Unlike mammalian neurons, which depolarize almost completely during SD, locust neurons only partially depolarized. SD-like events in the locust CNS were suppressed by pharmacological inhibition of the nitric oxide/cyclic guanosine monophosphate/ protein kinase G (NO/cGMP/PKG) pathway and were exacerbated by its activation. Also, environmental stressors such as heat and anoxia increased production

of nitric oxide in the locust CNS. Finally, for the intact animal, manipulation of the pathway affected the speed of recovery from suffocation by immersion under water. We propose that SD-like events in locusts provide an adaptive mechanism selleck products for surviving extreme environmental conditions. The highly conserved nature of the NO/cGMP/PKG signaling pathway suggests that it may be involved in modulating SD in other organisms, including mammals.”
“A simulation formalism for the nonlinear response of vibrational excitons is presented and applied to the OH stretching

vibrations of neat CA4P in vivo liquid H(2)O. The method employs numerical integration of the Schrodinger equation and allows explicit treatment of fluctuating transition frequencies, vibrational couplings, dipole moments, and the anharmonicities of all these quantities, as well as nonadiabatic effects. The split operator technique greatly increases computational feasibility and performance. The electrostatic map for the OH stretching vibrations in liquid water employed in our previous study [A. Paarmann , J. Chem. Phys. 128, 191103 (2008)] is presented. The two-dimensional spectra are in close

agreement with experiment. The fast 100 fs dynamics are primarily attributed to intramolecular mixing between states in the two-dimensional OH stretching potential. Small intermolecular couplings are sufficient to reproduce the experimental energy transfer time scales. Interference effects between Liouville pathways in excitonic systems and their impact on the analysis of the nonlinear response are discussed.”
“The mammalian sperm acrosome contains a large SN-38 price number of hydrolytic enzymes. When the acrosomal reaction and fertilization occur, these enzymes are released in an orderly fashion, suggesting that the acrosomal matrix is highly organized. It was decided to determine the identity of the structural scaffold underlying the organization of the acrosome. In permeabilized acrosomes and in the Triton X-100 extracted acrosomal matrices from guinea pig sperm, we used indirect immunofluorescence, immunogold labeling, and Western blotting to identify F-actin, spectrin, myosin, calmodulin, and gelsolin. These proteins were detected in the acrosomal matrix for the first time. In noncapacitated, intact spermatozoa the addition of the F-actin monomerizing agent cytochalasin D resulted in loss of the acrosome, suggesting that F-actin is needed to preserve an intact acrosome.