Regulation of Staphylococcus protease using complement, interferon and immunoglobulin as substrates.

The effects of various agents on the cleavage of serum albumin, interferon, immunoglobulin and complement component C1q by the extracellular protease from Staphylococcus aureus were analysed by SDS-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis. Arachidonic acid moderately stimulated the proteolysis of serum albumin, interferon and complement component. Phosphatidic acid effectively enhanced the proteolysis of serum albumin and IgG, whereas it inhibited the cleavage of IgM. The proteolysis of IgG was appreciably enhanced by sphingosine. In contrast, phosphatidyl choline and phosphatidyl glycerol were shown to have an inhibitory effect on the proteolysis of IgG and IgM. Phosphatidyl serine, phosphatidyl inositol and phosphatidyl ethanolamine also inhibited the proteolysis of IgG. The failure of any of these agents to exert a persistent effect on the cleavage of all substrates, revealed the complexity of the interactions among the agent, the substrate and the protease.     

The human homologue of unc-93 maps to chromosome 6q27 – characterisation and analysis in sporadic epithelial ovarian cancer

Background  

In sporadic ovarian cancer, we have previously reported allele loss at D6S193 (62%) on chromosome 6q27, which suggested the presence of a putative tumour suppressor gene. Based on our data and that from another group, the minimal region of allele loss was between D6S264 and D6S149 (7.4 cM). To identify the putative tumour suppressor gene, we established a physical map initially with YACs and subsequently with PACs/BACs from D6S264 to D6S149 . To accelerate the identification of genes, we sequenced the entire contig of approximately 1.1 Mb. Seven genes were identified within the region of allele loss between D6S264 and D6S149 .     

Association of ABO and Rh(D) blood groups with filariasis

ABO and Rh blood groups in 344 filarial patients and 320 controls matched with respect to age, community and residence are reported. An excess of B and a deficiency of AB was observed among the filarial patients. The relative risks for the B and AB were 1.53 and 0.36, respectively. Only males showed clearly significant risks. The Rh(D) blood groups revealed no association with filariasis.     

Rapid purification of secretory acid proteinase from Candida albicans and its characterization.

Secretory acid proteinase from C. albicans was purified from culture supernatant to apparent homogeneity by ion-exchange chromatography. Two isozymes of the proteinase were resolved using a novel chromatofocusing method. The enzyme, which appears to be a glycoprotein, consists of a single polypeptide chain with glutamine at the N-terminus. Its molecular weight is about 45,000 and isoelectric point is pH 4.6. At pH 5, the proteinase is stable at 45 degrees C for at least 15 min. It has a broad substrate specificity. With BSA as a substrate, Km was determined to be 1.6 x 10(-4) M. The enzyme is inhibited by pepstatin and thus is a carboxyl proteinase. It undergoes autocatalytic digestion at or below pH 5.0. The kinetics of induction of proteinase by various proteins are also reported.     

Repair Responses to DNA Damage: Enzymatic Pathways in E coli and Human Cells

Bacteria and eukaryotic cells employ a variety of enzymatic pathways to remove damage from DNA or to lessen its impact upon cellular functions. Most of these processes were discovered in Escherichia coli and have been most extensively analyzed in this organism because suitable mutants have been isolated and characterized. Analogous pathways have been inferred to exist in mammalian cells from the presence of enzyme activities similar to those known to be involved in repair in bacteria, from the analysis of events in cells treated with DNA damaging agents, and from the analysis of the few naturally occurring mutant cell types. Excision repair of pyrimidine dimers produced by UV in E coli is initiated by an incision event catalyzed by a complex composed of uvrA, uvrB, and uvrC gene products. Multiple exonuclease and polymerase activities are available for the subsequent excision and resynthesis steps. In addition to the constitutive pathway, which produces short patches of 20–30 nucleotides, an inducible excision repair process exists that produces much longer patches. This long patch pathway is controlled by the recA-lexA regulatory circuit and also requires the recF gene. It is apparently not responsible for UV-induced mutagenesis. However, the ability to perform inducible long patch repair correlates with enhanced bacterial survival and with a major component of the Weigle reactivation of bacteriophage with double-strand DNA genomes. Mammalian cells possess an excision repair pathway similar to the constitutive pathway in E coli. Although not as well understood, the incision event is at least as complex, and repair resynthesis produces patches of about the same size as the constitutive short patches. In mammalian cells, no patches comparable in size to those produced by the inducible pathway of E coli are observed. Repair in mammalian cells may be more complicated than in bacteria because of the structure of chromatin, which can affect both the distribution of DNA damage and its accessibility to repair enzymes. A coordinated alteration and reassembly of chromatin at sites of repair may be required. We have observed that the sensitivity of digestion by staphylococcal nuclease (SN) of newly synthesized repair patches resulting from excision of furocoumarin adducts changes with time in the same way as that of patches resulting from excision of pyrimidine dimers. Since furocoumarin adducts are formed only in the SN-sensitive linker DNA between nucleosome cores, this suggests that after repair resynthesis is completed, the nucleosome cores in the region of the repair event do not return exactly to their original positions. We have also studied excision repair of UV and chemical damage in the highly repeated 172 base pair α DNA sequence in African green monkey cells. In UV irradiated cells, the rate and extent of repair resynthesis in this sequence is similar to that in bulk DNA. However, in cells containing furocoumarin adducts, repair resynthesis in α DNA is only about 30% of that in bulk DNA. Since the frequency of adducts does not seem to be reduced in α DNA, it appears that certain adducts in this unique DNA may be less accessible to repair. Endonuclease V of bacteriophage T4 incises DNA at pyrimidine dimers by cleaving first the glycosylic bond between deoxyribose and the 5′ pyrimidine of the dimer and then the phosphodiester bond between the two pyrimidines. We have cloned the gene (denV) that codes for this enzyme and have demonstrated its expression in uvrA recA and uvrB recA cells of E coli. Because T4 endonuclease V can alleviate the excision repair deficiency of xeroderma pigmentosum when added to permeabilized cells or to isolated nuclei after UV irradiation, the cloned denV gene may ultimately be of value for analyzing DNA repair pathways in cultured human cells.     

Anaerobic Immobilized Yeast Cell Fermentation and Anaerobic Remediation in Hybrid Reactor for Mineralization of Dicarboxylic Acid Solid Waste

Summary The solid resinous product (SRP) containing unsaturated/saturated dicarboxylic acid residues, phthalic acid and maleic acid is discharged as a solid waste during cracking of benzene over vanadium at temperatures above 500°C in the dicarboxylic acid manufacturing industry. In the present study the solid waste was diluted with water to a concentration of 0.5% w/v for microbial degradation. The waste was fermented in a reactor containing mesoporous activated carbon on which was immobilized Saccharomyces cerevisiae at an optimum residence time of 24 h at pH 6.5. The immobilized-yeast-treated samples were further treated in an upflow anaerobic reactor at an hydraulic retention time (HRT) of 0.1038 days at a hydraulic flow rate of 7.34 × 10⁻³ m³/day and chemical oxygen demand (COD) loading rate of 2.19 kg/m³/day. The pathway followed in the degradation of dicarboxylic acid into end products by anaerobic metabolism in the yeast cell fermentor and in the upflow anaerobic reactor was confirmed through HPLC, Fourier transform infra red spectroscopy and proton and ¹³C NMR spectroscopy.