The presence of non-isotype-specific antibodies in polyclonal anti-IgE reagents: demonstration of their binding to specifically selected Epstein-Barr virus-transformed cell lines

Polyclonal anti-human IgE reagents were earlier shown to contain variable amounts of nonisotype-specific antibodies depending on the strategy used for their preparation. The presence of these antibodies in two commercial anti-IgE reagents was demonstrated in this work by (a) their binding to human Ig-surface-positive lymphoblastoid cells specifically selected by one of the polyclonal anti-human IgE reagents and (b) their binding to the non-IgE immunoglobulins secreted by those lymphoblastoid cells. Peripheral blood B lymphocytes from two normal and two atopic patients were immortalized with Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) and then selected for cells that rosette with anti-IgE-coated erythrocytes. Selection was repeated four times and cells were then cloned. The cloned cells formed rosettes and their supernatants agglutinated erythrocytes coated with rabbit anti-IgE. The immunoglobulins of these clones were positive in an ELISA for IgE, using two different polyclonal anti-human IgE reagents. They were shown, however, to be 19 S IgMs. This discrepancy was due apparently to substantial contamination of anti-non-IgE-isotype-specific antibodies in the polyclonal anti-IgE reagents used both in the selection of cells and in the ELISA. The human monoclonal B-cell lines which were applied here as targets amplified the non-IgE-isotype specific antibody contamination present in the polyclonal anti-human IgE reagents. Because of the normally very low frequency of IgE-positive cells, the use of polyclonal anti-IgE reagents to detect these cells has to be carefully evaluated.     

Synthesis, in vitro and in vivo evaluation of [O-methyl-11C] 2-{4-[4-(3-methoxyphenyl)piperazin-1-yl]-butyl}-4-methyl-2H-[1,2,4]-triazine-3,5-dione: a novel agonist 5-HT1A receptor PET ligand

Synthesis and in vivo evaluation of 2-{4-[4-(3-methoxyphenyl)piperazin-1-yl]-butyl}-4-methyl-2H-[1,2,4]triazine-3,5-dione (5 or MMT), a high affinity and selective serotonin 5-HT1AR agonist PET tracer, are described. GTPgammaS assay shows that MMT is an agonist with an EC50 comparable to 5-HT. Radiolabeling of 5 was achieved in 30% yield (EOS) from desmethyl-MMT (4) with >99% chemical and radiochemical purities and a specific activity >1000 Ci/mmol. PET studies in baboon show that [11C]5 penetrates the blood-brain barrier but, because of low specific binding and fast clearance of radioactivity it is not a suitable PET tracer for the in vivo quantification of 5-HT1AR.     

Trehalose loading into red blood cells is accompanied with hemoglobin oxidation and membrane lipid peroxidation

One of the recent approaches to enhance desiccation tolerance in red blood cells (RBCs) is by loading trehalose. This process has been shown to increase the recovery of lyophilized RBCs; conversely, it results in cellular damage including hemoglobin oxidation and loss of membrane integrity. The purpose of this study was to further investigate the extent of oxidative injury during the loading of trehalose into RBCs.RBCs were incubated in the absence (control) or presence of trehalose (0.8 mol/l) at 4 °C or 37 °C for different time scales. Oxidative damage was monitored by flow cytometry using dichlorofluorescin for reactive oxygen species formation, Annexin V-FITC for phosphatidylserine translocation and fluorescein-DHPE for lipid peroxidation. Percent methemoglobin, percent hemolysis and thiobarbituric acid reactive substances were measured by spectrophotometry. The extent of oxidative damage during trehalose loading is affected by the incubation temperature, incubation time and the presence of trehalose. Incubation at 4 °C was relatively innocuous; however, oxidative injury was evident at 37 °C in both RBC groups. The addition of trehalose is correlated with high osmotic pressure, which had minor effects during incubation at 4 °C, but seemed to have exacerbated the severity of cellular injury at 37 °C, as measured by higher levels of hemolysis, methemoglobin and lipid peroxidation.The process of trehalose-loading is problematic due to its requirement for prolonged incubations at 37 °C. These conditions are correlated with oxidative injury, even in the absence of trehalose. While trehalose is believed to be crucial for stabilizing biomembranes, the consequences of its introduction into the cells require further investigation.     

Reversibility and efficiency in coding protein information

Why the genetic code has a fixed length? Protein information is transferred by coding each amino acid using codons whose length equals 3 for all amino acids. Hence the most probable and the least probable amino acid get a codeword with an equal length. Moreover, the distributions of amino acids found in nature are not uniform and therefore the efficiency of such codes is sub-optimal. The origins of these apparently non-efficient codes are yet unclear. In this paper we propose an a priori argument for the energy efficiency of such codes resulting from their reversibility, in contrast to their time inefficiency. Such codes are reversible in the sense that a primitive processor, reading three letters in each step, can always reverse its operation, undoing its process.We examine the codes for the distributions of amino acids that exist in nature and show that they could not be both time efficient and reversible. We investigate a family of Zipf-type distributions and present their efficient (non-fixed length) prefix code, their graphs, and the condition for their reversibility. We prove that for a large family of such distributions, if the code is time efficient, it could not be reversible. In other words, if pre-biotic processes demand reversibility, the protein code could not be time efficient. The benefits of reversibility are clear: reversible processes are adiabatic, namely, they dissipate a very small amount of energy. Such processes must be done slowly enough; therefore time efficiency is non-important. It is reasonable to assume that early biochemical complexes were more prone towards energy efficiency, where forward and backward processes were almost symmetrical.