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Biomedical subjects

K Asai

Publications and source records attributed to K Asai.

At least 181 records · Page 10Linked to original sources

The Multi-Scale 3D-1D compatibility scoring for inverse protein folding problem.

The applicability of the Multi-Scale Structure Description (MSSD) scheme to the inverse-folding problems was investigated. An MSSD represents a 3D protein structure with multiple symbolic sequences, where fine structures are represented with the sequence at low levels, the middle scale structural motifs at middle levels, and global topology at high levels. Each symbol in the symbolic sequence denotes a type of local structure of the level scale. The structure fragments are classified at each scale level respectively according to the shape and the environment around the fragments: how the structure is exposed to the solvent or buried in the molecule. I modeled the propensity of an amino-acid sequence to the structure fragment type (i.e., primary constraint) at each scale level. The local propensity is, therefore, modeled at small scale (low) levels, while the global propensity modeled at large scale (high) levels. Thus, superposing all the primary constraint, a 3D protein structure yields an amino-acid sequence profile. Evaluating the fit of an amino acid sequence to the profile derived from the known 3D protein structure, we can identify which 3D structure the given amino-acid sequence would fold into. I checked whether a sequence identifies its own structure over two hundred protein sequences. In many cases, an amino acid sequence identified its own 3D protein structure.

Animals↗

Electrical responses and K+ activity changes to light in the ocellus of the planarian Dugesia japonica.

The extracellular electrical response (ocellar potential, OP) and K+ activity changes to light were measured in the planarian ocellus by conventional and double-barreled ion-selective microelectrodes. The OP evoked by a 0.5 sec light flash is a simple monophasic potential, which is sustained during long-term illumination. The spectral sensitivity of the OP has the characteristics of a rhodopsin with lambda max 505 nm. K+ activity in the extracellular space of the ocellus in the dark was 1.1 +/- 0.2 mM (mean +/- SE, n = 6). A 0.5 sec light flash and a 120 sec long-term illumination evoked increases in the K+ activity. The maximum K+ activity change occurred at 503 nm. These results suggest that the efflux of K+ from the planarian photoreceptor into the extracellular space is caused by light, and that the OP and the increase of K+ activity are mediated by a rhodopsin.

Animals↗

Neurotrophic action of gliostatin on cocultured neurons with glial cells.

Gliostatin is a polypeptide factor (apparent M(r) = 100 k with a homodimeric structure comprising two 50 kDa subunits) acting on cortical neurons (neurotrophic action) as well as astrocytic cells (growth inhibition). Under the coculture system of cerebral cortical neurons and astrocytes from fetal rats (E15 or E16), the neurotrophic action of gliostatin was examined immunocytochemically. Immunostaining by an anti-neurofilament (NF) monoclonal antibody visualized a marked neurite-outgrowth and interconnecting bundles of neuritic processes induced by gliostatin in the coculture system. Neurons stimulated by gliostatin formed dense aggregates in clumps, while neurons in control coculture spread out. Gliostatin has also shown survival-promoting effects on neurons. Furthermore, it was shown that gliostatin induced the differentiation of protoplasmic astrocytes to fibrous astrocytes. These results further support our previous contention that gliostatin plays physiological roles on neuronal and glial development.

Animals↗

High concentrations of immunoreactive gliostatin/platelet-derived endothelial cell growth factor in synovial fluid and serum of rheumatoid arthritis.

Since neovascularization plays an important role in the propagation of rheumatoid synovitis, we analyzed the concentration of gliostatin/platelet-derived endothelial cell growth factor (GLS/PD-ECGF), a potent angiogenic and chemotactic factor, in the synovial fluid and serum of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) patients. The immunoreactive GLS/PD-ECGF concentrations (mean value +/- S.D.) in synovial fluid, measured by a sandwich enzyme immunoassay, were significantly higher in RA patients than in osteoarthritis (OA) patients (233.02 +/- 219.40 vs. 9.09 +/- 14.86 ng/g, P < 0.001), and the serum concentrations were also higher in RA patients than in age-matched controls (8.77 +/- 7.60 vs. 3.74 +/- 2.61 ng/ml, P < 0.005). These results suggest that GLS/PD-ECGF may participate in the endothelial proliferation resulting in initiation of the extensive emigration of mononuclear cells and proliferation of the synovial tissues in rheumatoid arthritis, and that the immunoreactive GLS/PD-ECGF in serum as well as synovial fluids may be a useful diagnostic marker of RA.

Arthritis, Rheumatoid↗

Establishment of an enzyme immunoassay system for gliostatin/platelet-derived endothelial cell growth factor (PD-ECGF).

A two-site enzyme immunoassay for gliostatin (GLS)/platelet-derived endothelial cell growth factor (PD-ECGF) has been developed. The detection limit of gliostatin/PD-ECGF was 30 pg/well, and the optimal assay range was 0.1 to ng/well. This assay system enabled us to confirm the immunochemical identity of both factors and to detect immunoreactive gliostatin/PD-ECGF (IR-GLS/PD-ECGF) in human biological body fluids. The age-related analysis from newborn to 69 years revealed that the serum IR-GLS/PD-ECGF level was high in infants younger than 1 year old (1.8 ng/ml) and in the 20-year-old age group (1.8 ng/ml), and highest in the umbilical cord blood (2.1 ng/ml). Curiously high concentrations were detected in saliva with a significant sex difference (11.3 ng/ml for males and 48.7 ng/ml for females), and in synovial fluids (3.7 ng/ml). A number of human tumor cells, gastric cancer cells, MKN-74, neuroblastoma cells, GOTO, as well as epidermoid carcinoma cells, A431, were found to produce a significant amount of IR-GLS/PD-ECGF (0.2 to 21.8 ng/mg protein), and some of them secreted the IR-GLS/PD-ECGF in the conditioned medium (approximately 0.5 ng/ml). The enzyme immunoassay system is sufficiently sensitive for the basic and clinical study of gliostatin/PD-ECGF in human body fluids, tissues and organs.

Adolescent↗

Prediction of protein secondary structure by the hidden Markov model.

The purpose of this paper is to introduce a new method for analyzing the amino acid sequences of proteins using the hidden Markov model (HMM), which is a type of stochastic model. Secondary structures such as helix, sheet and turn are learned by HMMs, and these HMMs are applied to new sequences whose structures are unknown. The output probabilities from the HMMs are used to predict the secondary structures of the sequences. The authors tested this prediction system on approximately 100 sequences from a public database (Brookhaven PDB). Although the implementation is 'without grammar' (no rule for the appearance patterns of secondary structure) the result was reasonable.

Algorithms↗

Neuroblastoma growth factors derived from neurofibroma (NF1): participation of uridine in a neuroblastoma growth.

Human glioma cell extracts were found to elicit a marked growth-promoting activity on human neuroblastoma cells. This activity was also detected in the extracts of neurofibroma type 1 (NF1; von Recklinghausen neurofibromatosis) comprising aberrant Schwann cell growth. The purified substance from the NF1 extracts by HPLC on ODS columns was identical to a pyrimidine nucleoside, uridine, the chemical structure of which was identified by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry. The authentic uridine showed a strong growth-promoting activity on human neuroblastoma cells. Other purine or pyrimidine nucleotides, their derivatives, and ribose sources for their syntheses were employed to test the activity; a purine nucleoside, adenosine, showed a stronger activity than uridine. The current study raises the possibility that human neuroblastoma cells may be affected by dysfunctions of the de novo pathway of both purine and pyrimidine nucleotide biosyntheses.

Cell Division↗

Growth-promoting action of adenosine-containing dinucleotide on neuroblastoma cells: detection of adenosine-cytidine dinucleotide (ApCp) in neurofibroma (NF1) extracts.

Neurofibroma type 1 tissue was investigated for the presence of growth-promoting activity on human neuroblastoma cells. The activity was isolated by gel filtration and reversed-phase column chromatographs from neurofibroma type 1 extracts. An adenosine-containing dinucleotide (adenylyl(3'-5')cytidine-3'-phosphate) was identified as one of the major components of the activities by its enzymatic fragmentation and liquid chromatography/mass spectrometry. Synthetic adenosine-containing dinucleotide derivatives such as cytidyl(3'-5')adenosine, cytidyl(2'-5')adenosine, adenylyl(3'-5')cytidine, and adenylyl(2'-5')cytidine showed a similar action. Cytidyl(3'-5')adenosine, cytidyl(2'-5')adenosine, and adenylyl(2'-5')cytidine, which are able to release a free adenosine through enzymatic hydrolysis, in particular elicited a strong activity corresponding to that of adenosine with the highest action. These results suggest that neuroblastoma cells are able to use adenosine-containing dinucleotides as well as mononucleotides for their survival and proliferation.

Adenosine↗

Dexamethasone-induced suppression of aortic atherosclerosis in cholesterol-fed rabbits. Possible mechanisms.

We investigated the mechanisms by which corticosteroids affect atherosclerosis. Male New Zealand White rabbits were injected with 0.125 mg dexamethasone (n = 10) or vehicle (control group, n = 10). Both groups were fed a 1% cholesterol diet for 8 weeks. Although the dexamethasone-treated animals exhibited a greater degree of hyperlipidemia, they exhibited significantly less atherosclerotic plaque of the aortic surface than control animals (7.8% versus 47.2%). Immunofluorescence study of the aortic plaque specimens showed that dexamethasone administration reduced both macrophages and T lymphocytes. In vitro, dexamethasone suppressed the proliferation and differentiation of U937 cells and inhibited uptake and degradation of beta-very low density lipoproteins by mouse peritoneal macrophages. These findings suggest that dexamethasone suppresses the development of atherosclerosis in the aorta of rabbits by inhibiting recruitment and proliferation of macrophages and the formation of foam cells in plaques.

Animals↗

A multi-level description scheme of protein conformation.

We propose a novel description scheme of protein backbone conformation that can model the important factors of protein structure formation, such as global interaction and geometric constraints. This description scheme represents a protein conformation with several symbolic sequences of multiple levels of abstraction. Each symbol in the sequence denotes the class of abstracted topology of subconformation with the size specific to the level. Low level sequences of this description represent fine structures of high resolution, and high level sequences represent the abstracted topologies of large scale. The classification of protein backbone subconformations of various sizes is the most important base for this description scheme. This has never been tried so far due to the complexity in dealing with the number of degrees of freedom in subconformations. However, the proposed technique solved this problem by abstracting the topology of middle and large scale subconformations. This linear expansion technique extracts a fixed number of parameters as the expansion coefficients from the co-ordinate representation of subconformations. In this case, the simple reverse-transformation from the expansion coefficients reconstructs the three-dimensional topology of a subconformation. The analysis of the relation between primary structure of a region and the subconformation of that region at each level in this description helps to model both local and global interactions of protein structure formation. Further, the statistic analysis of overlapping patterns of two subconformations models the geometric constraints important for a structure prediction system in generating a conformation which is geometrically sound.

Amino Acid Sequence↗

Hidden Markov models and iterative aligners: study of their equivalence and possibilities.

There are many shared attributes between existing iterative aligners and Hidden Markov Model (HMM). A learning algorithm of HMM called Viterbi is the same as the iteration of DP-matching of iterative aligners. HMM aligners can use the result of an iterative aligner initially, incorporate the similarity score of amino acids, and apply the detailed gap cost systems to improve the matching accuracy. On the other hand, the iterative aligner can inherit the modeling capability of HMM, and provide the better representation of the proteins than motifs. In this paper, we present an overview of several iterative aligners which include the parallel iterative aligner of ICOT and the HMM aligner of Haussler's group. We compare the merits and shortcomings of these aligners. This comparison enables us to formulate a better, more advanced aligner through proper integration of the iterative technique and HMM technique.

Algorithms↗

Protective effects of idebenone on vascular endothelial cells against toxicity induced by oxidatively modified low density lipoprotein.

We examined the protective effects of idebenone, 6-(10-hydroxydecyl)-2,3-dimethoxy-5-methyl-1,4-benzoquinone, on the cytotoxicity of oxidatively-modified low density lipoprotein (oxLDL), using cultured vascular endothelial cells from fetal bovine aorta. When the cells were incubated with idebenone, the toxicity of oxLDL was inhibited dose-dependently (10(-7)-10(-5) M). When cells were preincubated with idebenone, the toxicity of oxLDL was inhibited only at a high concentration (10(-5) M). However, idebenone had no significant effects on copper-induced modification of LDL. The protective effects of idebenone on oxLDL-induced endothelial toxicity may be beneficial for the inhibition of the development of atherosclerosis in the brain and other arterial systems.

Animals↗

Effects of dexamethasone on migration of human monocytes in response to oxidized beta-very low density lipoprotein.

OBJECTIVE: We previously showed that dexamethasone inhibited the development of atherosclerosis in cholesterol-fed rabbits. In the present study, we investigated the mechanisms of this inhibition. METHODS: Monocytes were isolated from the peripheral blood of healthy donors. Cell suspensions were incubated with dexamethasone, 10(-11)-10(-4)M, for 90 minutes at 37 degrees C. Rabbit beta-very low density lipoprotein(beta-VLDL) was obtained from New Zealand White rabbits that had been fed chow containing 1% cholesterol. Oxidative modification of beta-VLDL was performed by auto-oxidation. We measured the migration of monocytes in response to native and oxidized beta-VLDL using a 48-well microchemotaxis chamber. RESULTS: Oxidized beta-VLDL stimulated the migration of monocytes dose-dependently in the range between 0.5 and 2 nmol/mg protein. Dexamethasone inhibited the chemotaxis of monocytes exposed to oxidized beta-VLDL in a dose-dependent manner more than 10(-9)M. CONCLUSIONS: Inhibition of the chemotactic response of monocytes exposed to oxidized beta-VLDL may be a mechanism for the anti-atherogenic effect of dexamethasone in cholesterol-fed rabbits.

Animals↗

Immuno-reactive human epidermal growth factor (h-EGF) in rheumatoid synovial fluids.

The immuno-reactive human epidermal growth factor (h-EGF) level, measured by a sensitive enzyme immunoassay, was significantly higher in synovial fluids or synovial tissue extracts from 89 patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) than in those from 53 patients with osteoarthritis. RA synovial immuno-reactive h-EGF was predominantly of a low molecular weight form (LMW h-EGF) on gel filtration chromatography. Furthermore, in the RA group, the synovial immuno-reactive h-EGF correlated positively with C-reactive protein, an acute-phase reactant, in the blood examination and with synovial immunoglobulin M. These results suggest that synovial h-EGF is specifically produced by RA synovium from the initial stage of arthritis, and that the measurement of synovial h-EGF serves as an early indicator to appraise the RA activity. A pathogenesis of RA including growth factors and growth inhibitory factors are discussed.

Adult↗

Neurotrophic action of gliostatin on cortical neurons. Identity of gliostatin and platelet-derived endothelial cell growth factor.

Gliostatin is a polypeptide growth inhibitor of apparent M(r) = 100,000 with a homodimeric structure comprising two 50-kDa subunits, acting on astrocyte as well as astrocytoma cells (Asai, K., Hirano, T., Kaneko, S., Moriyama, A., Nakanishi, K., Isobe, I., Eksioglu, Y.Z., and Kato, T. (1992) J. Neurochem., 59, 307-317). The amino acid sequences of 13 tryptic peptides including the amino terminus were completely identical to those of platelet-derived endothelial cell growth factor (PD-ECGF) (Ishikawa, F., Miyazono, K., Hellman, U., Drexler, H., Wernstedt, C., Hagiwara, K., Usuki, K., Takaku, F., Risau, W., and Heldin, C.-H. (1989) Nature 338, 557-562). Gliostatin and PD-ECGF, purified from human placenta, shared growth inhibition on glial cells and growth promotion on endothelial cells, and exhibited similar values for half-maximal dose of glial growth inhibition (ID50 = 1.3 nM) and the half-maximal concentration of endothelial growth promotion (EC50 = 1.0 nM), suggesting that both factors evoke the biological actions through an identical receptor on each cell surface. We have further demonstrated evidence of a novel neurotrophic action of gliostatin/PD-ECGF toward embryonic rat cortical neurons in culture. The half-maximal concentration of gliostatin/PD-ECGF for neurotrophic action was 0.3 nM. All actions on glial, endothelial, and neuronal cells, were abolished by a monoclonal antibody against gliostatin. These data indicate that gliostatin/PD-ECGF may play important roles on development and regeneration of the central nervous system and may also involve the induction of angiogenesis for the formation of blood brain barrier.

Amino Acid Sequence↗

Identification of immuno-reactive lipocortin 1-like molecules in serum and plasma by an enzyme immunoassay for lipocortin 1.

A two-site enzyme immunoassay for lipocortin 1 (LC1) has been developed. The detection limit of LC1 was 0.2 ng/tube and the optimal assay range was 1 to 100 ng/tube. The assay system enabled us to identify immunoreactive lipocortin 1-like molecules (IR-LC1) in human serum and plasma. Normal human serum and plasma IR-LC1 concentrations were 44.6 ng/ml for males and 43.1 ng/ml for females with no significant difference between both sexes. The age-related analysis among nine age groups from newborn to 69 years old revealed that the serum or plasma level was high in infants (77.5 ng/ml for newborn and 75.6 ng/ml for 1 month-1 year group), and the 40-year-old (52.2 ng/ml) and 50-year-old (51.3 ng/ml) groups. The major population of plasma IR-LC1 was of 70 kDa in size corresponding to that of the LC1 homodimer. The present enzyme immunoassay system is sufficiently sensitive for the clinical study of LC1 in human body fluids, tissues and organs.

Adolescent↗

Role of lipoprotein-copper complex in copper catalyzed-peroxidation of low-density lipoprotein.

The oxidative modification of low-density lipoprotein (LDL) is suggested to play an important role in the pathogenesis of atherosclerosis. The present study examined the role of the formation of LDL-copper (Cu) complex in the peroxidation of LDL. The amount of copper bound to LDL increased during incubation performed with increasing concentrations of CuSO4. More than 80% of the copper bound to the LDL particle was observed in the protein phase of LDL, suggesting that most of the copper ions formed complexes with the ligand-binding sites of apoprotein. The addition of histidine (1 mM), known to form a high affinity complex with copper, and EDTA (1 mM), a metal chelator, during the incubation of LDL with CuSO4 prevented the formation of both thiobarbituric acid-reactive substances (TBARS) and LDL-Cu complexes. EDTA inhibited the copper-catalyzed ascorbate oxidation whereas histidine had no effect, suggesting that the copper within the complex with histidine is available to catalyze the reaction, in contrast to EDTA. These observations indicate that the preventive effect of histidine on the copper-catalyzed peroxidation of LDL is not simply mediated by chelating free copper ions in aqueous phase. Evidence that copper bound to LDL particle still has a redox potential was provided by the observed increase in TBARS content during incubation of LDL-Cu complexes in the absence of free copper ions. The addition of either histidine or EDTA to LDL-Cu complexes inhibited the formation of TBARS by removing copper ions from the LDL forming the corresponding complexes. However, there still remained small amounts of copper in the LDL particles following the treatment of LDL-Cu complexes with histidine or EDTA. The copper ions remaining in the LDL particle lacked the ability to catalyze LDL peroxidation, suggesting that there may be two types of copper binding sites in LDL: tight-binding sites, from which the copper ions are not removed by chelation, and weak-binding sites, from which copper ions are easily removed by chelators. The formation of TBARS in the LDL preparation during incubation with CuSO4 was comparable to the incubation with FeSO4. In contrast, the formation of TBARS in the LDL-lipid micelles by CuSO4 was nearly eliminated even in the presence of ascorbate to promote metal-catalyzed lipid peroxidation, although a marked increase in TBARS content was observed in the LDL-lipid micelles with FeSO4, and with FeCl3 in the presence of ascorbate.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)

Ascorbic Acid↗