Medicine and Health Sciences Commons^™

Identification Of Phosphorylation Sites In The Cooh-Terminal Tail Of The Μ-Opioid Receptor., Ying-Ju Chen, Sue Oldfield, Adrian J. Butcher, Andrew B. Tobin, Kunal Saxena, Vsevolod V. Gurevich, Jeffrey L. Benovic, Graeme Henderson, Eamonn Kelly

Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Faculty Papers

Phosphorylation is considered a key event in the signalling and regulation of the μ opioid receptor (MOPr). Here, we used mass spectroscopy to determine the phosphorylation status of the C-terminal tail of the rat MOPr expressed in human embryonic kidney 293 (HEK-293) cells. Under basal conditions, MOPr is phosphorylated on Ser(363) and Thr(370), while in the presence of morphine or [D-Ala2, NMe-Phe4, Gly-ol5]-enkephalin (DAMGO), the COOH terminus is phosphorylated at three additional residues, Ser(356) , Thr(357) and Ser(375). Using N-terminal glutathione S transferase (GST) fusion proteins of the cytoplasmic, C-terminal tail of MOPr and point mutations of the same, we …

Inhibitory Effect Of Il-17 On Neural Stem Cell Proliferation And Neural Cell Differentiation., Zichen Li, Ke Li, Lin Zhu, Quancheng Kan, Yaping Yan, Priyanka Kumar, Hui Xu, Abdolmohamad Rostami, Guang-Xian Zhang

Department of Neurology Faculty Papers

BACKGROUND: IL-17, a Th17 cell-derived proinflammatory molecule, has been found to play an important role in the pathogenesis of autoimmune diseases, including multiple sclerosis (MS) and its animal model, experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis (EAE). While IL-17 receptor (IL-17R) is expressed in many immune-related cells, microglia, and astrocytes, it is not known whether IL-17 exerts a direct effect on neural stem cells (NSCs) and oligodendrocytes, thus inducing inflammatory demyelination in the central nervous system.

METHODS: We first detected IL-17 receptor expression in NSCs with immunostaining and real time PCR. We then cultured NSCs with IL-17 and determined NSC proliferation by neurosphere formation …