Amino acid sequences of nucleocapsid proteins are mostly conserved among different rhabdoviruses. The protein plays a common functional role in different RNA viruses by enwrapping the viral genomic RNA in an RNase-resistant form. Upon expression of the nucleocapsid protein alone in COS cells and in bacteria, it forms large insoluble aggregates. In this work, we have reported for the first time ...

Filopodia have been implicated in a number of diverse cellular processes including growth-cone path finding, wound healing, and metastasis. The Ena/VASP family of proteins has emerged as key to filopodia formation but the exact mechanism for how they function has yet to be fully elucidated. Using cell spreading as a model system in combination with small interfering RNA depletion of Capping Pro...

Posttranslational modification of target substrates underlies biological processes through activation/inactivation of signaling cascades. To concurrently identify the phosphoprotein substrates associated with cardiac -adrenergic signaling, the mouse myocyte phosphoproteome was analyzed using 2-D gel electrophoresis in combination with P autoradiography. Phosphoprotein spots, detected by silver ...

Posttranslational modification of target substrates underlies biological processes through activation/inactivation of signaling cascades. To concurrently identify the phosphoprotein substrates associated with cardiac beta-adrenergic signaling, the mouse myocyte phosphoproteome was analyzed using 2-D gel electrophoresis in combination with 32P autoradiography. Phosphoprotein spots, detected by s...

Understanding how a particular cell type expresses the lamellipodial or filopodial form of the actin machinery is essential to understanding a cell's functional interactions. To determine how a cell "chooses" among these alternative modes of "molecular hardware," we tested the role of key proteins that affect actin filament barbed ends. Depletion of capping protein (CP) by short hairpin RNA (sh...

The effects of histones on the enzymatic phosphorylation of nuclear phosphoproteins have been extensively studied in vitro. Histones cause a 5to Io-fold increase in the rate and extent of phosphorylation of nuclear phosphoprotein, with the lysinerich histones being the most effective at stimulation. Evidence suggests that the histones are not being phosphorylated themselves, but rather act to m...

Recently an epizootic, reported to be due to a morbillivirus infection, affected the lion population of the Tanzanian Serengeti National Park. A morbillivirus phosphoprotein (P) gene fragment was amplified by PCR from tissue samples of several affected lions. Sequencing of the amplificates and subsequent phylogenetic analyses revealed that a wild-type strain of canine distemper morbillivirus (C...

PTEN/MMAC1 is a tumor suppressor gene that is mutated in a variety of cancers. PTEN encodes a phosphatase that recognizes phosphoprotein substrates and the phospholipid, phosphatidylinositol-3,4,5-triphosphate. PTEN inhibited cell growth and/or colony formation in all of the epithelial lines tested with one exception. The decrease in cellular proliferation was associated with an induction of ap...

We had previously described six distinct alleles of the glycoprotein B (gB) gene of human herpesvirus 7 (HHV-7). The genetic changes corresponding to these alleles did not affect gB gene transcription or translation in in vitro assays. The study of distinct HHV-7-positive human samples showed preferential associations of some gB alleles with some alleles of two other genes, distantly located on...