In terms of the influences of synaptic factors on neuronal encodings, we have studied the roles of postsynaptic glutamate receptors and presynaptic release quanta in regulating the precise encodings of action potentials in cortical neurons. How the release probability influences neuronal encoding is under the study. 2-oxoglutarate and iron ) dependent dioxygenases constitute a huge superfamily of enzymes found throughout biology. The reactions driven by these dioxygenases are carried out in the presence of oxygen, 2OG as cosubstrate and Fe as cofactor. Oxygen is consumed in the reaction and 2OG is decarboxylated to yield succinate and carbon dioxide. In some cases, like for collagen prolyl hydroxylase, ascorbate is required for optimal activity. Although this superfamily of enzymes is one of the most diverse, the members hold a highly conserved Fe binding HXD/E…H triad motif. The 2OG binding residues are less conserved and are characteristic of each subfamily. Substrate binding residues vary as well and may involve structurally flexible segments surrounding the active site. 2OG/Fe dioxygenases catalyze a wide range of biological reactions involving a multitude of substrates. Among these reactions are collagen biosynthesis, fatty acid metabolism, hypoxic sensing, and histone and nucleic acid demethylations. Prolyl hydroxylases, involved in cellular responses to hypoxia, hydroxylate proline residues of the hypoxia-inducible transcription factor. Several Jumonji C domain-containing enzymes hydroxylate methylated lysine and arginine residues of histones resulting in demethylation, whereas AlkB enzymes are engaged in demethylation of nucleic acid substrates. Given the diversity of this group of enzymes, elucidating the function of the yet uncharacterized 2OG/Fe dioxygenases is a challenging task. The AlkB AB1010 dioxygenase from Escherichia coli is a repair enzyme which removes alkyl groups from DNA and RNA by direct reversion. Preferred substrates are 1-methyladenine and 3- methylcytosine in single-stranded DNA and RNA. In addition, AlkB repairs 1-methylguanine and 3-methylthymine, as well as exocyclic etheno and ethano adducts. Nine human homologs, including the fat mass and obesity associated protein FTO, are known. In vitro DNA repair activities have been published for ALKBH1, ALKBH2, ALKBH3 and FTO, but only ALKBH2 has been thoroughly investigated in vivo and is broadly accepted as a true AlkB repair enzyme. ALKBH8 consists of both a methyltransferase domain and an AlkB domain, and these respective activities are recently described on wobble nucleosides in mammalian tRNA. A set of 2OG/Fe dioxygenases are known to be hypoxiainducible and among these are HIF hydroxylases and several JmjC histone demethylases. Recently, Hughes and Espenshade published that expression of the fission yeast Schizosaccharomyces pombe 2OG/Fe dioxygenase 1 gene is upregulated under low oxygen and that Ofd1 is involved in degradation of sterol regulatory element binding protein Sre1. Microarray analysis revealed a second 2OG/Fe dioxygenase as being Sre1 dependent and hypoxia-inducible and this second gene, fd2+, is described in the present work.