1,720,998 research outputs found

    Asparagine 229 mutants of thymidylate synthase catalyze the methylation of 3-methyl-2'-deoxyuridine 5'-monophosphate

    No full text
    The conserved Asn 229 of thymidylate synthase (TS) forms a cyclic hydrogen bond network with the 3-NH and 4-O of the nucleotide substrate 2'-deoxyuridine 5'-monophosphate (dUMP). Asn 229 is not essential for substrate binding or catalysis [Liu, L., gr Santi, D, V, (1993) Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci, U.S.A, 90, 8604-8608] but is a major determinant in substrate specificity [Liu, L., & Santi, D. V. (1993) Biochemistry 32, 9263-9267], 3-Methyl-dUMP (3-MedUMP) is neither a substrate nor an inhibitor of wild type TS but is converted to 3-methyl 2'-deoxythymidine 5'-monophosphate by many TS Asn 229 mutants. Some of the Asn 229 mutants (N229C, -I, -M, -A, and -V) have k(cat) values for 3-MedUMP methylation which are up to about 20% of that for wild type TS-catalyzed methylation of JUMP, and some mutants (N229C and -A) catalyze methylation of 3-MedUMP more efficiently than that of dUMP. Mutants with hydrophobic side chains tended to be mon active in catalysis of methylation of 3-MedUMP than those with hydrophilic side chains. The ability of 3-MedUMP to serve as a substrate for Asn 229 mutants shows that the active form of dUMP involves the neutral pyrimidine base and that ionization of the 3-NH group does not occur in the course of catalysis, In contrast to the negligible binding of 3-MedUMP to wild type TS, both 3-MedUMP and dUMP showed similar K-m values with the Asn 229 mutants, suggesting similar binding affinities to the mutants. The X-ray crystal structure of the TS N229C-3-MedUMP complex showed that the side chain of Cys 229 was rotated away from the pyrimidine ring to allow placement of a water molecule and the 3-methyl group of 3-MedUMP ill the active site. Our results suggest that the inability of 3-MedUMP to undergo methylation by wild type TS is due to its inability to bind to the enzyme, which in turn is simply a result of steric Interference of the 3-methyl group with the side chain of Asn 229

    Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis

    Get PDF
    The present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed

    Variations on the Author

    Get PDF
    “Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship

    Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis

    Get PDF
    We provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis

    Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts

    Get PDF
    We conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more sophisticated methods

    Author Index

    No full text
    Nao informado

    koamabayili/VECTRON-author-checklist: VECTRON author checklist

    No full text
    We have done our best to complete the author checklist relating to the use of animals in the hut study. Note that the objective for the hut study was to evaluate the IRS treatment applications for residual efficacy against Anopheles mosquitoes, including the local An. coluzzii mosquito population. Cows were only used to attract mosquitoes into the huts and no tests were carried out directly on the cows. The author checklist is intended for use with studies where experiments are carried out on animals, which is why we have had such difficulty in completing this for the hut study, as many of the questions do not relate to how the cows were used
    corecore