Cellulose-binding polypeptides from Cellulomonas fimi: endoglucanase D (CenD), a family A beta-1,4-glucanase

Five cellulose-binding polypeptides were detected in Cellulomonas fimi culture supernatants. Two of them are CenA and CenB, endo-beta-1,4-glucanases which have been characterized previously; the other three were previously uncharacterized polypeptides with apparent molecular masses of 120, 95, and 75 kDa. The 75-kDa cellulose-binding protein was designated endoglucanase D (CenD). The cenD gene was cloned and sequenced. It encodes a polypeptide of 747 amino acids. Mature CenD is 708 amino acids long and has a predicted molecular mass of 74,982 Da. Analysis of the predicted amino acid sequence of CenD shows that the enzyme comprises four domains which are separated by short linker polypeptides: an N-terminal catalytic domain of 405 amino acids, two repeated sequences of 95 amino acids each, and a C-terminal domain of 105 amino acids which is > 50% identical to the sequences of cellulose-binding domains in Cex, CenA, and CenB from C. fimi. Amino acid sequence comparison placed the catalytic domain of CenD in family A, subtype 1, of beta-1,4-glycanases. The repeated sequences are more than 40% identical to the sequences of three repeats in CenB and are related to the repeats of fibronectin type III. CenD hydrolyzed the beta-1,4-glucosidic bond with retention of anomeric configuration. The activities of CenD towards various cellulosic substrates were quite different from those of CenA and CenB.     

Nephrolithiasis due to primary hyperparathyroidism and enteric hyperoxaluria: a case report

Enteric hyperoxaluria and primary hyperparathyroidism have been associated with the development of nephrolithiasis. We report a case involving a patient who had hyperparathyroidism due to a parathyroid adenoma and enteric hyperoxaluria resulting from a small bowel bypass and who had severe stone-related complications. This combination of stone-generating factors has heretofore not been reported. The pathophysiology of these entities is discussed.     

A sudden awakening from a near coma after combined intake of gamma-hydroxybutyric acid (GHB) and ethanol

OBJECTIVE: The excess of pediatric emergencies going to hospitals has been the subject of many studies in Spain and, on some occasions, this problem has attributed to the inefficiency of pediatric primary care. Our main objective was to evaluate whether or not our community health center is an efficient filter for hospital emergencies. PATIENTS AND METHODS: We conducted a prospective one year long study of all pediatric emergency demands within our normal office hours (workdays, from 08:00 to 21:00 hours). RESULTS: The total number of emergencies amounted to 1,294, with an average of 5.78 per day. The largest inflow occurred in September and the lowest in August. Most of the emergencies were between 16:00 and 19:00 hours. Fifty percent of the patients were under 4 years of age. We made 86 different diagnoses according to the WONCA classification. Only 10 diagnoses came with a frequency superior to 3%, and 60% of the emergencies were related to one of these 10 diagnoses. Of all pediatric emergencies, 94.7% were completely resolved by us. Only 60 patients (4.6%) were sent-on to hospital emergency services. Among these patients, 40 required traumatological or surgical attention, 5 ophthalmological care, 3 otorhinolaryngological care, and only 12 exclusively needed pediatric attention. In 55.7% of the cases there was no reason to use the emergency channel. CONCLUSIONS: During our office hours, our community health center is an efficient filter for hospital pediatric emergencies.     

Myelolipoma of the thoracic spine

We describe a myelolipoma of the thoracic spine in a patient with gradual and progressive myelopathy. MR imaging showed this predominately fatty lesion to be extradural in location.     

Patterns in the shaping and realization of individual experience

This article describes the methodological approach of systemic psychology. In the framework of this approach a wide range of experimental data is analyzed: results of neuronal recordings in vitro and in awake normal and pathological animals learning to perform and performing both complex instrumental and simple behavioral acts. Another block of analyzed data is based on the experiments with human subjects that learn and perform the tasks of categorization of words and operator tasks, subjects, performing group game activity and answering the questionnaires of psychodiagnostic methods. As a result of this analysis, the system psychology approach is used to describe qualitatively and quantitatively the formation and realization of individual experience.     

Optic nerve ganglioglioma. Case report

Gangliogliomas of the optic nerve are extremely rare. The case is reported of a 38-year-old man who presented with a visual field deficit and was discovered to have an optic nerve ganglioglioma. The possible embryological origins of this neoplasm, its histological and immunohistochemical features, and its appearance on magnetic resonance imaging are examined. The prognoses of optic nerve glioma and of gangliogliomas occurring elsewhere in the nervous system are compared.     

Effects of speech intelligibility level on concurrent visual task performance

Four experiments were performed to determine if changes in the level of speech intelligibility in an auditory task have an impact on performance in concurrent visual tasks. The auditory task used in each experiment was a memory search task in which subjects memorized a set of words and then decided whether auditorily presented probe items were members of the memorized set. The visual tasks used were an unstable tracking task, a spatial decision-making task, a mathematical reasoning task, and a probability monitoring task. Results showed that performance on the unstable tracking and probability monitoring tasks was unaffected by the level of speech intelligibility on the auditory task, whereas accuracy in the spatial decision-making and mathematical processing tasks was significantly worse at low speech intelligibility levels. The findings are interpreted within the framework of multiple resource theory.     

Glucose repression/derepression in budding yeast: SNF1 protein kinase is activated by phosphorylation under derepressing conditions, and this correlates with a high AMP:ATP ratio

BACKGROUND: Genetic studies of Saccharomyces cerevisiae have shown that Snf1p and Snf4p, which together form the SNF1 complex, are essential for gene derepression on removal of glucose from the medium. However the metabolic signal(s) involved, and the exact role of SNF1, have remained enigmatic. Recently, the AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK) was shown to be the mammalian homologue of SNF1. AMPK is activated by the elevation of the cellular AMP:ATP ratio, which occurs during cellular stress in mammalian cells. The mechanism of activation involves phosphorylation of AMPK by an upstream protein kinase (AMPKK). We have investigated whether a similar mechanism might explain the role of SNF1 in yeast in the response to the stress of glucose starvation. RESULTS: The protein kinase activity of SNF1 was dramatically and rapidly activated by phosphorylation on removal of glucose from the medium. SNF1 was not activated directly by AMP, but could be inactivated by protein phosphatases and reactivated by mammalian AMPKK. We also demonstrated that an endogenous SNF1-reactivating factor, most likely an upstream protein kinase, is present in yeast extracts. Under a variety of different growth conditions, there was a correlation between cellular adenine nucleotide levels and the activation state of SNF1. CONCLUSIONS: Apart from the lack of direct allosteric activation of SNF1 by AMP, the regulation of the mammalian AMPK and yeast SNF1 protein kinase cascades is highly conserved. Adenine nucleotides are now good candidates for metabolic signals which indicate the lack of glucose in the medium, triggering activation of SNF1 and derepression of glucose-repressed genes.