Apoptosis (programmed cell death) is a fundamental process for normal development of multicellular organisms, and is involved in the regulation of the immune system, normal morphogenesis, and maintenance of homeostasis. ICE/CED-3 family cysteine proteases have been implicated directly in apoptosis, but relatively few of the substrates through which their action is mediated have been identified. Here we report that D4-GDI, an abundant hematopoietic cell GDP dissociation inhibitor for the Ras-related Rho family GTPases, is a substrate of the apoptosis protease CPP32/Yama/Apopain. D4-GDI was rapidly truncated to a

1 UK-78,282, a novel piperidine blocker of the T lymphocyte voltage-gated K + channel, Kv1.3, was discovered by screening a large compound ®le using a high-throughput 86 Rb e ux assay. This compound blocks Kv1.3 with a IC 50 of *200 nM and 1 : 1 stoichiometry. A closely related compound, 325, containing a benzyl moiety in place of the benzhydryl in UK-78,282, is signi®cantly less potent. 2 Three lines of evidence indicate that UK-78,282 inhibits Kv1.3 in a use-dependent manner by preferentially blocking and binding to the C-type inactivated state of the channel. Increasing the fraction of inactivated channels by holding the membrane potential at 750 mV enhances the channel's sensitivity to 282. Decreasing the number of inactivated channels by exposure to *160 mM external K + decreases the sensitivity to UK-78,282. Mutations that alter the rate of Ctype inactivation also change the channel's sensitivity to UK-78,282 and there is a direct correlation between t h and IC 50 values.3 Competition experiments suggest that UK-78,282 binds to residues at the inner surface of the channel overlapping the site of action of verapamil. Internal tetraethylammonium and external charybdotoxin do not compete UK-78,282's action on the channel. 4 UK-78,282 displays marked selectivity for Kv1.3 over several other closely related K + channels, the only exception being the rapidly inactivating voltage-gated K + channel, Kv1.4. 5 UK-78,282 e ectively suppresses human T-lymphocyte activation.

No abstract

No abstract

In our previous work, DNase hypersensitivity mapping was used to identify an enhancer within the human CD8 alpha (hCD8 alpha) gene which allowed T cell-specific expression of a reporter construct in transiently transfected cell lines. To study the role of this intronic enhancer in vivo, transgenic mice were made using human CD8 genomic constructs. We found that while a 14 kb wild-type human CD8 alpha (WThCD8) genomic construct did not lead to expression in mature peripheral CD8+ T cells, this transgene was consistently expressed in small populations of T cells and B cells, and in a subset of mouse NK cells. While murine CD8 is not normally expressed on resting NK cells, expression of the human CD8 transgene on mouse NK cells is appropriate since CD8 is expressed on a subset of human NK cells. Deletion of the intronic enhancer resulted in a complete loss of transgene expression in most lines and a loss of expression only in NK cells in one line. Our results indicate, firstly, that cis-acting sequences within the 14 kb genomic fragment are sufficient for NK cell-specific expression. In addition, our results suggest that the enhancer may have dual roles in regulation of transgene expression. It may enhance general expression of the transgene and may also be required for NK cell-specific expression.