We calculate characters and supercharacters for irreducible, admissible representations of the affine superalgebraŝl(2|1; C) k in both the Ramond and Neveu-Schwarz sectors and discuss their modular properties in the special case of level k = − 1 2 . We also show that the non-degenerate integrableŝl(2|1; C) k characters coincide with some N = 4 superconformal characters.

At physiological concentrations, alanine transport in hepatocytes from starved rats is faster than in hepatocytes from fed rats. The degree of increase is much less than previously reported for 2-aminoisobutyrate in the same concentration range. Glutamine transport is not stimulated on starvation. This provides evidence that the transport systems for alanine and glutamine in isolated hepatocytes are controlled separately.

The branching functions of the affine superalgebraŝl(2|1; C) k characters into characters of the subalgebraŝl(2; C) k are calculated for fractional levels k = 1 u − 1, u ∈ N. They involve rational torus A u(u−1) and Z u−1 parafermion characters.

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The Na+-dependent uptake of alanine into plasma membrane vesicles from rat liver was inhibited by N-ethylmaleimide (NEM) and by mersalyl. NEM did not inhibit alanine-independent Na+ uptake and the inhibition of alanine transport by NEM was protected by pre-incubation with an excess of substrate. It was therefore concluded that NEM acted by binding to the alanine carrier. A protein of Mr 20 000 was found to bind NEM with a concentration dependence parallel to the NEM inhibition of alanine transport. The inhibition of binding of [3H]NEM to this protein by mersalyl had a concentration dependence similar to that of the inhibition of transport by mersalyl. Preincubation with L-alanine, but not with D-alanine, led to protection of the Mr 20 000 protein from binding NEM. It is concluded that this protein is an essential component of the alanine transport system.