Lipid Rafts and Plant Gravisensitivity.

The necessity to include plants as a component of a Bioregenerative Life Support System leads to investigations to optimize plant growth facilities as well as a better understanding of the plant cell membrane and its numerous activities in the signaling, transport, and sensing of gravity, drought, and other stressors. The cell membrane participates in numerous processes, including endo- and exocytosis and cell division, and is involved in the response to external stimuli. Variable but stabilized microdomains form in membranes that include specific lipids and proteins that became known as (detergent-resistant) membrane microdomains, or lipid rafts with various subclassifications.

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Results of fluorescence microscopic research and quantitative luminescent analysis of pathogen induced callose accumulation in winter wheat seedlings of two cultivars different in resistance to eye spot causal agent are presented. Higher content of constitutive callose in intact seedlings of unsusceptible cultivar at the initial stages of vegetation was determined. It correlates with resistance of this cultivar to the eye spot causal agent.

[Phospholipid content of plasma membranes and phospholipase C activity in epithelial cells of the large intestine in colitis-associated carcinogenesis in rats].

The decrease of major cytoplasmic membrane phospholipids (phosphatidylcholine and phosphatidylethanolamine) content was established in mucosal epithelial cell under colon inflammation pathology--ulcerative colitis. It was shown that aforementioned changes were associated with the increase of phospholipids' hydrolyzing enzyme--phospholipase C activity and intracellular Ca2+ concentration enlargement. Carcinogenesis stimulation under inflammation was accompanied by phospholipase C activity increase when quantity of investigated phospholipids (phosphatidylcholine, phosphatidylinozytol, phosphatidylserine) separately decreased and cytoplasmic Ca2+ value normalization was established.

[Change in concentration of cytosolic Ca2+ caused by extracellular ATP and ecto-ATP-ase activity in thymocytes and transformed MT-4 cells].

The comparative study of extracellular ATP (ATP0) effect on free cytosolic calcium concentration ([Ca2+]i) in normal (isolated rat thymocytes) and transformed (leukosis MT-4 line) T-cells was carried out. Addition of 1 mM ATP to Ca-free incubation medium of both types of cells, loaded with indo-1, had no effect on [Ca2+]i level. Upon subsequent addition of 1 mM CaCl2 to the incubation medium the rapid and significant increase of [Ca2+]i in MT-4 cells was registered.

[Effects of cell-binding protein A of Staphylococcus aureus on the level of intracellular calcium ions and actomyosin ATP-ase activity in the smooth muscles].

Immune-active substance of Staphylococcus aureus, cell-bound protein A (CBPA), enhances the acetylcholine- or hyperpotassium (K+) Krebs solution-evoked excitation in Taenia coli smooth muscles. CBPA increases caffeine- and carbachole-evoked Ca2+ signals in smooth muscle cells suspension, loaded with indo-1, and also caffeine- and acetylcholine-evoked contraction in smooth muscles slices. Against a background of CBPA-suppressed action of sodium nitroprusside, ATP evokes the membrane depolarization.