No abstract

Cytochromes b561 (Cyts b561) are a family of intrinsic membrane proteins involved in ascorbate-mediated transmembrane electron transport. The chromaffin granule Cyt b561 (CGCytb) is believed to transport electrons donated by extravesicular ascorbate (ASC) across the membrane to intravesicular monodehydroascorbate (MDA) supporting catecholamine synthesis in neuroendocrine tissues. Another isoform, the duodenal Cyt b561 (Dcytb), was reported to have ferric reductase activity, possibly facilitating intestinal iron uptake. Herein, a new Cyt b561 homologue, LCytb (for lysosomal Cytb561) was found expressed in the late endosomal-lysosomal membrane. LCytb shared high sequence similarity with CGCytb (45% identity) and Dcytb (42% identity). Moreover, four heme-coordinating His residues, and putative ASC and MDA binding sites were highly conserved. Recombinant LCytb exhibited an ASC-reducible b-type Cyt absorbance spectrum with α-band maximum at 561 nm in the spectrum of the reduced protein. Northern blots and Western blots revealed that LCytb was predominantly expressed in lung, spleen, thymus, testis and placenta. In situ hybridization and immunofluorescence studies further demonstrated that the protein was expressed in the alveolar macrophages of the lung, in the white pulp of the spleen, widespread in the thymus, and in the Sertoli cells of the testis. Sequence analysis indicated the presence of a (DE)XXXL(LI)-type signal in the C-terminal of the protein, predicting a late endosomal-lysosomal subcellular localization. This localization was confirmed by double labeling experiments in RAW264.7 and 293 cells, stably transfected with LCytb.

African American men have the highest prostate cancer rates in the world, and more die from the disease than men from other racial or ethnic groups. Because the social work literature has little information on prostate cancer in African American men, the authors have synthesized the literature on prostate cancer and psychosocial concerns in African American men. They used the Health Belief Model as a framework to help explain, understand, and predict African American men's preventive health-related behaviors. The authors make recommendations for social work practice and research.

In general, community similarity is thought to decay with distance; however, this view may be complicated by the relative roles of different ecological processes at different geographical scales, and by the compositional perspective (e.g. species, functional group and phylogenetic lineage) used. Coastal salt marshes are widely distributed worldwide, but no studies have explicitly examined variation in salt marsh plant community composition across geographical scales, and from species, functional and phylogenetic perspectives. Based on studies in other ecosystems, we hypothesized that, in coastal salt marshes, community turnover would be more rapid at local versus larger geographical scales; and that community turnover patterns would diverge among compositional perspectives, with a greater distance decay at the species level than at the functional or phylogenetic levels. We tested these hypotheses in salt marshes of two regions: The southern Atlantic and Gulf Coasts of the United States. We examined the characteristics of plant community composition at each salt marsh site, how community similarity decayed with distance within individual salt marshes versus among sites in each region, and how community similarity differed among regions, using species, functional and phylogenetic perspectives. We found that results from the three compositional perspectives generally showed similar patterns: there was strong variation in community composition within individual salt marsh sites across elevation; in contrast, community similarity decayed with distance four to five orders of magnitude more slowly across sites within each region. Overall, community dissimilarity of salt marshes was lowest on the southern Atlantic Coast, intermediate on the Gulf Coast, and highest between the two regions. Our results indicated that local gradients are relatively more important than regional processes in structuring coastal salt marsh communities. Our results also suggested that in ecosystems with low species diversity, functional and phylogenetic approaches may not provide additional insight over a species-based approach.