ALBERT

Description: The majority (〉99%) of microorganisms from the environment resist cultivation in the laboratory. Ribosomal RNA analysis suggests that uncultivated organisms are found in nearly every prokaryotic group, and several divisions have no known cultivable representatives. We designed a diffusion chamber that allowed the growth of previously uncultivated microorganisms in a simulated natural environment. Colonies of representative marine organisms were isolated in pure culture. These isolates did not grow on artificial media alone but formed colonies in the presence of other microorganisms. This observation may help explain the nature of microbial uncultivability.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉Kaeberlein, T -- Lewis, K -- Epstein, S S -- New York, N.Y. -- Science. 2002 May 10;296(5570):1127-9.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Author address: 〈/span〉Biology Department, Northeastern University, Boston, MA 02115, USA.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12004133" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉

Description: The organization of myosin into motile cellular structures requires precise temporal and spatial regulation. Proteins containing a UCS (UNC-45/CRO1/She4p) domain are necessary for the incorporation of myosin into the contractile ring during cytokinesis and into thick filaments during muscle development. We report that the carboxyl-terminal regions of UNC-45 bound and exerted chaperone activity on the myosin head. The amino-terminal tetratricopeptide repeat domain of UNC-45 bound the molecular chaperone Hsp90. Thus, UNC-45 functions both as a molecular chaperone and as an Hsp90 co-chaperone for myosin, which can explain previous findings of altered assembly and decreased accumulation of myosin in UNC-45 mutants of Caenorhabditis elegans.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉Barral, Jose M -- Hutagalung, Alex H -- Brinker, Achim -- Hartl, F Ulrich -- Epstein, Henry F -- New York, N.Y. -- Science. 2002 Jan 25;295(5555):669-71.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Author address: 〈/span〉Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX 77030, USA.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11809970" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉

Description: The reference human genome sequence set the stage for studies of genetic variation and its association with human disease, but epigenomic studies lack a similar reference. To address this need, the NIH Roadmap Epigenomics Consortium generated the largest collection so far of human epigenomes for primary cells and tissues. Here we describe the integrative analysis of 111 reference human epigenomes generated as part of the programme, profiled for histone modification patterns, DNA accessibility, DNA methylation and RNA expression. We establish global maps of regulatory elements, define regulatory modules of coordinated activity, and their likely activators and repressors. We show that disease- and trait-associated genetic variants are enriched in tissue-specific epigenomic marks, revealing biologically relevant cell types for diverse human traits, and providing a resource for interpreting the molecular basis of human disease. Our results demonstrate the central role of epigenomic information for understanding gene regulation, cellular differentiation and human disease.〈br /〉〈br /〉〈a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4530010/" target="_blank"〉〈img src="https://static.pubmed.gov/portal/portal3rc.fcgi/4089621/img/3977009" border="0"〉〈/a〉   〈a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4530010/" target="_blank"〉This paper as free author manuscript - peer-reviewed and accepted for publication〈/a〉〈br /〉〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉Roadmap Epigenomics Consortium -- Kundaje, Anshul -- Meuleman, Wouter -- Ernst, Jason -- Bilenky, Misha -- Yen, Angela -- Heravi-Moussavi, Alireza -- Kheradpour, Pouya -- Zhang, Zhizhuo -- Wang, Jianrong -- Ziller, Michael J -- Amin, Viren -- Whitaker, John W -- Schultz, Matthew D -- Ward, Lucas D -- Sarkar, Abhishek -- Quon, Gerald -- Sandstrom, Richard S -- Eaton, Matthew L -- Wu, Yi-Chieh -- Pfenning, Andreas R -- Wang, Xinchen -- Claussnitzer, Melina -- Liu, Yaping -- Coarfa, Cristian -- Harris, R Alan -- Shoresh, Noam -- Epstein, Charles B -- Gjoneska, Elizabeta -- Leung, Danny -- Xie, Wei -- Hawkins, R David -- Lister, Ryan -- Hong, Chibo -- Gascard, Philippe -- Mungall, Andrew J -- Moore, Richard -- Chuah, Eric -- Tam, Angela -- Canfield, Theresa K -- Hansen, R Scott -- Kaul, Rajinder -- Sabo, Peter J -- Bansal, Mukul S -- Carles, Annaick -- Dixon, Jesse R -- Farh, Kai-How -- Feizi, Soheil -- Karlic, Rosa -- Kim, Ah-Ram -- Kulkarni, Ashwinikumar -- Li, Daofeng -- Lowdon, Rebecca -- Elliott, GiNell -- Mercer, Tim R -- Neph, Shane J -- Onuchic, Vitor -- Polak, Paz -- Rajagopal, Nisha -- Ray, Pradipta -- Sallari, Richard C -- Siebenthall, Kyle T -- Sinnott-Armstrong, Nicholas A -- Stevens, Michael -- Thurman, Robert E -- Wu, Jie -- Zhang, Bo -- Zhou, Xin -- Beaudet, Arthur E -- Boyer, Laurie A -- De Jager, Philip L -- Farnham, Peggy J -- Fisher, Susan J -- Haussler, David -- Jones, Steven J M -- Li, Wei -- Marra, Marco A -- McManus, Michael T -- Sunyaev, Shamil -- Thomson, James A -- Tlsty, Thea D -- Tsai, Li-Huei -- Wang, Wei -- Waterland, Robert A -- Zhang, Michael Q -- Chadwick, Lisa H -- Bernstein, Bradley E -- Costello, Joseph F -- Ecker, Joseph R -- Hirst, Martin -- Meissner, Alexander -- Milosavljevic, Aleksandar -- Ren, Bing -- Stamatoyannopoulos, John A -- Wang, Ting -- Kellis, Manolis -- 5R24HD000836/HD/NICHD NIH HHS/ -- ES017166/ES/NIEHS NIH HHS/ -- F32 HL110473/HL/NHLBI NIH HHS/ -- F32HL110473/HL/NHLBI NIH HHS/ -- K99 HL119617/HL/NHLBI NIH HHS/ -- K99HL119617/HL/NHLBI NIH HHS/ -- P01 DA008227/DA/NIDA NIH HHS/ -- P30AG10161/AG/NIA NIH HHS/ -- P50 MH096890/MH/NIMH NIH HHS/ -- R01 AG015819/AG/NIA NIH HHS/ -- R01 AG017917/AG/NIA NIH HHS/ -- R01 ES024984/ES/NIEHS NIH HHS/ -- R01 ES024992/ES/NIEHS NIH HHS/ -- R01 HG004037/HG/NHGRI NIH HHS/ -- R01 HG007175/HG/NHGRI NIH HHS/ -- R01 HG007354/HG/NHGRI NIH HHS/ -- R01AG15819/AG/NIA NIH HHS/ -- R01AG17917/AG/NIA NIH HHS/ -- R01HG004037/HG/NHGRI NIH HHS/ -- R01HG004037-S1/HG/NHGRI NIH HHS/ -- R01NS078839/NS/NINDS NIH HHS/ -- RC1HG005334/HG/NHGRI NIH HHS/ -- RF1 AG015819/AG/NIA NIH HHS/ -- T32 ES007032/ES/NIEHS NIH HHS/ -- T32 GM007198/GM/NIGMS NIH HHS/ -- T32 GM007266/GM/NIGMS NIH HHS/ -- T32 GM081739/GM/NIGMS NIH HHS/ -- U01 ES017154/ES/NIEHS NIH HHS/ -- U01AG46152/AG/NIA NIH HHS/ -- U01DA025956/DA/NIDA NIH HHS/ -- U01ES017154/ES/NIEHS NIH HHS/ -- U01ES017155/ES/NIEHS NIH HHS/ -- U01ES017156/ES/NIEHS NIH HHS/ -- U01ES017166/ES/NIEHS NIH HHS/ -- Howard Hughes Medical Institute/ -- England -- Nature. 2015 Feb 19;518(7539):317-30. doi: 10.1038/nature14248.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Author address: 〈/span〉1] Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 32 Vassar St, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, USA. [2] The Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT, 415 Main Street, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02142, USA. [3] Department of Genetics, Department of Computer Science, 300 Pasteur Dr., Lane Building, L301, Stanford, California 94305-5120, USA. ; 1] Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 32 Vassar St, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, USA. [2] The Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT, 415 Main Street, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02142, USA. ; 1] Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 32 Vassar St, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, USA. [2] The Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT, 415 Main Street, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02142, USA. [3] Department of Biological Chemistry, University of California, Los Angeles, 615 Charles E Young Dr South, Los Angeles, California 90095, USA. ; Canada's Michael Smith Genome Sciences Centre, BC Cancer Agency, 675 West 10th Avenue, Vancouver, British Columbia V5Z 1L3, Canada. ; 1] The Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT, 415 Main Street, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02142, USA. [2] Department of Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology, 7 Divinity Ave, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138, USA. ; Epigenome Center, Baylor College of Medicine, One Baylor Plaza, Houston, Texas 77030, USA. ; Department of Cellular and Molecular Medicine, Institute of Genomic Medicine, Moores Cancer Center, Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of California San Diego, 9500 Gilman Drive, La Jolla, California 92093, USA. ; Genomic Analysis Laboratory, Howard Hughes Medical Institute &The Salk Institute for Biological Studies, 10010 N. Torrey Pines Road, La Jolla, California 92037, USA. ; Department of Genome Sciences, University of Washington, 3720 15th Ave. NE, Seattle, Washington 98195, USA. ; 1] Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 32 Vassar St, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, USA. [2] The Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT, 415 Main Street, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02142, USA. [3] Biology Department, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 31 Ames St, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02142, USA. ; The Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT, 415 Main Street, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02142, USA. ; 1] The Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT, 415 Main Street, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02142, USA. [2] The Picower Institute for Learning and Memory, Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 43 Vassar St, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, USA. ; 1] Department of Cellular and Molecular Medicine, Institute of Genomic Medicine, Moores Cancer Center, Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of California San Diego, 9500 Gilman Drive, La Jolla, California 92093, USA. [2] Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research, 9500 Gilman Drive, La Jolla, California 92093, USA. ; Department of Neurosurgery, Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center, University of California San Francisco, 1450 3rd Street, San Francisco, California 94158, USA. ; Department of Pathology, University of California San Francisco, 513 Parnassus Avenue, San Francisco, California 94143-0511, USA. ; Department of Medicine, Division of Medical Genetics, University of Washington, 2211 Elliot Avenue, Seattle, Washington 98121, USA. ; 1] Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 32 Vassar St, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, USA. [2] The Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT, 415 Main Street, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02142, USA. [3] Department of Computer Science &Engineering, University of Connecticut, 371 Fairfield Way, Storrs, Connecticut 06269, USA. ; Department of Microbiology and Immunology and Centre for High-Throughput Biology, University of British Columbia, 2125 East Mall, Vancouver, British Columbia V6T 1Z4, Canada. ; Bioinformatics Group, Department of Molecular Biology, Division of Biology, Faculty of Science, University of Zagreb, Horvatovac 102a, 10000 Zagreb, Croatia. ; Department of Molecular and Cell Biology, Center for Systems Biology, The University of Texas, Dallas, NSERL, RL10, 800 W Campbell Road, Richardson, Texas 75080, USA. ; Department of Genetics, Center for Genome Sciences and Systems Biology, Washington University in St Louis, 4444 Forest Park Ave, St Louis, Missouri 63108, USA. ; Institute for Molecular Bioscience, University of Queensland, St Lucia, Queensland 4072, Australia. ; 1] The Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT, 415 Main Street, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02142, USA. [2] Brigham &Women's Hospital, 75 Francis Street, Boston, Massachusetts 02115, USA. ; 1] Department of Genetics, Center for Genome Sciences and Systems Biology, Washington University in St Louis, 4444 Forest Park Ave, St Louis, Missouri 63108, USA. [2] Department of Computer Science and Engineeering, Washington University in St. Louis, St. Louis, Missouri 63130, USA. ; 1] Department of Applied Mathematics and Statistics, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, New York 11794-3600, USA. [2] Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, Cold Spring Harbor, New York 11724, USA. ; Molecular and Human Genetics Department, Baylor College of Medicine, One Baylor Plaza, Houston, Texas 77030, USA. ; Biology Department, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 31 Ames St, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02142, USA. ; 1] The Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT, 415 Main Street, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02142, USA. [2] Brigham &Women's Hospital, 75 Francis Street, Boston, Massachusetts 02115, USA. [3] Harvard Medical School, 25 Shattuck St, Boston, Massachusetts 02115, USA. ; Department of Biochemistry, Keck School of Medicine, University of Southern California, 1450 Biggy Street, Los Angeles, California 90089-9601, USA. ; ObGyn, Reproductive Sciences, University of California San Francisco, 35 Medical Center Way, San Francisco, California 94143, USA. ; Center for Biomolecular Sciences and Engineering, University of Santa Cruz, 1156 High Street, Santa Cruz, California 95064, USA. ; 1] Canada's Michael Smith Genome Sciences Centre, BC Cancer Agency, 675 West 10th Avenue, Vancouver, British Columbia V5Z 1L3, Canada. [2] Department of Molecular Biology and Biochemistry, Simon Fraser University, 8888 University Drive, Burnaby, British Columbia V5A 1S6, Canada. [3] Department of Medical Genetics, University of British Columbia, 2329 West Mall, Vancouver, BC, Canada, V6T 1Z4. ; Dan L. Duncan Cancer Center, Baylor College of Medicine, One Baylor Plaza, Houston, Texas 77030, USA. ; 1] Canada's Michael Smith Genome Sciences Centre, BC Cancer Agency, 675 West 10th Avenue, Vancouver, British Columbia V5Z 1L3, Canada. [2] Department of Medical Genetics, University of British Columbia, 2329 West Mall, Vancouver, BC, Canada, V6T 1Z4. ; Department of Microbiology and Immunology, Diabetes Center, University of California, San Francisco, 513 Parnassus Ave, San Francisco, California 94143-0534, USA. ; 1] University of Wisconsin, Madison, Wisconsin 53715, USA. [2] Morgridge Institute for Research, 330 N. Orchard Street, Madison, Wisconsin 53707, USA. ; USDA/ARS Children's Nutrition Research Center, Baylor College of Medicine, 1100 Bates Street, Houston, Texas 77030, USA. ; 1] Department of Molecular and Cell Biology, Center for Systems Biology, The University of Texas, Dallas, NSERL, RL10, 800 W Campbell Road, Richardson, Texas 75080, USA. [2] Bioinformatics Division, Center for Synthetic and Systems Biology, TNLIST, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China. ; National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, 111 T.W. Alexander Drive, Research Triangle Park, North Carolina 27709, USA. ; 1] The Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT, 415 Main Street, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02142, USA. [2] Massachusetts General Hospital, 55 Fruit St, Boston, Massachusetts 02114, USA. [3] Howard Hughes Medical Institute, 4000 Jones Bridge Road, Chevy Chase, Maryland 20815-6789, USA. ; 1] Canada's Michael Smith Genome Sciences Centre, BC Cancer Agency, 675 West 10th Avenue, Vancouver, British Columbia V5Z 1L3, Canada. [2] Department of Microbiology and Immunology and Centre for High-Throughput Biology, University of British Columbia, 2125 East Mall, Vancouver, British Columbia V6T 1Z4, Canada.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25693563" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉

Description: Cardiac progenitor cells are multipotent and give rise to cardiac endothelium, smooth muscle, and cardiomyocytes. Here, we define and characterize the cardiomyoblast intermediate that is committed to the cardiomyocyte fate, and we characterize the niche signals that regulate commitment. Cardiomyoblasts express Hopx, which functions to coordinate local Bmp signals to inhibit the Wnt pathway, thus promoting cardiomyogenesis. Hopx integrates Bmp and Wnt signaling by physically interacting with activated Smads and repressing Wnt genes. The identification of the committed cardiomyoblast that retains proliferative potential will inform cardiac regenerative therapeutics. In addition, Bmp signals characterize adult stem cell niches in other tissues where Hopx-mediated inhibition of Wnt is likely to contribute to stem cell quiescence and to explain the role of Hopx as a tumor suppressor.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉Jain, Rajan -- Li, Deqiang -- Gupta, Mudit -- Manderfield, Lauren J -- Ifkovits, Jamie L -- Wang, Qiaohong -- Liu, Feiyan -- Liu, Ying -- Poleshko, Andrey -- Padmanabhan, Arun -- Raum, Jeffrey C -- Li, Li -- Morrisey, Edward E -- Lu, Min Min -- Won, Kyoung-Jae -- Epstein, Jonathan A -- 5-T32-GM-007170/GM/NIGMS NIH HHS/ -- K08 HL119553/HL/NHLBI NIH HHS/ -- K08 HL119553-02/HL/NHLBI NIH HHS/ -- R01 HL071546/HL/NHLBI NIH HHS/ -- U01 HL100405/HL/NHLBI NIH HHS/ -- New York, N.Y. -- Science. 2015 Jun 26;348(6242):aaa6071. doi: 10.1126/science.aaa6071.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Author address: 〈/span〉Department of Cell and Developmental Biology, Penn Cardiovascular Institute, Institute of Regenerative Medicine, Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA. ; Department of Genetics, Institute for Diabetes, Obesity, and Metabolism, Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA. ; Department of Cell and Developmental Biology, Penn Cardiovascular Institute, Institute of Regenerative Medicine, Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA. epsteinj@upenn.edu.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26113728" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉

Description: Plasma cholesterol sulfate concentration is increased in patients with recessive X-linked ichthyosis, a disease in which steroid sulfatase activity is absent. In these patients, cholesterol sulfate is found primarily in the low-density lipoprotein fraction of plasma, and the electrophoretic mobility of these lipoproteins is greatly increased.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉Epstein, E H Jr -- Krauss, R M -- Shackleton, C H -- AM 28069/AM/NIADDK NIH HHS/ -- HL 18574/HL/NHLBI NIH HHS/ -- RR 00719/RR/NCRR NIH HHS/ -- New York, N.Y. -- Science. 1981 Nov 6;214(4521):659-60.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/6945674" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉

Description: 〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉Breslow, J L -- Epstein, J -- New York, N.Y. -- Science. 1980 Feb 29;207(4434):1007-8.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7352296" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉

Description: Antibiotic resistance is spreading faster than the introduction of new compounds into clinical practice, causing a public health crisis. Most antibiotics were produced by screening soil microorganisms, but this limited resource of cultivable bacteria was overmined by the 1960s. Synthetic approaches to produce antibiotics have been unable to replace this platform. Uncultured bacteria make up approximately 99% of all species in external environments, and are an untapped source of new antibiotics. We developed several methods to grow uncultured organisms by cultivation in situ or by using specific growth factors. Here we report a new antibiotic that we term teixobactin, discovered in a screen of uncultured bacteria. Teixobactin inhibits cell wall synthesis by binding to a highly conserved motif of lipid II (precursor of peptidoglycan) and lipid III (precursor of cell wall teichoic acid). We did not obtain any mutants of Staphylococcus aureus or Mycobacterium tuberculosis resistant to teixobactin. The properties of this compound suggest a path towards developing antibiotics that are likely to avoid development of resistance.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉Ling, Losee L -- Schneider, Tanja -- Peoples, Aaron J -- Spoering, Amy L -- Engels, Ina -- Conlon, Brian P -- Mueller, Anna -- Schaberle, Till F -- Hughes, Dallas E -- Epstein, Slava -- Jones, Michael -- Lazarides, Linos -- Steadman, Victoria A -- Cohen, Douglas R -- Felix, Cintia R -- Fetterman, K Ashley -- Millett, William P -- Nitti, Anthony G -- Zullo, Ashley M -- Chen, Chao -- Lewis, Kim -- AI085612/AI/NIAID NIH HHS/ -- T-RO1AI085585/AI/NIAID NIH HHS/ -- England -- Nature. 2015 Jan 22;517(7535):455-9. doi: 10.1038/nature14098. Epub 2015 Jan 7.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Author address: 〈/span〉NovoBiotic Pharmaceuticals, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138, USA. ; 1] Institute of Medical Microbiology, Immunology and Parasitology-Pharmaceutical Microbiology Section, University of Bonn, Bonn 53115, Germany [2] German Centre for Infection Research (DZIF), Partner Site Bonn-Cologne, 53115 Bonn, Germany. ; Antimicrobial Discovery Center, Northeastern University, Department of Biology, Boston, Massachusetts 02115, USA. ; 1] German Centre for Infection Research (DZIF), Partner Site Bonn-Cologne, 53115 Bonn, Germany [2] Institute for Pharmaceutical Biology, University of Bonn, Bonn 53115, Germany. ; Department of Biology, Northeastern University, Boston, Massachusetts 02115, USA. ; Selcia, Ongar, Essex CM5 0GS, UK.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25561178" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉

Description: Optical fibers transmit high-intensity illumination for viewing internal organs and tissue. Remote viewing is obtained by relays of lenses or graded-index-of-refraction rods in rigid endoscopes and by precisely aligned fiber-optic bundles in flexible fiberscopes. Endoscopy is considered for routine examinations, such as in colonoscopy. Lasers are used as surgical tools through endoscopes for cutting and coagulation. They may also be used to provide illumination for the efficient transmission of light through thin optical fibers.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉Epstein, M -- New York, N.Y. -- Science. 1980 Oct 17;210(4467):280-5.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7423188" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉

Description: Myotonic dystrophy protein kinase (DMPK) is a serine-threonine protein kinase encoded by the myotonic dystrophy (DM) locus on human chromosome 19q13.3. It is a close relative of other kinases that interact with members of the Rho family of small GTPases. We show here that the actin cytoskeleton-linked GTPase Rac-1 binds to DMPK, and coexpression of Rac-1 and DMPK activates its transphosphorylation activity in a GTP-sensitive manner. DMPK can also bind Raf-1 kinase, the Ras-activated molecule of the MAP kinase pathway. Purified Raf-1 kinase phosphorylates and activates DMPK. The interaction of DMPK with these distinct signals suggests that it may play a role as a nexus for cross-talk between their respective pathways and may partially explain the remarkable pleiotropy of DM.

Description: DMPK, the product of the DM locus, is a member of the same family of serine-threonine protein kinases as the Rho-associated enzymes. In DM, membrane inclusions accumulate in lens fiber cells producing cataracts. Overexpression of DMPK in cultured lens epithelial cells led to apoptotic-like blebbing of the plasma membrane and reorganization of the actin cytoskeleton. Enzymatically active DMPK was necessary for both effects; inactive mutant DMPK protein did not produce either effect. Active RhoA but not constitutive GDP-state mutant protein produced similar effects as DMPK. The similar actions of DMPK and RhoA suggest that they may function in the same regulatory network. The observed effects of DMPK may be relevant to the removal of membrane organelles during normal lens differentiation and the retention of intracellular membranes in DM lenses. Copyright 2000 Wiley-Liss, Inc.