Can pre-season fitness measures predict time to injury in varsity athletes?: a retrospective case control study.

Background: The ability to determine athletic performance in varsity athletes using preseason measures has been established. The ability of pre-season performance measures and athlete's exposure to predict the incidence of injuries is unclear. Thus our purpose was to determine the ability of pre-season measures of athletic performance to predict time to injury in varsity athletes.

Facilitated transfer of IscU-[2Fe2S] clusters by chaperone-mediated ligand exchange.

The scaffold protein IscU and molecular chaperones HscA and HscB play central roles in biological assembly of iron-sulfur clusters and maturation of iron-sulfur proteins. However, the structure of IscU-FeS complexes and the molecular mechanism whereby the chaperones facilitate cluster transfer to acceptor proteins are not well understood. We have prepared amino acid substitution mutants of Escherichia coli IscU in which potential ligands to the FeS cluster (Cys-37, Cys-63, His-105, and Cys-106) were individually replaced with alanine.

Three hydrophobic amino acids in Escherichia coli HscB make the greatest contribution to the stability of the HscB-IscU complex.

Background: General iron-sulfur cluster biosynthesis proceeds through assembly of a transient cluster on IscU followed by its transfer to a recipient apo-protein. The efficiency of the second step is increased by the presence of HscA and HscB, but the reason behind this is poorly understood. To shed light on the function of HscB, we began a study on the nature of its interaction with IscU.

Mitogen-activated protein/extracellular signal-regulated kinase kinase 1act/tubulin interaction is an important determinant of mitotic stability in cultured HT1080 human fibrosarcoma cells.

Activation of the mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) pathway plays a major role in neoplastic cell transformation. Using a proteomics approach, we identified alpha tubulin and beta tubulin as proteins that interact with activated MAP/extracellular signal-regulated kinase kinase 1 (MEK1), a central MAPK regulatory kinase. Confocal analysis revealed spatiotemporal control of MEK1-tubulin colocalization that was most prominent in the mitotic spindle apparatus in variant HT1080 human fibrosarcoma cells.

Cartilage degradation biomarkers predict efficacy of a novel, highly selective matrix metalloproteinase 13 inhibitor in a dog model of osteoarthritis: confirmation by multivariate analysis that modulation of type II collagen and aggrecan degradation peptides parallels pathologic changes.

Objective: To demonstrate that the novel highly selective matrix metalloproteinase 13 (MMP-13) inhibitor PF152 reduces joint lesions in adult dogs with osteoarthritis (OA) and decreases biomarkers of cartilage degradation.

Methods: The potency and selectivity of PF152 were evaluated in vitro using 16 MMPs, TACE, and ADAMTS-4 and ADAMTS-5, as well as ex vivo in human cartilage explants. In vivo effects were evaluated at 3 concentrations in mature beagles with partial medial meniscectomy.