The proteolytic activity of insulin‐degrading enzyme: a mass spectrometry study

The prominent role that insulin‐degrading enzyme (IDE) has on amyloidogenic peptides degradation has recently boosted a lot of attention toward this enzyme. Although many substrates are known to be degraded by IDE, little is known about the changes in the proteolytic activity of the enzyme upon modification of environmental factors. In a previous work we have already shown the great potentiality of atmospheric pressure/laser desorption ionization‐mass spectrometry (AP/MALDI‐MS) for studying the interaction between IDE and insulin. Here, the activity of IDE was investigated regarding cleavage sites' preferentiality upon modification of environmental factors by AP/MALDI‐MS. The roles that IDE/insulin concentration ratio, reaction time, adenosine 5′‐triphosphate (ATP) and metal ions (Zn and Cu) have on the insulin cleavage pattern produced by IDE are investigated and a plausible interpretation involving the proteolytic action of the different IDE oligomeric forms is proposed. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

On the Cauchy problem for non-effectively hyperbolic operators,the Gevrey 5 well-posedness

In this paper, we prove that for non-effectively hyperbolic operators with smooth double characteristics exhibiting a Jordan block of size 4 on the double manifold, the Cauchy problem is well-posed in the Gevrey 5 class, beyond the generic Gevrey class 2 (see, e.g., [5]). Moreover, we show that this value is optimal, due to certain geometric constraints on the Hamiltonian flow of the principal symbol. These results, together with results already proved, give a complete picture of the well-posedness of the Cauchy problem around hyperbolic double characteristics.     

Evolution of two concentrated vortices in a two-dimensional bounded domain

We prove that two initially concentrated vortices with opposite vorticity of an incompressible ideal fluid moving in a two-dimensional bounded domain, remain concentrated during the time. The motion of their centers converges to the solution of the point vortex model with the corresponding initial conditions.     

IDENTIFICATION OF MEMBRANE PROTEINS IMAGED BY ATOMIC FORCE MICROSCOPY USING A TEMPLATE MATCHING ALGORITHM

The atomic force microscope allows to image biological samples in their native environment. But the identification and the topography of individual randomly distributed membrane proteins is still a challenge. We used membranes of isolated vacuoles of barley mesophyll cells. Images at low resolution indicate that vacuoles spontaneously attach, rupture and finally adsorb completely as planar membrane to mica. Height profiles indicate that the membrane at the peripheral boundary exposes the extravacuolar surface to the scanning tip. At molecular resolution a template matching correlation algorithm was used to identify the most abundant membrane protein, the vacuolar H⁺-ATPase by the characteristic extravacuolar head of the transport molecule. The data indicate the possibility to analyse single randomly distributed membrane proteins in their native environment with the knowledge of a suitable template.