In a previous report, we showed that cloned T cells incubated with soluble, cognate major histocompatibility complex (MHC) II-peptide complex internalized the peptide moiety of the complex. Here, we report antigen-specific deletion of cloned T cells by treatment with soluble, cognate MHC II-(peptide-toxin) complexes. Toxin (doxorubicin or mycophenolic acid) was attached to synthetic AcMBP(1-14)...

CD8(+) T cells recognize peptides of eight to nine amino acid residues long in the context of MHC class I molecules on the surface of antigen-presenting cells (APCs). This recognition event is highly sensitive, as evidenced by the fact that T cells can be activated by cognate peptide/MHC complex (pMHC) at extremely low densities (1-50 molecules). High sensitivity is particularly valuable for de...

The structure of the genetic code implies strict Watson-Crick base pairing in the first two codon positions, while the third position is known to be degenerate, thus allowing wobble base pairing. Recent crystal structures of near-cognate tRNAs accommodated into the ribosomal A-site, however, show canonical geometry even with first and second position mismatches. This immediately raises the ques...

The work offers a new approach to the formation of functions which are used in cryptography and cryptanalysis. It will use alternative forms of representation of Boolean functions, that is, those which are different from the classical form, which is formed in a Boolean basis AND-OR-NOT. An example of this is, in particular, the formation of cryptographic functions with the use of alternative fo...

During spoken language comprehension, auditory input activates a bilingual's two languages in parallel based on phonological representations that are shared across languages. However, it is unclear whether bilinguals access phonotactic constraints from the non-target language during target language processing. For example, in Spanish, words with s+ consonant onsets cannot exist, and phonotactic...

Due to its long half-life compared to messenger RNA, bacterial transfer RNA is known as stable RNA. Here, we show that tRNAs become highly unstable as part of Escherichia coli's response to amino acid starvation. Degradation of the majority of cellular tRNA occurs within twenty minutes of the onset of starvation for each of several amino acids. Both the non-cognate and cognate tRNA for the amin...

Studies on bilingual word reading and translation have examined the effects of lexical variables (e.g., concreteness, cognate status) by comparing groups of non-translators with varying levels of L2 proficiency. However, little attention has been paid to another relevant factor: translation expertise (TI). To explore this issue, we administered word reading and translation tasks to two groups o...

The characterization of conformational changes that drive induced-fit mechanisms and their quantitative importance to enzyme specificity are essential for a full understanding of enzyme function. Here, we report on M.HhaI, a sequence-specific DNA cytosine C(5) methyltransferase that reorganizes a flexible loop (residues 80-100) upon binding cognate DNA as part of an induced-fit mechanism. To di...

The fundamental processes by which proteins recognize and bind to nucleic acids are critical to understanding cellular function. To explore the factors involved in protein-DNA recognition, we used hydrostatic pressure to perturb the binding of the BamHI endonuclease to cognate DNA, both in experiment and in molecular dynamic simulations. A new technique of high-pressure gel mobility shift analy...

Selection of the correct start codon during initiation of translation on the ribosome is a key event in protein synthesis. In eukaryotic initiation, several factors have to function in concert to ensure that the initiator tRNA finds the cognate AUG start codon during mRNA scanning. The two initiation factors eIF1 and eIF1A are known to provide important functions for the initiation process and ...