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R Schimmel

Publications and source records attributed to R Schimmel.

5 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed1997

Cell membrane lipid composition and distribution: implications for cell function and lessons learned from photoreceptors and platelets.

Photoreceptor rod cells and blood platelets are remarkably different, yet both illustrate a similar phenomenon. Both are strongly affected by membrane cholesterol, and the distribution of cholesterol in the membranes of both cell types is determined by the lipid composition within the membranes. In rod cells, cholesterol strongly inhibits rhodopsin activity. The relatively higher level of cholesterol in the plasma membrane serves to inhibit, and thereby conserve, the activity of rhodopsin, which becomes fully active in the low-cholesterol environment of the disk membranes of these same cells. This physiologically important partitioning of cholesterol between disk membranes and plasma membranes occurs because the disk membranes are enriched with phosphatidylethanolamine, thus providing a thermodynamically unfavorable environment for the sterol. Cholesterol enrichment of platelets renders these cells more responsive to stimuli of aggregation. Stimuli for platelet aggregation cause a rapid transbilayer movement of cholesterol from the outer monolayer. This stimulus-dependent redistribution of cholesterol appears to result from the concomitant movement of phosphatidylethanolamine into the outer monolayer. The attractive, yet still unproven, hypothesis is that cholesterol translocation plays an important role in the overall platelet response and is intimately related to the sensitizing actions of cholesterol on these cells.

Animals↗
PubMed1993

Interleukin-1 selectively potentiates bradykinin-stimulated arachidonic acid release from human synovial fibroblasts.

Exposure of human synovial fibroblasts prelabelled with [3H]arachidonic acid to bradykinin causes a rapid and sustained increase in arachidonic acid release, a transient increase in cytosolic calcium and an increase in radiolabelled diacylglycerol. Activation of arachidonic acid release by bradykinin was potentiated by interleukin-1 added either simultaneously with bradykinin or to cultures 24 h before addition of bradykinin. In contrast, interleukin-1 did not modify bradykinin-induced increases in cytosolic calcium or diacylglycerol. The stimulation of arachidonic acid release in response to bradykinin, in the absence or presence of interleukin-1, was not affected by RHC-80267, an inhibitor of diacylglycerol kinase, suggesting that deacylation of diacylglycerol was not an important pathway of arachidonic acid production in cultures exposed to bradykinin. This conclusion is supported by the observation that increased release of arachidonic acid was not accompanied by increased release of [14C]stearic acid in cultures labelled with both isotopes. Bradykinin-stimulated release of arachidonic acid was prevented by down-regulating protein kinase C by pretreatment with phorbol 12-myristate 13-acetate and was unaffected by inhibitors of protein synthesis actinomycin D or cycloheximide. On the other hand, interleukin-1 amplification of bradykinin-stimulated release of arachidonic acid was blocked by actinomycin D and cycloheximide. The results from this study point to activation of phospholipase A2 as the source of arachidonic acid in response to bradykinin. Our data further indicate that interleukin-1 selectively potentiates bradykinin activation of a phospholipase A2 by a mechanism requiring protein synthesis, but has no effect on bradykinin activation of phospholipase C.

Arachidonic Acid↗
PubMed1989

Octopamine modulates photoreceptor function in the Limulus lateral eye.

Activity at night in efferent nerve fibers from a central circadian clock produces changes in photoreceptor function in the lateral compound eye of Limulus: the response to light is increased; membrane potential fluctuations (bumps) occurring in the dark are suppressed; and the duration of bumps occurring both in the dark and under dim illumination is increased (Barlow et al., 1977; Kaplan & Barlow, 1980; Barlow, 1983; Barlow et al., 1985). Efferent nerve terminals release octopamine when activated (Battelle et al., 1982; Battelle & Evans, 1984, 1986); exogenous octopamine in vitro produces some of the changes resulting from efferent nerve activity in vivo (Kass et al., 1988). We report here that the increase in both on-transient and steady-state response to light induced by octopamine in the lateral eye in vitro are concentration dependent with threshold at or below 100 nM, saturation at or above 100 microM, and half-maximal increase in the range 1-10 microM. Octopamine also reduces bump activity in the dark in a concentration-dependent way. Unlike the increase in light response, the dependence of this effect on octopamine concentration is extremely variable from specimen to specimen. The effects of exogenous octopamine on light response and bump activity can sometimes be reversed by removing octopamine from the medium bathing the in vitro preparation. Octopamine also increases bump duration, apparently in a concentration-dependent manner. We have not succeeded in reversing this increase in bump duration. The concentration dependence of changes in photoreceptor response described here agrees qualitatively with the dependence of cAMP levels on octopamine in Limulus photoreceptors (Kaupp et al., 1982), lending further support to the idea that cAMP acts as a second messenger in the circadian control of photoreceptor function. Our results also suggest that the changes induced in the transient and steady-state response to light by both efferent nerve activity and exogenous octopamine have a common origin, which may differ from that responsible for the modulation of bump activity.

Animals↗