In hippocampal pyramidal cells, dopamine acts at D1 receptors to reduce peak Na(+) currents by activation of phosphorylation by PKA anchored via an A kinase-anchoring protein (AKAP15). However, the mechanism by which AKAP15 anchors PKA to neuronal Na(+) channels is not known. By using a strategy of coimmunoprecipitation from transfected tsA-201 cells, we have found that AKAP15 directly interact...

Zipper-interacting protein kinase (ZIPK) is a widely expressed serine/threonine kinase implicated in cell death and smooth muscle contractility, but its mechanism of regulation is unknown. We have identified six phosphorylation sites in ZIPK that regulate both its enzyme activity and localization, including Thr180, Thr225, Thr265, Thr299, Thr306, and Ser311. Mutational analysis showed that phos...

The ocs-elements comprise a family of related 20-base pair DNA sequences with dyad symmetry that are functional components of the promoters of several genes introduced into the plant nucleus by Agrobacterium transformation or infection by DNA viruses. We describe the isolation and characterization of a maize cDNA that encodes a protein, OCSBF-1, that binds specifically to ocs-element sequences....

GCN4, the yeast homologue of the AP-l transcription factor family that includes the Jun and Fos oncoproteins, binds to the promoters of many amino acid biosynthetic genes and activates their transcription. The Cterminal 56 amino acids are sufficient for dimerization and specific binding to the dyad-symmeffic sequence ATGA(C/G)TCAT. GCN4 interacts with non-equivalent and possibly overlapping hal...

In the purple nonsulfur photosynthetic bacterium Rhodobacter sphaeroides the synthesis of components of the photosystem is regulated in response to oxygen tension and light intensity. We have purified and cloned a trans-acting protein (SPB) that binds to the promoter region of the puf operon, which encodes the apoproteins of light-harvesting complex I and the reaction center. The SPB was compos...

Many pathogenic Gram-negative bacteria possess tripartite transporters that catalyze drug extrusion across the inner and outer membranes, thereby conferring resistance. These transporters consist of inner (IMP) and outer (OMP) membrane proteins, which are coupled by a periplasmic membrane fusion (MFP) protein. However, it is not know whether the MFP translocates the drug between the membranes, ...

The ocs-elements comprise a family of related 20-base pair DNA sequences with dyad symmetry that are functional components of the promoters of severa1 genes introduced into the plant nucleus by Agrobacterium transformation or infection by DNA viruses. We describe the isolation and characterization of a maize cDNA that encodes a protein, OCSBF-1, that binds specifically to ocs-element sequences....

Although the c-Fos leucine zipper (LZ) does not form a homodimer in its native basic region/leucine zipper (bZIP) structure, we found that it is capable of homodimerization and promoting protein folding in engineered basic region/helix-loop-helix/leucine zipper (bHLHZ) hybrid proteins MaxbHLH-Fos and ArntbHLH-Fos, in which the bHLH subdomains of Max and Arnt are fused to the c-Fos LZ. By using ...