The nature of cation-pi binding: interactions between tetramethylammonium ion and benzene in aqueous solution

A combined quantum mechanical and molecular mechanical Monte Carlo simulation method was used to determine the free energy of binding between tetramethylammonium ion (TMA+) and benzene in water. The computed free energy as a function of distance (the potential of mean force) has two minima that represent contact and solvent-separated complexes. These species are separated by a broad barrier of about 3 kJ/mol. The results are in good accord with experimental data and suggest that TMA+ binds to benzene more favorably than to chloride ion, with an association constant of about 0.8 M-1.

A statistical analysis of acetylcholine receptor activation in Xenopus myocytes: stepwise versus concerted models of gating

1. The kinetic properties of single channel currents from fetal-type acetylcholine receptors in embryonic Xenopus myocytes (60 h old) have been analysed by a maximum-likelihood method. 2. At very high acetylcholine (ACh) concentrations (up to 5 mM) the effective opening rate appears to saturate at approximately 30,000 s-1. 3. The kinetics were analysed according to the standard concerted scheme that postulates a single channel-opening conformational change after two agonists are bound, and a rarely invoked stepwise scheme that postulates semi-independent conformational changes in two distinct gating domains. Both models assume that agonist cannot escape from a channel (or domain) that is in its activated conformation. 4. With either activation scheme the kinetic analyses indicate that ACh binds at a rate of approximately 2 x 10(8) s-1 M-1 and dissociates from doubly liganded receptors at a rate of approximately 28,000 s-1, and that the activation process is asymmetric, i.e. the binding (concerted model) or gating (stepwise model) transitions are not equal and independent. 5. In eighteen of twenty-seven file-by-file comparisons, the likelihood of the stepwise model was greater than that of the concerted model. In seven such comparisons, the likelihood of the concerted model was greater than that of the stepwise model, and in two there was no difference. Log likelihood ratio distributions were obtained from three files (those with the most events) by multiple cycles of resampling and fitting. The means of these distributions were significantly greater than zero, indicating that the stepwise scheme was as good as, or better than, the concerted scheme in describing receptor activation. 6. According to the stepwise view, two binding sites must be occupied and two 'gates' activated for conduction to occur. Although equivalent binding is not an essential aspect of stepwise activation, the binding sites can be identical and have a low affinity for ACh (Kd approximately 130 microM). Either the isomerization rates of the gating domains are different, or they are influenced by the conformational status of its counterpart, with activation increasing approximately 3-fold and deactivation decreasing approximately 10-fold if the complementary domain is in the active conformation. Stepwise activation predicts that the decay of the endplate current is determined by five rates.

On what bases do patients choose their therapists?

Forty-four outpatients were given the opportunity to have two sessions each with two different therapists and then choose one for ongoing treatment. Patients chose the therapist whom they viewed as more helpful and liked better, but not on the basis of demographic similarity or pretreatment expectations about the therapist's qualities. Patients reported liking the opportunity to choose and stated definite reasons for their choices. However, 75% of the patients chose the second therapist. Possible explanations for the preponderant choice of the second therapist are discussed.

Single-channel dose-response studies in single, cell-attached patches

A method for carrying out dose-response studies of ion channel currents in cell-attached patches has been devised. Patch pipettes are filled at the tip with a solution containing one concentration of ligand and then backfilled with another. The concentration of ligand at the membrane is described as a function of time by the equation for diffusion in a cone, allowing response vs. time data to be transformed into a dose-response curve. For Xenopus myocyte cholinergic receptors, examples of the use of this method are given for several concentration-dependent reactions including blockade by the local anesthetic QX-222, activation by acetylcholine, and modulation of current amplitude by sodium ions. Several methods of analyzing the nonstationary channel kinetics are presented, including a pseudo-stationary approach that uses interval likelihood maximization.

Human umbilical cord blood: a clinically useful source of transplantable hematopoietic stem/progenitor cells

This is a review and discussion of studies leading to the first use of human umbilical cord blood, material usually discarded, for the provision of stem/progenitor cells for clinical hematopoietic reconstitution. This prospect arose as a result of extensive studies of the harvesting and cryopreservation of cord blood and of its numerical content of progenitor cells demonstrable in vitro. A male patient with Fanconi anemia (FA) was conditioned with a modified regimen of cyclophosphamide and irradiation that accommodates the abnormally high sensitivity to these agents that is characteristic of FA. Cryopreserved cord blood had been retrieved at birth from a female sibling known from prenatal testing to be unaffected by FA and to be human leukocyte antigen (HLA)-compatible with the prospective sibling recipient. After conditioning and therapeutic infusion of thawed cord blood, successful hematopoietic reconstitution was indicated by the general health of the patient, who had previously required supportive transfusions, by satisfactory hematological criteria and by counts of hematopoietic progenitor cells of various types in the bone marrow. Complete engraftment of the myeloid system with donor cells was evident from cytogenetics, ABO typing, study of DNA polymorphisms, and normal cellular resistance to cytotoxic agents that reveal the fragility of FA cells; the blood contained a residuum of host lymphocytes exhibiting chromosomal damage, but the trend has been towards eliminating these damaged cells. This implies that cord blood from a single individual should provide sufficient reconstituting cells for effective hematopoietic repopulation of an autologous or an HLA-compatible allogeneic recipient.