During neurotransmission, glutamate is released from vesicles of the presynaptic cell, and glutamate receptors (e.g., NMDA Receptor, AMPA Receptor) bind glutamate for activation at the opposing postsynaptic cell. Excitatory amino acid transporters (EAATs) regulate and maintain extracellular glutamate concentrations below excitotoxic levels. In addition, glutamate transporters may limit the duration of synaptic excitation by an electrogenic process in which the transmitter is cotransported with three sodium ions and one proton, followed by countertransport of a potassium ion. Five EAATs (EAAT1-5) have been identified. EAAT1 and EAAT2 are expressed mainly in glia, while EAAT3, EAAT4, and EAAT5 are considered to be neuronal transporters. EAAT3 is found in the perisynaptic areas and cell bodies of glutamatergic and GABAergic neurons. Research studies have implicated abnormal EAAT3 expression in the pathophysiology of Schizophrenia.
The fourth gene of the EBOV genome encodes a 16-kDa envelope-attached glycoprotein (GP) and a 11 kDa secreted glycoprotein (sGP). Both GP and sGP have an identical 295-residue N-terminus, however, they have different C-terminal sequences. Recently, great attention has been paid to GP for vaccines design and entry inhibitors isolation. GP is a class I fusion protein which assembles as trimers on viral surface and plays an important role in virus entry and attachment. Mature GP is a disulfide-linked heterodimer formed by two subunits, GP1 and GP2, which are generated from the proteolytical process of GP precursor (pre-GP) by cellular furin during virus assembly . The GP1 subunit contains a mucin domain and a receptor-binding domain (RBD); the GP2 subunit has a fusion peptide, a helical heptad-repeat (HR) region, a transmembrane (TM) domain, and a 4-residue cytoplasmic tail. The RBD of GP1 mediates the interaction of EBOV with cellular receptor (e.g. DC-SIGN/LSIGN, TIM-1, hMGL, NPC1, β-integrins, folate receptor-α, and Tyro3 family receptors), of which TIM1 and NPC1 are essential for EBOV entry; the mucin domain having N- and O-linked glycans enhances the viral attachment to cellular hMGL, and participates in shielding key neutralization epitopes, which helps the virus evades immune elimination. There are large conformation changes of GP2 during membrane fusion, which enhance the insertion of fusion loop into cellular membrane and facilitate the release of viral nucleocapsid core to cytoplasm.
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