PubMed Health⌕ Search

Biomedical subjects

P Ulbrich

Publications and source records attributed to P Ulbrich.

7 recordsLinked to original sources

Atomic force microscopy investigation of Mason-Pfizer monkey virus and human immunodeficiency virus type 1 reassembled particles.

Particles of DeltaProCANC, a fusion of capsid (CA) and nucleocapsid (NC) protein of Mason-Pfizer monkey virus (M-PMV), which lacks the amino terminal proline, were reassembled in vitro and visualized by atomic force microscopy (AFM). The particles, of 83-84 nm diameter, exhibited ordered domains based on trigonal arrays of prominent rings with center to center distances of 8.7 nm. Imperfect closure of the lattice on the spherical surface was affected by formation of discontinuities. The lattice is consistent only with plane group p3 where one molecule is shared between contiguous rings. There are no pentameric clusters nor evidence that the particles are icosahedral. Tubular structures were also reassembled, in vitro, from two HIV fusion proteins, DeltaProCANC and CANC. The tubes were uniform in diameter, 40 nm, but varied in length to a maximum of 600 nm. They exhibited left handed helical symmetry based on a p6 hexagonal net. The organization of HIV fusion proteins in the tubes is significantly different than for the protein units in the particles of M-PMV DeltaProCANC.

HIV↗

Stimulus-dependent processing of temporal order.

Two distinct conceptualisations of processing mechanisms have been proposed in the research on the perception of temporal order, one that assumes a central-timing mechanism that is involved in the detection of temporal order independent of modality and stimulus type, another one assuming feature-specific mechanisms that are dependent on stimulus properties. In the present study, four different temporal-order judgement tasks were compared to test these two conceptualisations, that is, to determine whether common processes underlie temporal-order thresholds over different modalities and stimulus types or whether distinct processes are related to each task. Measurements varied regarding modality (visual and auditory) and stimulus properties (auditory modality: clicks and tones; visual modality: colour and position). Results indicate that the click and the tone paradigm, as well as the colour and position paradigm, correlate with each other. Besides these intra-modal relationships, cross-modal correlations show dependencies between the click, the colour and the position tasks. Both processing mechanisms seem to influence the detection of temporal order. While two different tones are integrated and processed by a more independent, possibly feature-specific mechanism, a more central, modality-independent timing mechanism contributes to the click, colour and position condition.

Acoustic Stimulation↗

Genetic determination of polyhydroxyalkanoate metabolism in Rhodobacter capsulatus SB1003.

A cluster of four genes was identified in the Rhodobacter capsulatus genome that is involved in PHA metabolism. These genes encode the PHA granule-associated protein (pha2), the regulator for granule formation (pha1), the PHA synthase (phaC) and the PHA depolymerase (orfX). Two other genes, namely those encoding beta-ketothiolase (phaA) and acetoacetyl-CoA reductase (phaB), are not linked to this cluster.

Carboxylic Acids↗

The Rhodobacter capsulatus genome.

The genome of Rhodobacter capsulatus has been completely sequenced. It consists of a single chromosome containing 3.5 Mb and a circular plasmid of 134 kb. This effort, started in 1992, began with a fine-structure restriction map of an overlapping set of cosmids that covered the genome. Cosmid sequencing led to a gapped genome that was filled by primer walking on the chromosome and by using lambda clones. Methods had to be developed to handle strong stops in the high GC (68%) inserts. Annotation was done with the ERGO system at Integrated Genomics, as was the reconstruction of the cell's metabolism. It was possible to recognize 3709 orfs of which functional assignments could be made with high confidence to 2392 (65%). Unusual features include the presence of numerous cryptic phage genomes embedded in the chromosome.

Journal Article↗