Intermittent fasting dissociates beneficial effects of dietary restriction on glucose metabolism and neuronal resistance to injury from calorie intake.

Dietary restriction has been shown to have several health benefits including increased insulin sensitivity, stress resistance, reduced morbidity, and increased life span. The mechanism remains unknown, but the need for a long-term reduction in caloric intake to achieve these benefits has been assumed. We report that when C57BL6 mice are maintained on an intermittent fasting (alternate-day fasting) dietary-restriction regimen their overall food intake is not decreased and their body weight is maintained.

Centrin: its secondary structure in the presence and absence of cations.

Centrin is a low molecular mass (20 kDa) protein that belongs to the EF-hand superfamily of calcium-binding proteins. Local and overall changes were investigated for interactions between cations and Chlamydomonas centrin using Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR) and circular dichroic (CD) spectroscopies. FT-IR spectral features studied included the amide I' band and the side-chain absorbances for aspartate residues located almost exclusively at the calcium-binding sites in the spectral region of 1700-1500 cm(-1).