Effect of amyloid beta on capacitive calcium entry in neural 2a cells.

We studied the direct role of amyloid beta (Abeta) in regulating capacitive calcium entry (CCE), an important refilling mechanism for depleted intracellular calcium stores. For the first time, we found that Abeta can potentiate CCE. Neural 2a cells stably expressing Swedish mutant APP (APPswe), which can secrete large amounts of Abeta, have stronger CCE than its wild-type controls.

Demonstration of phycobilisome mobility by the time- and space-correlated fluorescence imaging of a cyanobacterial cell.

The cell-wide mobility of PBSs was confirmed by synchronously monitoring the fluorescence recovery after photobleaching (FRAP) and the fluorescence loss in photobleaching (FLIP). On the other hand, a fluorescence recovery was still observed even if PBSs were immobile (PBSs fixed on the membranes by betaine and isolated PBSs fixed on the agar plate) or PBS mobility was unobservable (cell wholly bleached). Furthermore, it was proved that some artificial factors were involved not only in FRAP but also in FLIP, including renaturation of the reversibly denatured proteins, laser scanning-induced fluorescence loss and photo-damage to the cell.