Associations of melatonin receptor gene polymorphisms with Graves' disease.

Background: Melatonin plays an important role in immunity and has been linked to autoimmune diseases. Possible associations of single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) of melatonin receptor type 1A (MTNR1A) and 1B (MTNR1B), with autoimmune thyroid disease in an ethnic Chinese (i.e.

Quantifying membrane permeability of amphotericin B ion channels in single living cells.

Recently, the structure-function relationships between amphotericin B (AmB) and ergosterol have been solved using synthetic techniques that require a mycosamine-mediated direct binding interaction between AmB and ergosterol to form AmB ion channels. However, studies to directly probe the AmB-induced membrane permeability changes have not been conducted. In the present work, we investigate the following fundamental question: does AmB induce concentration- and time-dependent permeability changes across ergosterol-containing membranes? Herein, we employ fluorescent dyes of known average diameter to quantify the diameters of AmB ion channels.