Funds are requested to purchase a Beckman XL-I analytical ultracentrifuge to be shared by the laboratories of 9 faculty, and to be made available for occasional use by other members of the U.T. Southwestern faculty. The primary users group includes members of the following departments Pharmacology (5), Physiology (1), Biochemistry (2), and Internal Medicine (1), of whom 7 are currently funded by NIH. Space for the centrifuge will be provided by the Department of Pharmacology and the administration of the grant and management of the instrument will be supervised by a cross-departmental committee of these users. Projects proposed by the current users group included studies of (1) the structure and self-association of dynamin (Albanesi); (2) interactions among components of the MAP kinase pathway (Cobb); (3) protease-protein interactions (Corey); (4) function and regulation of the proteasome (DeMartino); (5) transcription factor interactions (Kodadek and McKnigh); (6) factors stablilizing the dimeric structure of omithihe decarboxylase (Phillips); (7) multiprotein complexes in visual signaling (Rama); (8) interactions of synaptic proteins in exocytosis (Rizo-Rey).
