神经生物学

Polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (PAGE) in buffers containing the anionic detergent sodium dodecylsulfate (SDS) is a very powerful technique for small-scale separation of polypeptides and for assigning molecular weights to these molecules. However, the majority of syste ...

In today’s world, we face a significant degree of miniaturization in many aspects of technology. Wonders of miniaturization are also occurring in the areas of physical and biological sciences. The development of a 21st-century technology has enabled investigations and processes to be p ...

Fast atom bombardment (FAB) was introduced as a new ionization technique (1) in 1981 by M. Barber and his coworkers. This was a breakthrough in the analysis of unstable and involatile compounds such as peptides, which were difficult to study by other ionization methods. FAB employs a particle beam co ...

Atmospheric pressure ionization (API) interfaces have become powerful and popular tools for sample ionization (so-called soft ionization) and are primarily used in the analysis of polar and thermolabile compounds (e.g., peptides, proteins). Detailed descriptions of the most imp ...

This method describes how, by mixing peptides with a UV-absorbing matrix, their masses can be determined using matrix-assisted laser desorption ionization time of flight mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOF-MS).

Circular dichroism (CD) spectroscopy is currently the method of choice to study the conformation of proteins in low resolution (1). Chiral substances absorb right and left circularly polarized lights to different extents, demonstrating differences in absorbance (△A) and molar exti ...

1H nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) has proven to be a uniquely powerful tool for studying the structure of peptides in solution. I will concentrate on the type of structural information that is obtainable from NMR, the types of spectra needed to get this information, and how to interpret these spec ...

An X-ray crystal structure of a neuropeptide bound to its native receptor protein would provide a wealth of information concerning the structural requirements for ligand-receptor binding. Unfortunately, many neuropeptide-protein complexes are very difficult, if not impossi ...

Molecular modeling is the science of the generation, manipulation, and representation of three-dimensional structures of molecules using computational chemistry and high resolution computer graphics. Since peptides of biological interest are large molecules, molecul ...

Neuropeptides vary appreciably in terms of then molecular mass, charge, and hydrophobicity so that there is no single optimum method for their extraction from biological materials such as tissues, cultured neurons, plasma, or cerebrospinal fluid (CSF). As all neuropeptides are rapid ...

Since an immunogen requires both an antigenic site and a T-cell receptor binding site, there is a minimum size necessary (1). Natural immunogens have a molecular weight 5000. Small molecules such as neuropeptides may be able to bind to the surface of B-cells, but do not stimulate an immune response. Such ...

There is frequently a need to measure concentrations of neuropeptides in tissue perfusates, tissue extracts, chromatographic column fractions, and so on. Since the concentrations of neuropeptides encountered are often low (usually the low fmol/mL range in perfusates and pmol/g ran ...

Immunocytochemistry is the localization of a tissue constituent in situ by means of a specific antigen-antibody reaction tagged by a visible label (1). For many years, the technique was not considered sufficiently reliable for the de nova identification of substances, but was used to assess ...

Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) is a member of the solid-phase immunoassay family that detects specific antigen-antibody binding reactions (1,2). A great many variables of antigen or antibody presentation, treatment, and detection are considered when performing EL ...

The subcellular localization of bioactive peptides, including hormones and neurotransmitters, has immense value, not only in understanding how cells function, but in correlating biochemical and clinical data from tissues in both normal and diseased states. The pioneering immu ...

The radioligand binding assay is a useful tool to characterize peptide receptors and to study the interaction of endogenous and synthetic peptides with those receptors. The most commonly used method is the membrane filtration technique that involves binding of the radioligand to memb ...

The continued modifications in peptide/protein sequencer hardware, derivatization and coupling chemistry, reagent delivery, and component detection provide the protein/peptide chemist with the tools to determine primary structural information on subpicomole quan ...

The blood-brain barrier (BBB) regulates the exchange of substances between the fluids of the central nervous system (CNS) and the blood (1). As such, the BBB is actively involved in providing nutrition and maintaining the homeostatic environment for the brain and spinal cord. Recently, the BBB h ...

It is now well established that the major mechanism for the termination of a neuropeptide signal is not internalization of the peptide, but rather its metabolism by one or more neuropeptidases (reviewed in refs. 1 and 2). By the very nature of their action in hydrolyzing peptides that have been releas ...

The determination of the primary structure of peptides to-date has usually been carried out by automated amino acid sequencing involving Edman chemistry. This sensitive method is reliable, easy to perform, and the interpretation of the results is straightforward. However, other tech ...