Establishment of a variety of human bone marrow stromal cell lines by the recombinant SV40-adenovirus vector.

Various human bone marrow stromal cell lines were established from the adherent cell populations by introduction of the recombinant SV40-adenovirus vector with an infection or electric poration procedure. As compared with DNA transfection, the vector introduction was able to immortalize the cells with more than 100 times higher efficiency. Morphological and cytochemical analyses indicated that various cloned cell lines with different properties were isolated by the vector introduction. All the established cell lines expressed SV40 large T antigen. These results provided the evidence indicating that the recombinant SV40-adenovirus vector was a useful tool to establish a variety of cell lines with different biological activities from human bone marrow stroma.     

Induction of diabetes by PolyI:C and anti-RT6.1 antibody treatment in DR-BB rats.

To determine whether environmental factors could affect the incidence of diabetes in RT6.1+ lymphocytes-depleted diabetes resistant (DR) BB rats, we tested polyinosinic-polycytidylic acid (Poly I:C), as an immune activator, in conjunction with anti-RT6.1 antibody in DR-BB rats which were bred in a specific pathogen free (SPF) condition. Diabetes was induced by the combined administration of poly I:C and anti-RT6.1 antibody. The use of poly I:C or anti-RT6.1 antibody alone did not cause diabetes. These results suggest that RT6.1+ T lymphocytes regulate autoimmune diabetes and that non-specific immune activation caused by environmental factors plays a key role in inducing diabetes in DR-BB rats.     

Augmentation of retinoic acid-induced granulocytic differentiation in HL-60 leukemia cells by serine/threonine protein phosphatase inhibitors.

To evaluate the involvement of protein phosphatases (PP) in differentiation of human myelogenous leukemia HL-60 cells, we made use of potent inhibitors of PP1 and PP2A, calyculin-A (CAL-A) and okadaic acid (OKA). CAL-A and OKA could augment all-trans retinoic acid (ATRA)-induced granulocytic differentiation, whereas the differentiation toward macrophage lineage by 12-o-tetradecanoylphorbol acetate (TPA) was unchanged in the presence of CAL-A. CAL-A augmented the phosphorylation of 18K, 23K and 30K proteins induced by ATRA. The PP1 and PP2A were identified and were present mainly in the cytosol of HL-60 cells. These results suggest that either PP1 or PP2A or both may be involved in regulating granulocytic differentiation of HL-60 cells.     

Neurocalcin: a novel calcium-binding protein from bovine brain.

A novel calcium-binding protein (molecular weight 23,000-24,000, pI 5.3-5.5), which we term neurocalcin, was identified in bovine brain. Using calcium-dependent drug affinity chromatography ((S)-P-(2-aminoethyloxy)-N-[2-(4-benzyloxycarbonylpiperazinyl++ +)-1-(P- methoxybenzyl)ethyl]-N-methylbenzene-sulfonamide dihydrochloride, W-77, -coupled Sepharose 6B), we purified neurocalcin from bovine brain. The partial amino acid sequence of neurocalcin revealed it to be an as yet unidentified protein with three putative calcium binding sites (EF-hands). Further purification and sequence analysis demonstrated the presence of four isoprotein forms designated alpha, beta, gamma 1, and gamma 2. When the 165 sequenced residues of neurocalcin beta are compared with sequences of other proteins, neurocalcin beta has a 38.2% sequence homology with visinin and 45.5% with recoverin (Yamagata, K., Goto, K., Kuo, C.-H., Kondo, H., and Miki, N. (1990) Neuron 2, 469-476; Dizhoor, A. M., Ray, S., Kumar, S., Niemi, G., Spencer, M., Brolley, D., Walsh, K. A., Philipov, P. P., Hurley, J. B., and Stryer, L. (1991) Science 251, 915-918). Both visinin and recoverin are expressed specifically in retinal photoreceptors and are not found in brain. Unlike visinin and recoverin, neurocalcin is purified not only from retina but also from bovine brain. Our results suggest that neurocalcin is a recoverin-like protein expressed in bovine brain.     

Genetic polymorphism of alpha-2-HS-glycoprotein: four new alleles and allele frequencies in Japanese

alpha 2-HS-glycoprotein (AHSG) phenotyping was done in 655 Japanese from the Goto Islands, western Japan, using isoelectric focusing followed by immunoblotting. Four new AHSG alleles were encountered, AHSG*G1-G4, whose genetic transmissions were established in family studies. The allele frequencies were: AHSG*1 = 0.7221; AHSG*2 = 0.2748, and AHSG*G1-G4 = 0.0008, respectively.     

Neutralization of microcystin shock in mice by tumor necrosis factor alpha antiserum.

Microcystis aeruginosa is a common cyanobacterium in water blooms that appear widely in nutrient-rich, fresh, and brackish waters, and its toxic blooms cause the death of domestic animals. The administration of a crude toxic cell extract of M. aeruginosa K-139 to mice can produce tumor necrosis factor (TNF) and prompt severe physiological disturbances, especially liver damage, which can lead to death. The in vitro production of TNF-alpha by peritoneal macrophages was observed after stimulation with the cell extract or the purified toxin from K-139 cells. The expression of a TNF-alpha mRNA was also detected in spleen cells and peritoneal macrophages after stimulation with the cell extract. However, a previous injection of rabbit anti-murine TNF-alpha serum could prevent the liver damage to some extent and protect the mice from death. These findings indicate the involvement of TNF in microcystin shock.     

Oxidative modification of glycated low density lipoprotein in the presence of iron

This is the first observation for contributing to the glycation of low density lipoprotein (LDL) to oxidative modification of its own lipids and protein. Human plasma LDL was glycated by incubation with glucose (G-LDL). Glucose incorporated into apoprotein B was approximately 10 mol/mol of apoprotein (2.8% modification of lysine residues) and 84% of G-LDL was adsorbed on phenylboronate affinity column. G-LDL incubated with Fe3+ for 4 h caused a significantly higher level of lipid peroxidation than U-LDL (untreated with glucose), and a higher molecular weight protein was observed in apoprotein B on SDS-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (SDS-PAGE), increasing with incubation period. Corresponding to change on SDS-PAGE, G-LDL exposed to Fe3+ moved faster than G-LDL per se or U-LDL to anode on agarose gel electrophoresis. The higher the Fe3+ concentration, the more lipid peroxidation was caused. Alpha-tocopherol or probucol suppressed the lipid peroxidation of G-LDL exposed to Fe3+.     

Isolation of two forms of decay-accelerating factor (DAF) from human urine.

Decay-accelerating factor (DAF) was purified from human pooled urine by conventional techniques. The urine DAF was separated into two peaks, pool I and pool II, by gel chromatography. DAF-U1 was isolated from pool I by hydrophobic chromatography, and DAF-U2 from pool II by anti-DAF IgG column. The specific activities of DAF-U1 and DAF-U2 to decay membrane-phase C5 convertase were about 3% and 70% of membrane form DAF, respectively. However, both urine DAFs revealed a similar activity to each other and slightly higher activity than that of membrane form DAF in decay-accelerating fluid-phase C3 convertase of the alternative pathway.