mechanical membrane damage, cells have evolved response pathways to these perturb...

Virulence-linked pathways in opportunistic pathogens are putative therapeutic targets that may be associated with less potential for resistance than targets in growth-essential pathways. However, efficacy of virulence-linked targets may be affected by the contribution of virulence-related genes to metabolism. We evaluate the complex interrelationships between growth and virulence-linked pathway...

The surface of developing axons expands in a process mediated by the exocyst complex. The spatio-temporal regulation of the exocyst is only partially understood. Here we report that stimulated membrane enlargement in dorsal root ganglion (DRG) axons is triggered by intra-axonal synthesis of TC10, a small GTPase required for exocyst function. Induced membrane expansion and axon outgrowth are inh...

Xenopus oocytes are arrested in meiotic prophase I. Progesterone induces the resumption of meiotic maturation, which requires continuous protein synthesis to bring about Cdc2 activation. The identification of the newly synthesized proteins has long been a goal. Two plausible candidates have received extensive study. The synthesis of cyclin B and of c-Mos, a kinase that activates the mitogen-act...

The hyperthermophilic anaerobic archaeon Pyrococcus abyssi, which lacks thymidine kinase, incorporates label from extracellular uracil, but not from thymidine, into its DNA. This implies that P. abyssi must synthesize dTMP (thymidylate), an essential precursor for DNA synthesis, de novo. However, iterative similarity searches of the three completed Pyrococcus genomes fail to detect candidate ge...

The cells of growing and developing organisms are generally characterized by a higher rate of protein synthesis than is found in the cells of mature forms, and it has been shown repeatedly (1) that increases in rate of protein synthesis are associated with higher RNA content. It might then be expected that enaymes necessary for ribose synthesis would be in greater supply in rapidly proliferatin...

Bloom syndrome, characterized by a predisposition to cancer, is caused by mutation of the RecQ DNA helicase gene BLM. The precise function of BLM remains unclear. Previous research suggested that Drosophila BLM functions in the repair of DNA double-strand breaks. Most double-strand breaks in flies are repaired by homologous recombination through the synthesis-dependent strand-annealing pathway....

Changes in synaptic efficacy are believed to form the cellular basis for memory. Protein synthesis in dendrites is needed to consolidate long-term synaptic changes. Many signals converge to regulate dendritic protein synthesis, including synaptic and cellular activity, and growth factors. The coordination of these multiple inputs is especially intriguing because the synthetic and control pathwa...

Medicines play an indisputable role in life extension and improvement of the quality life. To obtain medicinal compounds, researchers traditionally rely on natural sources chemical synthesis, however, currently developing biotechnological methods allow one to introduce group genes encoding new metabolic pathways into genomes heterologous hosts regulate activity hosts' intrinsic pathways. Such a...

Pseudomonas aeruginosa are gram-negative bacteria that frequently infect the lungs of cystic fibrosis (CF) patients. This bacterium is highly responsive to changes in its environment, resulting in the expression of a diverse array of genes that may contribute to the host inflammatory response. P. aeruginosa is well-known to induce neutrophilic inflammation via the activation of Toll-Like Recept...