Loss of postnatal quiescence of neural stem cells through mTOR activation upon genetic removal of cysteine string protein-α.

Neural stem cells continuously generate newborn neurons that integrate into and modify neural circuitry in the adult hippocampus. The molecular mechanisms that regulate or perturb neural stem cell proliferation and differentiation, however, remain poorly understood. Here, we have found that mouse hippocampal radial glia-like (RGL) neural stem cells express the synaptic cochaperone cysteine string protein-α (CSP-α). Remarkably, in CSP-α knockout mice, RGL stem cells lose quiescence postnatally and enter into a high-proliferation regime that increases the production of neural intermediate progenitor cells, thereby exhausting the hippocampal neural stem cell pool. In cell culture, stem cells in hippocampal neurospheres display alterations in proliferation for which hyperactivation of the mechanistic target of rapamycin (mTOR) signaling pathway is the primary cause of neurogenesis deregulation in the absence of CSP-α. In addition, RGL cells lose quiescence upon specific conditional targeting of CSP-α in adult neural stem cells. Our findings demonstrate an unanticipated cell-autonomic and circuit-independent disruption of postnatal neurogenesis in the absence of CSP-α and highlight a direct or indirect CSP-α/mTOR signaling interaction that may underlie molecular mechanisms of brain dysfunction and neurodegeneration.

Molecular Characterization of Growth Hormone-producing Tumors in the GC Rat Model of Acromegaly.

Acromegaly is a disorder resulting from excessive production of growth hormone (GH) and consequent increase of insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF-I), most frequently caused by pituitary adenomas. Elevated GH and IGF-I levels results in wide range of somatic, cardiovascular, endocrine, metabolic, and gastrointestinal morbidities. Subcutaneous implantation of the GH-secreting GC cell line in rats leads to the formation of tumors. GC tumor-bearing rats develop characteristics that resemble human acromegaly including gigantism and visceromegaly. However, GC tumors remain poorly characterized at a molecular level. In the present work, we report a detailed histological and molecular characterization of GC tumors using immunohistochemistry, molecular biology and imaging techniques. GC tumors display histopathological and molecular features of human GH-producing tumors, including hormone production, cell architecture, senescence activation and alterations in cell cycle gene expression. Furthermore, GC tumors cells displayed sensitivity to somatostatin analogues, drugs that are currently used in the treatment of human GH-producing adenomas, thus supporting the GC tumor model as a translational tool to evaluate therapeutic agents. The information obtained would help to maximize the usefulness of the GC rat model for research and preclinical studies in GH-secreting tumors.

Sphingosine facilitates SNARE complex assembly and activates synaptic vesicle exocytosis.

Synaptic vesicles loaded with neurotransmitters fuse with the plasma membrane to release their content into the extracellular space, thereby allowing neuronal communication. The membrane fusion process is mediated by a conserved set of SNARE proteins: vesicular synaptobrevin and plasma membrane syntaxin and SNAP-25. Recent data suggest that the fusion process may be subject to regulation by local lipid metabolism. Here, we have performed a screen of lipid compounds to identify positive regulators of vesicular synaptobrevin. We show that sphingosine, a releasable backbone of sphingolipids, activates synaptobrevin in synaptic vesicles to form the SNARE complex implicated in membrane fusion. Consistent with the role of synaptobrevin in vesicle fusion, sphingosine upregulated exocytosis in isolated nerve terminals, neuromuscular junctions, neuroendocrine cells and hippocampal neurons, but not in neurons obtained from synaptobrevin-2 knockout mice. Further mechanistic insights suggest that sphingosine acts on the synaptobrevin/phospholipid interface, defining a novel function for this important lipid regulator.

The hydrogen abstraction reaction H + CH4. I. New analytical potential energy surface based on fitting to ab initio calculations.

A new analytical potential energy surface is presented for the reaction of hydrogen abstraction from methane by a hydrogen atom. It is based on an analytical expression proposed by Jordan and Gilbert [J. Chem. Phys. 102, 5669 (1995)], and its fittable parameters were obtained by a multibeginning optimization procedure to reproduce high-level ab initio electronic structure calculations obtained at the CCSD(T)/cc-pVTZ level. The ab initio information employed in the fit includes properties (equilibrium geometries, relative energies, and vibrational frequencies) of the reactants, products, saddle point, points on the reaction path, and points on the reaction swath. No experimental information is used. By comparison with the reference results we show that the resulting surface reproduces well not only the ab initio data used in the fitting but also other thermochemical and kinetic results computed at the same ab initio level, such as equilibrium constants, rate constants, and kinetic isotope effects, which were not used in the fit. In this way we show that the new potential energy surface is correctly fitted and almost as accurate as the CCSD(T)/cc-pVTZ method in describing the kinetics of the reaction. We analyze the limitations of the functional form and the fitting method employed, and suggest some solutions to their drawbacks. In a forthcoming communication, we test the quality of the new surface by comparing its results with experimental values.

Optimising an artificial neural network for predicting the melting point of ionic liquids.

We present an optimised artificial neural network (ANN) model for predicting the melting point of a group of 97 imidazolium salts with varied anions. Each cation and anion in the model is described using molecular descriptors. Our model has a mean prediction error of 1.30%, a regression coefficient of 0.99 and a mean P-value of 0.92. The ANN's prediction performance depends mainly on the anion size. In particular, the prediction error decreases as the anion size increases. The high statistical relevance makes this model a useful tool for predicting the melting points of imidazolium-based ionic liquids.

State-to-state dynamics analysis of the F + CHD3 reaction: a quasiclassical trajectory study.

An exhaustive state-to-state dynamics study was performed to analyze the F + CHD3 --> FD(nu', j') + CHD2(nu) gas-phase abstraction reaction. Quasiclassical trajectory (QCT) calculations, including corrections to avoid zero-point energy leakage along the trajectories, were performed at different collision energies on an analytical potential energy surface (PES-2006) recently developed by our group. Whereas the CHD2 coproduct appears vibrationally and rotationally cold, most of the available energy appears as FD(nu') product vibrational energy, peaking at nu' = 2 and nu' = 3, with the population in the latter level growing as the energy increases. The excitation function rises from the threshold of the reaction and then levels off at higher energies, with the maximum contribution from the FD(nu' = 3) level. The state-specific FD(nu') scattering distributions correlated with the coproduct CHD2 in the nu4 = 2 and nu3 = 1 states, at different collision energies, show a steady change from backward to forward scattering as the energy increases. This similar behavior for the two coproduct vibrational states, nu4 = 2 and nu3 = 1, agrees qualitatively with the experimental measurements. Comparison with theoretical and experimental results for the isotopic analogues, F + CH4 and F + CD4, shows that the title reaction presents a direct mechanism, similar to the perdeuterated reaction, but contrasts with that of the F + CH4 reaction. These results for the dynamics of different isotopic variants, always in qualitative and sometimes in quantitative agreement with experiment, show the capacity of the PES-2006 surface to correctly describe the title reaction, even though there are differences that could be due to deficiencies of the PES but also to the known limitations of the classical treatment in the QCT method.