Defective clearance of apoptotic cells has emerged as an important contributing factor to the pathogenesis of many diseases. Although many efforts have been made to understand the machinery involved in the recognition between phagocytes and potential targets, little is known about the intracellular transport of phagosomes containing apoptotic cells within mammalian cells. We have, therefore, pe...

A cyclic nucleotide- and Ca2+-independent protein kinase has been identified and purified from pig liver to apparent homogeneity. This independent protein kinase is basically inactive but can be activated by a 4-min incubation with 0.25 mM ATP and 2 mM Mg2+. This ATP X Mg-mediated activation appears to involve an intramolecular autophosphorylation as it is independent of kinase concentration. P...

An electrochemical method based on square wave anodic stripping voltammetry (SWASV) was developed to detect the apoptosis of yeast cells conveniently and quantitatively through the high affinity between Cu(2+) and phosphatidylserine (PS) translocated from the inner to the outer plasma membrane of the apoptotic cells. The combination of negatively charged PS and Cu(2+) could decrease the electro...

TIM-4, a member of the TIM family expressed on antigen-presenting cells, binds to phosphatidylserine exposed on the surface of apoptotic bodies. However, the significance of this interaction in vivo remains unknown because other receptors have been implicated in the clearance of apoptotic bodies and could compensate for the TIM-4 deficiency in vivo. In this study, we describe the generation of ...

A series of methyl 7alpha,12alpha-bis(phenylurea) cholate derivatives with different cationic substituents at the 3alpha-position were prepared and evaluated for an ability to increase the level of endogenous phosphatidylserine (PS) on the surface of red blood cells (erythrocytes). Some of the compounds induced large fractions of erythrocytes to expose sufficient PS to become stained by the pro...

The hydrophobic photoaffinity label 3-(trifluoromethyl)-3-(m-[125I]iodophenyl)diazirine was used to label Sendai virus proteins during fusion with cardiolipin and phosphatidylserine liposomes. Preferential labeling of the viral fusion protein during the initial stages of fusion demonstrated that this protein interacts with the hydrophobic core of the target membrane as an initiating event of vi...

The interaction of 3-phosphoglycerate kinase from bovine heart with natural phosphatidylserine (I) and synthetic dipalmitoyl phosphatidylserine (II) in form of liposomes was investigated by measuring fluorescence and activity of the enzyme. The addition of increasing amounts of I resulted in progressive quenching of protein fluorescence with no shift in the emission maximum. In contrast, II did...

The membrane penicillinase (EC 3.5.2.6; penicillin amido-beta-lactamhydrolase) of Bacillus licheniforis 749/C, which appears to be an intermediate in the formation of the exoenzyme, is a phospholipoprotein that carries an NH2-terminal chain of 24 amino acids (only serine, glycine, aspartic acid, asparagine, glutamic acid, and glutamine) and a phosphatidylserine that is not present in the exoenz...

We present a theory of inhomogeneities in the plasma membrane, or rafts, that can exist in both leaves of the plasma membrane. We note that although neither of the major phospholipid components of the outer leaf, sphingomyelin (SM) nor phosphatidylcholine (PC), evinces a tendency to form phases characterized by nonzero curvature, one of the major components of the inner leaf, phosphatidylethano...

This work is a review on HPTLC contribution to lipid analysis in complex matrices, the period from 2010 now, lapse of time where hyphenation with other techniques, especially Mass Spectrometry, has experienced an important growth. Scanning densitometry (SD)-UV/FL separated lipids, as core detection and centerpiece for hyphenation, its coupling MS using soft ionization techniques (ESI, APCI, MAL...