Nonexponential Kinetics of Loop Formation in Proteins and Peptides: A Signature of Rugged Free Energy Landscapes?

The kinetics of loop formation, i.e., the occurrence of contact between two atoms of a polypeptide, remains the focus of continuing interest.

Disengaging from the ultrasocial economy: The challenge of directing evolutionary change.

We appreciate the depth and breadth of comments we received. They reflect the interdisciplinary challenge of our inquiry and reassured us of its broad interest. We believe that our target article and the criticisms, elaborations, and extensions of the commentators can be an important contribution to establishing human ultrasociality as a new field of social science inquiry.

The economic origins of ultrasociality.

Ultrasociality refers to the social organization of a few species, including humans and some social insects, having a complex division of labor, city-states, and an almost exclusive dependence on agriculture for subsistence. We argue that the driving forces in the evolution of these ultrasocial societies were economic. With the agricultural transition, species could directly produce their own food and this was such a competitive advantage that those species now dominate the planet.

The structure of the PanD/PanZ protein complex reveals negative feedback regulation of pantothenate biosynthesis by coenzyme A.

Coenzyme A (CoA) is an ubiquitous and essential cofactor, synthesized from the precursor pantothenate. Vitamin biosynthetic pathways are normally tightly regulated, including the pathway from pantothenate to CoA. However, no regulation of pantothenate biosynthesis has been identified.

Concurrent renal-cell carcinoma and cutaneous leiomyomas: A case of HLRCC.

A 51-year-old Caucasian female presenting with renal-cell cancer and cutaneous leiomyomas was later diagnosed with Hereditary Leiomyomatosis and Renal Cell Cancer (HLRCC) Syndrome. HLRCC is an autosomal dominant condition caused by a mutation in the fumarate hydratase gene, which encodes for an enzyme in the citric acid cycle. This syndrome has been reported in over 100 families throughout the world, the majority of whom are of Eastern European descent.

Effect of external pulling forces on the length distribution of peptides.

Background: The distribution of the length of a polypeptide, or that of the distance between any two of its atoms, is an important property as it can be analytically or numerically estimated for a number of polymer models. Importantly, it is directly measurable through a number of different experimental techniques. Length distributions can be straightforwardly assessed from molecular dynamics simulation; however, true convergence through full accurate coverage of the length range is difficult to achieve.

Improving the recognition of eating gestures using intergesture sequential dependencies.

This paper considers the problem of recognizing eating gestures by tracking wrist motion. Eating gestures are activities commonly undertaken during the consumption of a meal, such as sipping a drink of liquid or using utensils to cut food. Each of these gestures causes a pattern of wrist motion that can be tracked to automatically identify the activity.

TROSY NMR with a 52 kDa sugar transport protein and the binding of a small-molecule inhibitor.

Using the sugar transport protein, GalP, from Escherichia coli, which is a homologue of human GLUT transporters, we have overcome the challenges for achieving high-resolution [(15)N-(1)H]- and [(13)C-(1)H]-methyl-TROSY NMR spectra with a 52 kDa membrane protein that putatively has 12 transmembrane-spanning α-helices and used the spectra to detect inhibitor binding. The protein reconstituted in DDM detergent micelles retained structural and functional integrity for at least 48 h at a temperature of 25 °C as demonstrated by circular dichroism spectroscopy and fluorescence measurements of ligand binding, respectively. Selective labelling of tryptophan residues reproducibly gave 12 resolved signals for tryptophan (15)N backbone positions and also resolved signals for (15)N side-chain positions.

Obesity and smoking: are they modulators of cough intravesical peak pressure in stress urinary incontinence?

Purpose: SUI (Stress Urinary Incontinence) results from sudden increases in intravesical peak pressures exceeding urethral resistance leading to involuntary urine loss. Obesity and smoking are well established reversible risk factors for SUI and may alter intravesical peak pressures. BMI, smoking status, and other clinical factors were studied to determine their relationship to CIPP (maximal Intravesical Peak Pressures generated by Cough) in SUI complaining women.

Revealing low-dose radiation damage using single-crystal spectroscopy.

The structural information and functional insight obtained from X-ray crystallography can be enhanced by the use of complementary spectroscopies. Here the information that can be obtained from spectroscopic methods commonly used in conjunction with X-ray crystallography and best-practice single-crystal UV-Vis absorption data collection are briefly reviewed. Using data collected with the in situ system at the Swiss Light Source, the time and dose scales of low-dose X-ray-induced radiation damage and solvated electron generation in metalloproteins at 100 K are investigated.

MRI of the axillary arch muscle: prevalence, anatomic relations, and potential consequences.

Objective: The purpose of this study was to use MRI of the shoulder to analyze the axillary arch muscle and its anatomic relations to lymph nodes and the brachial plexus.

Materials And Methods: In this retrospective study at a single clinic, five observers blinded to the patient's condition assessed images from 1,109 consecutive initial shoulder MRI examinations for the presence and anatomic relations of the axillary arch. MRI interpretation reports were reviewed for documentation of previous injuries and upper extremity radicular pain or numbness for possible correlations between presence of the arch and symptoms of nerve entrapment.

What every conservation biologist should know about economic theory.

The last century has seen the ascendance of a core economic model, which we will refer to as Walrasian economics. This model is driven by the psychological assumptions that humans act only in a self-referential and narrowly rational way and that production can be described as a self-contained circular flow between firms and households. These assumptions have critical implications for the way economics is used to inform conservation biology.

Phenothiazines and breast cancer.

This study, based in a psychiatric hospital, reviews the incidence of breast cancer in 93 patients who had received phenothiazines prior to developing breast cancer compared with a control group of 28 patients who did not receive phenothiazines. The results indicate no significant difference in the incidence of breast cancer between those patients receiving phenothiazines and those that did not. The retrospective study covered a period of 21 years.

Blood mercury concentration in an urban population.

Mercury concentrations in whole blood of 210 patients admitted to two urban hospitals ranged from 0 to 298 ppb with a mean of 14.2 ppb. When corrected by omission of nine values over 50 ppb the mean was 8.

Hexachlorophene lesions in newborn infants.

Vacuolization of the white matter of the brain is produced by a number of disease entities and chemicals, including hexachlorophene. Brains of 135 stillborn infants and infants dying in the neonatal period were examined for vacuole formation in the white matter to determine if any hexachlorophene-like lesions could be found. A nonsignificant excess of vaculoes was found in infants bathed in hexachlorophene at birth compared with infants not bathed in it.