Mating interaction

Finley, R. L. Jr. and Brent, R. (1994) Interaction mating reveals binary and ternary connections between Drosophila cell cycle regulators. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 91, 12,980-12,984. 

Hertz [27] solved the problem of the contact between two elastic elliptical bodies by modeling each body as an infinite half plane which is loaded over a contact area that is small in comparison to the body itself. The requirement of small areas of contact further allowed Hertz to use a parabola to represent the shape of the profile of the ellipses. In essence. Hertz modeled the interaction of elliptical asperities in contact. Fundamental in his solution is the assumption that, when two elliptical objects are compressed against one another, the shape of the deformed mating surface lies between the shape of the two undeformed surfaces but more closely resembles the shape of the surface with the higher elastic modulus. This means the deformed shape after two spheres are pressed against one another is a spherical shape. 

Femandez-Fewell G.D. and Meredith M. (1995). Facilitation of mating behavior in male hamsters LHRH and AcLHRH5-10 interaction with the vomeronasal system. Physiol Behav 57, 213-224. 

Figure 5.2. High-throughput mating assay for two-hybrid protein interaction screening. Yeast strains containing individual bait and prey clones are combined in a well and allowed to mate. Diploids are then selected and scored for a protein-protein interaction using the selection provided by the transcriptional reporter gene.

Figure 5.3. Systematic mating ofyeast two-hybrid bait and prey pools. Each yeast ORF was cloned individually into both as a DNA binding domain fusion (bait) and activation domain fusion (prey). The bait fusions were introduced into a MATa strain and the prey fusions were introduced into a MATa strain. The bait and prey fusions were pooled in sets of 96 clones to generate a total of 62 pools of each. The pools were systematically mated (62 x 62) in a total of 3844 crosses. Interacting clones were selected and the bait and prey inserts were PCR amplified and sequenced to determine their identify. Figure adapted from Ito et al. (2001).

It is Lewis complementarity, on the other hand, that is operative when the mating of the molecules is determined by acid-base interactions, one that is described and predicted by the complementary mating of the lumps with the holes in the two associated Laplacian distributions. A molecule s reactive surface is defined by the zero envelope of the Laplacian distribution, the envelope that separates the shells of charge concentration from those of charge depletion. The reactive surfaces make immediately clear the locations of the lumps, the nucleophilic sites, and the holes, the electrophilic sites, that are brought into juxtaposi-... 

Pheromones have been defined as substances released by an individual into the external environment which precipitate a particular reaction in a conspecific (Karlson and Liischer 1959). Pheromones are used by species in a variety of phyla (see e.g. McClintock, Jacob, Zelano and Hayreh 2001), and there exist many examples of pheromone-mediated behaviour in a wide range of mammals, particularly in relation to mating behaviour and maturation (see e.g. Vandenbergh 1983). In humans however, the question of whether pheromones influence behaviour was recently listed by Science magazine as one of the top 100 outstanding questions (Anon 2005). A recent review of behavioural and anatomical studies relating to the function of pheromones in human interactions concluded that while a small number were unambiguously supportive , none seemed ultimately conclusive (Hays 2003). 

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