Digest: Anther cones increase pollen release in buzz-pollinated Solanum flowers.

Do anther arrangements in buzz-pollinated species have a functional significance? In this article, Vallejo-Marin et al. investigated this question by comparing pollen release rates in anther cones and free anther conformations in three species of the genus Solanum. The authors found that vibration transmission among anthers is greater for anther cones than among freely held conformations, resulting in higher rates of pollen release.

The miscommunicative cardiac cell: when good proteins go bad.

Troponin (Tn) is made up of three subunits, troponin T (TnT), troponin I (TnI), and troponin C (TnC). In cardiac muscle, TnI can exist as two isoforms, slow skeletal TnI (ssTnI) or cardiac TnI (cTnI), whereas TnT occurs as multiple isoforms. The predominant form of TnI in fetal cardiac muscle is ssTnI, which is derived from a different gene than cTnI.

Calpain 3 participates in sarcomere remodeling by acting upstream of the ubiquitin-proteasome pathway.

Mutations in the non-lysosomal cysteine protease calpain 3 cause limb-girdle muscular dystrophy type 2A (LGMD2A). Our previous studies of the calpain 3 knockout mouse (C3KO) suggested a role for calpain 3 in sarcomere formation and remodeling. Calpain 3 may mediate remodeling by cleavage and release of myofibrillar proteins, targeting them for ubiquitination and proteasomal degradation.

Characterization of troponin T dilated cardiomyopathy mutations in the fetal troponin isoform.

The major goal of this study was to elucidate how troponin T (TnT) dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM) mutations in fetal TnT and fetal troponin affect the functional properties of the fetal heart that lead to infantile cardiomyopathy. The DCM mutations R141W and DeltaK210 were created in the TnT1 isoform, the primary isoform of cardiac TnT in the embryonic heart. In addition to a different TnT isoform, a different troponin I (TnI) isoform, slow skeletal TnI (ssTnI), is the dominant isoform in the embryonic heart.

Cardiac troponin T isoforms affect the Ca(2+) sensitivity of force development in the presence of slow skeletal troponin I: insights into the role of troponin T isoforms in the fetal heart.

In this study we investigated the physiological role of the cardiac troponin T (cTnT) isoforms in the presence of human slow skeletal troponin I (ssTnI). ssTnI is the main troponin I isoform in the fetal human heart. In reconstituted fibers containing the cTnT isoforms in the presence of ssTnI, cTnT1-containing fibers showed increased Ca(2+) sensitivity of force development compared with cTnT3- and cTnT4-containing fibers.

Different functional properties of troponin T mutants that cause dilated cardiomyopathy.

The effects of Troponin T (TnT) mutants R141W and DeltaK210, the only two currently known mutations in TnT that cause dilated cardiomyopathy(DCM) independent of familial hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (FHC), and TnT-K273E, a mutation that leads to a progression from FHC to DCM, were investigated. Studies on the Ca2+ sensitivity of force development in porcine cardiac fibers demonstrated that TnT-DeltaK210 caused a significant decrease in Ca2+ sensitivity, whereas the TnT-R141W did not result in any change in Ca2+ sensitivity when compared with human cardiac wild-type TnT (HCWTnT). TnT-DeltaK210 also caused a decrease in maximal force when compared with HCWTnT and TnT-R141W.