Some local authorities have threatened to take dock heads' pay if they are in the boycott.
Typically, GJs represent arrays of hundreds to thousands of densely packed channels, each one assembled from two half-channels (connexons), that dock head-on in the extracellular space to form the channel arrays that link neighboring cells together.
Once trafficked to the plasma membrane, two connexons, one provided by each of two neighboring cells, dock head-on in the extracellular space to form the complete, tightly sealed to the outside, transmembrane GJ channel.
To assess the suitability and safety of a novel suture-less hermetic docking head (HDH) device for aortic anastomosis, and to test it in vitro, on cadavers, and in animals.
The V142A mutation served as a control and was not expected to have an effect on the docking head structure.
Thirdly, a 'docking head' became visible when each monomer was analyzed by its own (Fig. 3C; DH = docking head, DZ = docking zone).
Therefore, such a mutant monomer — per se unable to become activated itself — binds with the modified docking head to other Taspase1 monomers and thereby blocks the autoproteolytic step.
Selected amino acids are either localized in the 'docking zone' (E295 and R262) or within the docking head (V142, L146, R159, L165, W173, and H177).
Again, this single point mutation abolished any Taspase1 activity (Fig. 4AB); (c) finally, we hypothesized that a C163E mutation within the docking head could create a clash of negative charges with E295 upon dimerization (see inset of Fig. 6).
This 'dock-and-click' mechanism appears to be a prerequisite for the functional activation of Taspase1, because mutations within the docking head (W173A, L146A/L165A, and L146A/H177A; I160E and C163E) or the corresponding docking zone (R262A, E295A and R299E) abolished the pro- and enzymatic activities of Taspase1.
