Impaired leukocyte influx in cervix of postterm women not responding to prostaglandin priming

Background  

Prolonged pregnancies are associated with increased rate of maternal and fetal complications. Post term women could be divided into at least two subgroups, one where parturition is possible to induce by prostaglandins and one where it is not. Our aim was to study parameters in cervical biopsies in women with spontaneous delivery at term (controls) and compare to those that are successfully induced post term (responders), and those that are not induced (non-responders), by local prostaglandin treatment.     

Three-dimensional model of the α-subunit of bacterial luciferase

The predicted secondary structure of both subunits of bacterial luciferase is in accordance with a regular 8-fold α/β-barrel structure. The 3D profile^1,2 confirmed that luciferase subunits are compatible with the α/β-barrel despite the absence of sequence similarity with any α/β-barrel protein. The three-dimensional structure of 260 residues of the α-chain of luciferase was modeled from coordinates of glycolate oxidase and then energy minimized. The model obtained satisfies the criteria for the structure of a globular protein and is in accordance with known experimental data. From the model it is possible to predict active site residues involved in binding and catalysis. These predictions, and thus also the model, can be tested by protein engineering experiments. © 1995 Wiley-Liss, Inc.