Stabilization and functional studies of high-molecular-weight murine lymphotoxins

High levels of lymphotoxin-like activity (LT) were found in supernatants from secondarily stimulated immune mouse splenocytes activated with concanavalin A (Con A) in vitro. Splenocytes obtained from C57Bl/6 mice immune to the P815 mastocytoma were restimulated in vitro with mitomycin C-treated P815 cells, and then stimulated with Con A. High levels of unstable LT activity are rapidly (2–4 hr) released by these lectin-stimulated splenocytes. The introduction of a crosslinking agent, glutaraldehyde, was found to stabilize this LT activity and allowed us to perform more defined biochemical studies and to examine the functional activities of the LT classes. The lytic activity in these supernatants resided in the high-molecular-weight classes, termed Complex (Cx > 200,000 daltons) and alpha-heavy (α_H 130,000–160,000 daltons). It was found that the Cx and α_H LT classes from the secondarily stimulated immune splenocytes cause lysis of allogeneic target cells, P815 and EL-4, in a 16-hr ⁷⁵Semethionine release assay, and in some cases, this lysis was specific for the sensitizing target cell.     

Influence of Gibberellic Acid and Gibrel on Fruit Set and Yield in Vaccinium macro-carpon cv. Early Black

The influence of gibberellic acid (GA) and Gibrel on the parthenocarpic development of cranberries (Vaccinium macrocarpon cv. Early Black) was investigated. Application of GA or Gibrel at 25 % bloom, 50 % bloom, 100 % bloom and after bloom resulted in a much higher than normal percentage fruit set and large increases in yield. However, treatment of cranberry vines with these compounds also resulted in an abundance of small, commercially undesirable berries. In addition, application of GA caused abnormal elongation of the vines and inthibited terminal bud development. Gibrel caused only slight vine elongation and did not retard terminal bud development. The possible use of Gibrel in the commercial production of cranberries is discussed.     

Ethnic differentiation at VNTR loci, with special reference to forensic applications.

Allele-rich VNTR loci provide valuable information for forensic inference. Interpretation of this information is complicated by measurement error, which renders discrete alleles difficult to distinguish. Two methods have been used to circumvent this difficulty--i.e., binning methods and direct evaluation of allele frequencies, the latter achieved by modeling the data as a mixture distribution. We use this modeling approach to estimate the allele frequency distributions for two loci--D17S79 and D2S44--for black, Caucasian, and Hispanic samples from the Lifecodes and FBI data bases. The data bases are differentiated by the restriction enzyme used: PstI (Lifecodes) and HaeIII (FBI). Our results show that alleles common in one ethnic group are almost always common in all ethnic groups, and likewise for rare alleles; this pattern holds for both loci. Gene diversity, or heterozygosity, measured as one minus the sum of the squared allele frequencies, is greater for D2S44 than for D17S79, in both data bases. The average gene diversity across ethnic groups when PstI (HaeIII) is used is .918 (.918) for D17S79 and is .985 (.983) for D2S44. The variance in gene diversity among ethnic groups is greater for D17S79 than for D2S44. The number of alleles, like the gene diversity, is greater for D2S44 than for D17S79. The mean numbers of alleles across ethnic groups, estimated from the PstI (HaeIII) data, are 40.25 (41.5) for D17S79 and 104 (103) for D2S44. The number of alleles is correlated with sample size. We use the estimated allele frequency distributions for each ethnic group to explore the effects of unwittingly mixing populations and thereby violating independence assumptions. We show that, even in extreme cases of mixture, the estimated genotype probabilities are good estimates of the true probabilities, contradicting recent claims. Because the binning methods currently used for forensic inference show even less differentiation among ethnic groups, we conclude that mixture has little or no impact on the use of VNTR loci for forensics.     

Identification and characterization of a gene and protein required for glycosylation in the yeast Golgi

The MNN2 gene of Saccharomyces cerevisiae has been cloned by complementation of the mnn2 mutant phenotype scored by a change in cell surface carbohydrate structure resulting from a lack of alpha 1----2-mannose branching in the outer chain. The gene was subcloned as a 3 kb DNA fragment that integrated at the MNN2 locus, and a gene disruption yielded the mnn2 phenotype. A lacZ-MNN2 gene fusion protein, produced in Escherichia coli, was used to raise a specific antiserum that recognized a 65 kD wild-type yeast protein. This MNN2 gene product lacks N-linked carbohydrate but appears to be an integral membrane protein. Overproduction of MNN2p does not enhance the alpha 1----2-mannosyltransferase activity of yeast cells. The results suggest that MNN2p is a Golgi-associated protein that is involved in mannoprotein sorting rather than glycosylation.     

Compositional changes in the rat femur following ovariectomy

Ovariectomy has been shown to produce osteoporosis in the femur of the rat. 11-month-old Sprague-Dawley rats were either ovariectomized or given a sham operation. The loss of calcium in the femur of the rats was compared with two indices of osteoporosis, the ponderal index and the femur score. The calcium content was more closely associated with the femur score (r = 0.5, p = 0.0064) than with the ponderal index (r = -0.367, p = 0.05). An accelerated rate of fat deposition in the ovariectomized rat femur reduced the femur weight loss, which resulted in a barely significant association of calcium content with the ponderal index.     

Raman spectroscopic studies of the packing properties of mixed dihexadecyl- and dipalmitoylphosphatidylcholine bilayer dispersions

X-ray diffraction studies suggest the existence of two separate gel phases for mixed dihexadecylphosphatidylcholine (DHPC)/dipalmitoylphosphatidylcholine (DPPC) bilayers [Kim, J. T., Mattai, J., & Shipley, G. G. (1987) Biochemistry 26, 6599-6603; Lohner, K., Schuster, A., Degovics, G., Müller, K., & Laggner, P. (1987) Chem. Phys. Lipids 44, 61-70]. In one gel phase the lipid chains are interdigitated, while the other gel phase exhibits the conventional bilayer form. We use Raman spectroscopy to provide a detailed molecular analysis of the intermolecular and intramolecular interactions of the DHPC and DPPC molecules within these mixed bilayers. Observation of the methylene chain C-H stretching modes of DHPC and the methylene chain C-D stretching modes of DPPC-d62 for various mixed DHPC/DPPC-d62 bilayers enables the packing characteristics and conformational order of each lipid to be monitored separately. The spectral data indicate that the packing properties of DPPC-d62 in the mixed-lipid bilayers remain relatively unchanged, while the intramolecular and intermolecular properties of DHPC change dramatically as a function of the composition of the DHPC/DPPC-d62 mixed bilayer. This is consistent with a model based upon the existence of three characteristic lipid types for the mixed-lipid system, namely, domains of pure DPPC-d62 and pure DHPC species with interface lipids or boundary regions between the bulk domains.