The Government has offered Australia's three mobile operators, and vividwireless, renewal of their existing spectrum allocated on 15 year licences in the late 90s and early 2000s at set prices, while the Government expects to rake in $3 billion.
It works by degrading a protein called SNAP-25 (synaptosome-associated protein of 25,000 daltons) that controls the release of neurotransmitters. When SNAP-25 is eliminated, sensory communications in those affected nerve cells is degraded, or even stopped.
Scientists have found, on the beneficial side, that they can control such maladies in patients as strabismus (eyes that involuntarily cross), migraine headaches, various muscle spasms, and diseases (such as cerebral palsy).
Small doses of the botulinum toxin are also used by plastic surgeons to paralyze facial muscles (aka, wrinkles) in order to make patients look younger.
The result of the Caleo study is found in the April 2, 2008 issue of the Journal of Neuroscience.
The abstract of the Caleo study states: “Botulinum neurotoxins (designated BoNT/A–BoNT/G) are bacterial enzymes that block neurotransmitter release by cleaving essential components of the vesicle fusion machinery.”
“BoNT/A, which cleaves SNAP-25 (synaptosomal-associated protein of 25 kDa), is extensively exploited in clinical medicine to treat neuromuscular pathologies, facial wrinkles, and various types of pain.”
“It is widely assumed that BoNT/A remains at the synaptic terminal and its effects are confined to the injection site.”
“Here we demonstrate that catalytically active BoNT/A is retrogradely transported by central neurons and motoneurons and is then transcytosed to afferent synapses, in which it cleaves SNAP-25. SNAP-25 cleavage by BoNT/A was observed in the contralateral hemisphere after unilateral BoNT/A delivery to the hippocampus. Appearance of cleaved SNAP-25 resulted in blockade of hippocampal activity in the untreated hemisphere.”
“Injections of BoNT/A into the optic tectum led to the appearance of BoNT/A-truncated SNAP-25 in synaptic terminals within the retina. Cleaved SNAP-25 also appeared in the facial nucleus after injection of the toxin into rat whisker muscles. Experiments excluded passive spread of the toxin and demonstrated axonal migration and neuronal transcytosis of BoNT/A.”
“These findings reveal a novel pathway of BoNT/A trafficking in neurons and have important implications for the clinical uses of this neurotoxin.”
David Bass
| ComOps, a leading Australian provider of business software products and services, has won a competitive tender to deploy its Salvus safety, r…
How to Make Business Discovery Work for Your Business
Business Discovery takes its cues from consumer apps. Like Google, it encourages us- ers to hunt for and explore data without worrying about or even noticing the underly- ing technology. Their entire experience is working within an intuitive interface to get real-time, self-service results with only minimal training. ...more
Try an easy-to-use set of web-enabled
tools for business-class productivity services. Office 365 provides
anywhere-access to email, important documents, contacts, and calendars
on almost any device.
