Production and purification of Escherichia coli fimbrial antigen F165

Abstract The production of fimbrial antigen F165 by Escherichia coli strains was found to be dependent on the composition of the culture medium and was repressed in the presence of alanine or high levels of glucose, in anaerobic conditions or at growth temperatures of lower than 37°C. Optimal F165 production was found on a minimal medium containing 1% (w/v) casamino acids (MD-1). F165 antigen was isolated from bacteria by mechanical shearing, precipitated with ammonium sulfate, and purified by deoxycholate treatment and gel filtration on Superose 12. The purified fimbriae retained their native morphology as observed by electron microscopy and consisted of two separate protein subunits with apparent molecular weights of 17 500 and 19 000 on sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gels.     

Organization of simple sequences in the Drosophilia melanoga ter genome

Fragments of Drosophila melanogaster DNA that intensively hybridize with simple sequences poly[(dG-dT).(dC-dA)], poly[(dA).(dT)] and poly[(dG-dA).(dC-dT)] were cloned. The first two types of simple sequences are organized in these clones as separated stretches of moderate length, repeated many times within 12-15 kb. Each cluster contains only one type of the simple sequences and originates from a unique in the genome. In contrast, poly[(dG-dA).(dC-dT)] occurs in the genome as several isolated motifs.     

Detecting distant homologies of mosaic proteins. Analysis of the sequences of thrombomodulin, thrombospondin complement components C9, C8 alpha and C8 beta, vitronectin and plasma cell membrane glycoprotein PC-1

Recognition of homologies may give hints about the structure and function of proteins; therefore, we are developing strategies to aid sequence comparisons. Detecting homology of mosaic proteins is especially difficult since the modules constituting these proteins are usually distantly related and their homology is not readily recognized by conventional computer programs. In the present work we show that the rules of the evolution of mosaic proteins can guide the identification of modules of mosaic proteins and can delineate the group of sequences in which the presence of homologous sequences may be expected. By this approach we can concentrate the search for homology to a limited group of sequences; thus ensuring a more intense and more fruitful search. The power of this approach is illustrated by the fact that it could detect homologies not identified by earlier methods of sequence comparison. In this paper we show that thrombomodulin contains a domain homologous with animal lectins, that complement components C9, C8 alpha and C8 beta have modules homologous with one of the repeat units of thrombospondin and that the somatomedin B module of vitronectin is homologous with the internal repeats of plasma cell membrane glycoprotein PC-1.     

Nuclear power: levels of safety

The rise and fall of the nuclear power industry in the United States is a well-documented story with enough socio-technological conflict to fill dozens of scholarly, and not so scholarly, books. Whatever the reasons for the situation we are now in, and no matter how we apportion the blame, the ultimate choice of whether to use nuclear power in this country is made by the utilities and by the public. Their choices are, finally, based on some form of risk-benefit analysis. Such analysis is done in well-documented and apparently logical form by the utilities and in a rather more inchoate but not necessarily less accurate form by the public. Nuclear power has failed in the United States because both the real and perceived risks outweigh the potential benefits. The national decision not to rely upon nuclear power in its present form is not an irrational one. A wide ranging public balancing of risk and benefit requires a classification of risk which is clear and believable for the public to be able to assess the risks associated with given technological structures. The qualitative four-level safety ladder provides such a framework. Nuclear reactors have been designed which fit clearly and demonstrably into each of the possible qualitative safety levels. Surprisingly, it appears that safer may also mean cheaper. The intellectual and technical prerequisites are in hand for an important national decision. Deployment of a qualitatively different second generation of nuclear reactors can have important benefits for the United States. Surprisingly, it may well be the "nuclear establishment" itself, with enormous investments of money and pride in the existing nuclear systems, that rejects second generation reactors. It may be that we will not have a second generation of reactors until the first generation of nuclear engineers and nuclear power advocates has retired.     

The sexual behavior of the primates]

The article presents the review of modern data of the field and laboratory investigations of primate sexual behavior, cyclicity, reproductive strategies and copulation in different primates taxa: strepsirrhini, platyrrhyni, catarrhini. The specific character, progressiveness and adaptation of some reproductive models are discussed by the authors. A problem of connection between dominance and reproductive success is also discussed, the role of sexual teaching in postnatal ontogenesis, age and hormonal status for expression of sexual behavior are analysed. Some forms of sexual declinations in primates are considered.     

Glycogen phosphorylase: control by phosphorylation and allosteric effectors.

Structural studies of muscle glycogen phosphorylase during the last two decades have provided a detailed mechanism for the molecular basis of the control by phosphorylation and by allosteric effectors and the catalytic mechanism. Control by phosphorylation is effected by a disorder to order transition of the NH2-terminal residues that promotes localized changes in the structure of the protein at the region of subunit-subunit contacts and larger changes in the quaternary structure. The covalently attached phosphate group acts like an allosteric effector but the full manifestation of the response is also dependent on the NH2-terminal tail residues. The noncovalently bound allosteric effectors produce similar shifts in the structural states although these are bound at sites that are remote from the serine-phosphate site. The communication from these sites to the catalytic site is through long-range interactions that result in activation of the enzyme through opening access to the buried catalytic site and through creation of the substrate phosphate recognition site by an interchange of an acidic group with a basic group. Recent advances in expression systems have opened the way to a study of properties both for the muscle and other isozymes and other species that should illuminate the different regulatory roles of the enzyme in different tissues and organisms. The allosteric mechanism of activation of phosphorylase by phosphorylation may be relevant to other enzymes although it is now known that other mechanisms such as electrostatic steric blocking mechanisms also exist.