Existence in the biofilm state lends bacteria the opportunity to enjoy, at least for a finite amount of time, the benefits of a multicellular entity. The order of events leading to biofilm formation and disassembly has been the topic of interest for numerous studies, aiming to identify factors and mechanisms that underlie this dynamic developmental process. Of particular import is research leve...

Bangladesh is home to large unskilled and semi-skilled population and lacks adequate domestic employment opportunity due to scarcity of foreign direct investment (FDI) which may foster its economic growth. And this country has also been experiencing significant increase in international trade in recent years compared with the scenario of last decade. In this backdrop, the author aims at empiric...

Mitochondria import a large number of nuclear-encoded proteins via membrane-bound transport machineries; however, little is known about regulation of the preprotein translocases. We report that the main protein entry gate of mitochondria, the translocase of the outer membrane (TOM complex), is phosphorylated by cytosolic kinases-in particular, casein kinase 2 (CK2) and protein kinase A (PKA). C...

We have transcribed mRNA from a cDNA clone coding for pea ribulose-1,5-bisphosphate carboxylase, translated the mRNA in a wheat germ cell-free system, and studied the energy requirement for posttranslational import of the [35S]methionine-labeled protein into the stroma of pea chloroplasts. We found that import depends on ATP hydrolysis within the stroma. Import is not inhibited when H+, K+, Na+...

Chloroplasts must import a large number of proteins from the cytosol. It generally is assumed that this import proceeds for all stromal and thylakoid proteins in an identical manner and is caused by the operation of two distinctive protein import machineries in the outer and inner plastid envelope, which form the general import site. Here we show that there is a second site of protein transloca...

To identify new components that mediate mitochondrial protein import, we analyzed mas6, an import mutant in the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae. mas6 mutants are temperature sensitive for viability, and accumulate mitochondrial precursor proteins at the restrictive temperature. We show that mas6 does not correspond to any of the presently identified import mutants, and we find that mitochondria ...

SRY and other Sox-type transcription factors are important developmental regulators with various implications in human disease. In this study, we identified Exp4 (exportin 4) as an interaction partner of Sox2 in mouse embryonic stem cells and neural progenitors. We show that, besides its established function in nuclear export, Exp4 acts as a bona fide nuclear import receptor for Sox2 and SRY. T...

We isolated two yeast mutants that are temperature-sensitive for import of mitochondrial proteins. Each strain contains a single mutation that results in arrest of growth and accumulation of precursor to the beta subunit of the mitochondrial F1-ATPase after incubation at 37 degrees C. These lesions (mas1 and mas2) are nonallelic and recessive. Cells harboring either mutation stop growing only a...