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Working in a small business requires certain personality traits. These traits include initiative, commitment and flexibility. Job titles in small companies encompass much more and are less well-defined than job titles in large corporations., When most of us were children, the best jobs with the top salaries--the ones most people aspired to--were at the big industrial companies. Unless your family owned a small business, [...]

Terbium was used as a probe of Ca2+-binding sites on the prothrombin-phospholipid complex. Stoichiometric titrations of prothrombin binding to phospholipid vesicles with either Tb3+ or Ca2+ showed that a minimum of 8 metal ions were needed for binding prothrombin to vesicles (3 Mn2+ + 5 Ca2+ for prothrombin or 8 Tb3+ for F-1). When Ca2+ alone was used, a total of about 11 metal ions were needed for complete binding. These stoichiometries indicated 3 classes of metal ions: one class needed to induce the conformational change, a second required for protein-membrane contact, and a third class bound at other sites on the protein that are not involved in membrane binding. By adding Tb3+ to solutions containing both protein and phospholipid, undesirable Tb3+-induced events, such as irreversible aggregation of prothrombin or vesicle fusion, were avoided. Protein-vesicle binding apparently prevented protein aggregation or vesicle fusion. The protein-vesicle binding affinity was severalfold greater in the presence of Tb3+ compared to Ca2+. CoEDTA quenching of Tb3+ bound to the prothrombin-phospholipid complexes indicated that all metal ions were at least partially exposed to the quencher. Some populations of Tb3+ showed lower quenching constants when all of the prothrombin was bound. Tb3+ emission lifetimes revealed that some Tb3+ ions in the protein-membrane complex were in a different environment from those bound to the protein alone. The results indicated that the metal ions in the prothrombin-membrane complex are relatively open to the solvent yet do affect the characteristics of the protein-membrane binding equilibrium.

Reconstructed enzymatic reactions containing purified reverse transcriptase and defined analog substrates which mimic those purported to be natural substances for reverse transcription in vivo were employed to delineate the mechanism of strong-stop (+) DNA synthesis. Our analysis of this system has indicated that strong-stop (+) DNA synthesis is initiated after the introduction of a nick in the viral RNA genome between a polypurine sequence and an inverted repeat that represents the end of the long terminal repeat. Since inhibitors of the reverse transcriptase-associated RNase H activity prevent the introduction of the nick and the synthesis of strong-stop (+) DNA synthesis, it appears that this particular reverse transcriptase-associated enzymatic activity is responsible for the initiation of strong-stop (+) DNA. Our data also indicated that the RNase H activity creates a second nick in the viral RNA genome 11 nucleotides upstream from the strong-stop (+) DNA initiation site since the strong-stop (+) DNA synthesized in these reactions is covalently linked to an oligoribonucleotide 11 residues in length. Nucleotide sequence analysis of the oligoribonucleotide primer molecule indicated that a single homogenous oligomer was associated with strong-stop (+) DNA exhibiting the sequence rArGrGrGrArGrGrGrGrGrA. The oligoribonucleotide primer can be removed from strong-stop (+) DNA by the purified reverse transcriptase, which creates a nick at the junction between the primer and strong-stop (+) DNA. These data demonstrate that the initiation of strong-stop (+) DNA synthesis is mediated by RNase H and that the site of initiation is exactly at the end of the long terminal repeat, providing evidence for yet another function of this reverse transcriptase-associated enzymatic activity in the synthesis of retrovirus DNA.

Employing enzymatic reactions in vitro, we have identified the presence of oligoribonucleotides at the 5' end of strong-stop plus [(+)] DNA. Similar results were obtained whether the strong-stop (+) DNA was synthesized by preparations of detergent-disrupted avian sarcoma virus or reconstructed reactions containing purified reverse transcriptase and a template that mimics the purported natural template for strong-stop (+) DNA synthesis. The latter reactions provide a system to delineate more precisely the discrete requirements necessary for the initiation and synthesis of this species of (+) DNA.

The RAS2 gene product of Saccharomyces cerevisiae expressed in Escherichia coli was phosphorylated by protein kinase A in vitro to approximately 0.5-0.7 mol of phosphate per mol of protein. Neither protein kinase C nor protein kinase P phosphorylated the RAS2 protein significantly. The RAS2 protein is known to activate, in the presence of either Mg2+ and GTP or Mn2+, a yeast membrane preparation with an overexpressed adenylyl cyclase and a deficiency in endogenous RAS1 and RAS2 proteins. When the RAS2 protein was phosphorylated by protein kinase A prior to exposure to the yeast membranes, its capacity to activate the adenylyl cyclase was diminished by 40-60%, while activation by Mn2+ remained unaffected. The phosphorylated protein retained, however, its ability to bind GTP. Incubation of protein kinase A with a specific protein kinase A inhibitor prior to phosphorylation prevented the inhibition. Furthermore, the hydrolysis of GTP was not required for the observed inhibition. These data suggest that phosphorylation of the RAS2 gene product by protein kinase A may function as one mechanism by which the intracellular level of cAMP in yeast is regulated.

Glycolysis in normal resting rat kidney cells (NRK-49F) was stimulated by a 2-hr exposure to transforming growth factors prior to assay. Transforming growth factor beta (TGF-beta) was effective when added alone, and further addition of epidermal growth factor (EGF) had little effect. The stimulation by TGF-beta was abolished when cycloheximide was present during the incubation, suggesting that protein synthesis is required for the effect. Incubation of the cells with 25 mM methionine abolished the stimulation of glycolysis by TGF-beta. The uptake of methylaminoisobutyrate via system A was stimulated by either TGF-beta or EGF. The greater than 3-fold stimulation of uptake by 1 ng of pure TGF-beta per ml was usually somewhat enhanced on addition of 0.5 ng of EGF per ml. Moreover, an antiserum against EGF receptor partially depressed the response to TGF-beta, suggesting some overlapping interactions of EGF and TGF-beta.

Using less stringent hybridization conditions and cloned viral DNA probes representing the avian sarcoma virus gag, pol, env, and long terminal repeat (LTR) gene sequences, we detected related sequences in two avian species purportedly lacking all endogenous avian leukosis viruses, the ev- chicken and the Japanese quail. The blot hybridization patterns obtained with the various probes suggest the presence of between 40 and 100 copies of retrovirus-related sequences in the genomes of these two species. An ev- chicken genomic DNA library was prepared and screened with gag-specific and pol-specific DNA probes. Several different clones were obtained from this library and characterized. Analysis of these clones revealed that the retrovirus-related gene sequences are linked in the order LTR-gag-pol-env-LTR, a structure indicative of a complete provirus. These data indicate the presence of previously unidentified endogenous retrovirus species in avian cells, suggesting that under the appropriate conditions of hybridization additional, more distantly evolved families of endogenous retrovirus genes may be identified in vertebrate species.

The cell-free translation of genome RNA from Rous sarcoma virus was examined following hybridization to selected fragments of viral DNA. Single-stranded fragments, generated by t-RNATrp primed transcription of 70 S RNA from the Schmidt-Ruppin D strain, were isolated and purified by electrophoresis. These included DNA complementary to the 5'-terminal 101 nucleotides (DNA100) of virion 38 S RNA and a collection of prematurely terminated transcripts which lack the complement to the extreme 5'-terminal 7-20 nucleotides (DNA less than 100). In addition, DNA encompassing the viral leader sequences was purified from a cloned copy of proviral DNA. Under hybrid-arrested translation conditions, the leader DNA as well as DNA100 inhibited translation of all protein products generated from the 70 S RNA, while hybridization to the shorter transcripts (DNA less than 100) did not affect in vitro protein synthesis. All single-stranded DNAs were shown to hybridize with equal efficiency to viral RNA under hybrid-arrested translation conditions and inhibition of protein synthesis by DNA100 was concentration-dependent. These results document the participation of noncoding leader RNA in Rous sarcoma virus protein synthesis and demonstrate that a free, single-stranded 5' terminus is necessary for cell free translation of 70 S RNA.