Purification and properties of AMP-deaminase from human uterine smooth muscle. Regulation by adenylate energy charge and activated fatty acids

At pH 7.0 and physiological concentrations of the main regulatory ligands (ATP, ADP, orthophosphate), human uterine muscle AMP-deaminase follows a hyperbolic type of saturation kinetics with S0.5 parameter value about 2 mM. The enzyme is regulated by adenylate energy charge (AEC) variations, being the most active at the AEC value 0.5-0.6 or 0.5-0.7, depending on the size of the total adenine nucleotide pool. Long-chain acyl-CoA strongly inhibit activity of the enzyme, influencing mainly the maximum velocity of the reaction.     

The Analysis of Partial Diallel Crosses

The analysis of offsprings from the partial diallel crosses is presented. In considered type of crossing, p parental forms into H separate groups are devided. Single crosses among parental forms, from separate groups only, are performed. The analysis for experiments laid out in efficiency balanced block designs is given.     

Molecular phylogenetics of Hippophae L. (Elaeagnaceae) based on the internal transcribed spacer (ITS) sequences of nrDNA

 The genus Hippophae comprises 7 species and 8 subspecies according to the latest classification, and has shown enormous ecological, nutrient and medicinal values. Here we analyzed the phylogenetic relationships among 15 taxa of the genus by comparing sequences of the internal transcribed spacer (ITS) region of nuclear ribosomal DNA (nrDNA). ITS sequences in Hippophae varied in length from 651 bp to 666 bp. The aligned sequences were 690 bp in length and 269 (39.0%) were variable sites with 150 being parsimony-informative. The amount of polymorphism observed within a taxon was extremely low in most taxa except for two putative hybrid species. The aligned sequences were analyzed by maximum parsimony (MP) and neighbor-joining (NJ) methods. In the strict consensus trees of parsimony analysis, the monophyly of Hippophae was supported by 100% bootstrap value. H. tibetana was at the basal position of the genus, and the remaining taxa formed two clades with high bootstrap support. The first clade included subspecies of H.␣rhamnoides and the other one consisted of remaining species. Parsimony analysis also suggested that the species H. tibetana, H. neurocarpa and H.␣salicifolia were all distinct. Although the sequence divergence among subspecies of H. rhamnoides was also remarkably high, the molecular data supported the monophyly of H. rhamnoides when H. rhamnoides subsp. gyantsensis Rousi was excxluded. The NJ trees showed essentially the same topology. The taxonomical arrangement that divided the genus into two sections was not supported based on the ITS sequences. However, the hybrid origin of H. goniocarpa and H. litangensis proposed previously was supported by the present ITS data. Received January 7, 2002; accepted May 10, 2002 Published online: November 22, 2002 Addresses of the authors: Kun Sun, Xuelin Chen, Ruijun Ma, Qin Wang, Institute of Botany, Northwest Normal University, Lanzhou 730070, China. Changbao Li, Song Ge (e-mail: gesong@ns.ibcas.ac.cn or song_ge@hotmail.com), Laboratory of Systematic and Evolutionary Botany, Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100093, China.     

Start-Up of an Anaerobic Dynamic Membrane Digester for Waste Activated Sludge Digestion: Temporal Variations in Microbial Communities

An anaerobic dynamic membrane digester (ADMD) was developed to digest waste sludge, and pyrosequencing was used to analyze the variations of the bacterial and archaeal communities during the start-up. Results showed that bacterial community richness decreased and then increased over time, while bacterial diversity remained almost the same during the start-up. Proteobacteria and Bacteroidetes were the major phyla. At the class level, Betaproteobacteria was the most abundant at the end of start-up, followed by Sphingobacteria. In the archaeal community, richness and diversity peaked at the end of the start-up stage. Principle component and cluster analyses demonstrated that archaeal consortia experienced a distinct shift and became stable after day 38. Methanomicrobiales and Methanosarcinales were the two predominant orders. Further investigations indicated that Methanolinea and Methanosaeta were responsible for methane production in the ADMD system. Hydrogenotrophic pathways might prevail over acetoclastic means for methanogenesis during the start-up, supported by specific methanogenic activity tests.     

T-cell induced pathogenesis in HIV: bystander effects and latent infection.

The progress of HIV is accompanied by the infection and decline of the population of CD4+ cells. This reduction in cells results from both cytolytic influences of the virus and virus-specific cytotoxic T-cell (CTL) responses. We seek to characterize the extent of CD4+ reduction caused by HIV-specific CTLs at equilibrium. Here we show that intermediate levels of cytotoxic killing of infected cells can be inferior to both strong and weak or absent immune responses. We further show that the deleterious effects of the CTL response are made worse by a slow immune response. Bystander effects in which uninfected cells are thought to be eliminated by non-specific CTL activation lead to small or negligible reductions in uninfected CD4+ cells. Latently infected cells containing pro-viral DNA and which become activated at a constant rate ensure that the immune response is more effective for a larger range of CTL activities and reduces T-cell associated pathology.