Ion-pair extraction of bile acids with Lipidex gel

A new method for the extraction of bile acids from aqueous solutions, urine, plasma, and bile is described. A buffered solution of decyltrimethylammonium bromide is added to the sample to give a 0.03 m concentration of the counter-ion. The mixture is passed through a bed of Lipidex 1000, which is then washed with the buffered solution of counter-ion followed by water. The decyltrimethylammonium salts of bile acids are sorbed by the Lipidex and are eluted with methanol. Recoveries of unconjugated, taurine- and glycine-conjugated, sulfated, and glucuronidated bile acids are close to 100%. Unconjugated bile acids can also be quantitatively extracted from aqueous solutions and urine after acidification with acetic acid.     

Radioimmunoassay for quantitative determination of morphine in capsules of Papaver somniferum

A radioimmunoassay (RIA) procedure for the determination of pmol quantitites of morphine in capsule samples of Papaver somniferum was developed. An antiserum developed against a conjugate of morphine-3-hemisuccinate-BSA was relatively specific for morphine and possessed moderated cross-reactivity with codeine and mild cross-reactivity with thebaine, but none with narceine, papaverine, or noscapine. The standard curve was linear over a range of 0.01–0.20 ng. This assay allows for the rapid, sensitive and precise determination of morphine in unpurified aqueous extracts of capsule samples. The amounts of morphine in the aqueous extracts determined by radioimmunoassay were validated by high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). The two methods show a high correlation coefficient (r = 0.98) with no significant difference in determinations of morphine content by RIA and HPLC.     

Effects on microbial activity by extraction of indigenous cells from soil slurries

Abstract: Possible effects on the physiological activity and culturability of soil microorganisms by different soil dispersion procedures, and effects on activity caused by extracting bacteria from soil, were investigated. There was no apparent difference in cfu's with dispersion of a silty loam soil and a loamy sand soil with pyrophosphate as compared to dispersion in NaCl. Substrate-induced respiration was reduced in the silty loam soil, and methanol oxidation was reduced in the loamy sand soil with dispersion in pyrophosphate, and the soil pH was irreversibly increased by the treatment. Extracted bacterial fractions had lower numbers of culturable cells as percentage of the total number of bacteria in each fraction, lower respiration rates and no methanol oxidation activity as compared to the soil slurry both before and after extraction. The physiological activity was apparently not affected by the number of cells extracted. This indicates that the increased extraction rate of indigenous soil bacteria obtained by effective disruption of aggregates and detachment of cells from surfaces, only results in increased extraction of cells that have been physiologically changed as a result of the extraction process.     

High-throughput RNA extraction from plant samples based on homogenisation by reciprocal shaking in the presence of a mixture of sand and glass beads

We describe here a reliable high-throughput method for extraction of RNA from fresh or frozen plant tissue that obviates laborious and time-consuming homogenisation by mortar and pestle. The method is based on homogenisation by high-speed reciprocal shaking in presence of a mixture of inexpensive abrasive materials; i.e., quartz sand and glass beads. After homogenisation, the method follows a standard procedure for RNA extraction by phenol/LiCl. Yield and quality of RNA obtained by homogenisation with the sand/glass bead mix are identical to those obtained by mortar and pestle.     

Identification of single tiny seeds ofOrobanche using RAPD analysis

The tiny seeds of parasitic weeds of the genusOrobanche can be identified by using RAPD markers. A simple procedure for DNA extraction from single seeds, 10 μg each, followed by RAPD-PCR and using specific DNA markers, leads to species identification. Seeds of five different species could be identified using this method.     

Rapid authentication of animal cell lines using pyrolysis mass spectrometry and auto-associative artificial neural networks

Summary Pyrolysis mass spectrometry (PyMS) was used to produce biochemical fingerprints from replicate frozen cell cultures of mouse macrophage hybridoma 2C11-12, human leukaemia K562, baby hamster kidney BHK 21/C13, and mouse tumour BW-O, and a fresh culture of Chinese hamster ovary CHO cells. The dimensionality of these data was reduced by the unsupervised feature extraction pattern recognition technique of auto-associative neural networks. The clusters observed were compared with the groups obtained from the more conventional statistical approaches of hierarchical cluster analysis. It was observed that frozen and fresh cell line cultures gave very different pyrolysis mass spectra. When only the frozen animal cells were analysed by PyMS, auto-associative artificial neural networks (ANNs) were employed to discriminate between them successfully. Furthermore, very similar classifications were observed when the same spectral data were analysed using hierarchical cluster analysis. We demonstrate that this approach can detect the contamination of cell lines with low numbers of bacteria and fungi; this approach could plausibly be extended for the rapid detection of mycoplasma infection in animal cell lines. The major advantages that PyMS offers over more conventional methods used to type cell lines and to screen for microbial infection, such as DNA fingerprinting, are its speed, sensitivity and the ability to analyse hundreds of samples per day. We conclude that the combination of PyMS and ANNs can provide a rapid and accurate discriminatory technique for the authentication of animal cell line cultures.     

Improving protein extraction yield in reversed micellar systems through surface charge engineering

The mechanism of extraction of rat cytochrome b(5) from water into a sodium dioctylsulfosuccinate (AOT) micellar organic phase was studied using protein engineering of surface charged residues. The extraction behavior of native cytochrome b(5) and modified proteins with substitutions of the type glutamic acid --> lysine at positions 44 (E44K), 56 (E56K), and 92 (E92K), was studied as a function of pH. The results indicate that an important mechanism of extraction is an electrostatic interaction of this protein with the negatively charged surfactant. We demonstrate that it is possible to improve extraction by engineering the protein surface charge, increasing the driving force responsible for the protein transfer to the micellar phase. (c) 1994 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Facilitated transport of lactic acid in a stirred transfer cell

The application of liquid membrane extraction to the recovery of lactic acid from model systems and fermentation media was investigated. An experimental study of the facilitated transport of lactic acid using ALIQUAT 336 as a mobile carrier in a stirred transfer cell is reported. The effect of stirring speed, initial lactic acid concentration, carrier concentration, and NaCl as a reagent in the acceptor phase are considered. (c) 1994 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

A neural network model for the prediction of membrane-spanning amino acid sequences

The architecture and weights of an artificial neural network model that predicts putative transmembrane sequences have been developed and optimized by the algorithm of structure evolution. The resulting filter is able to classify membrane/nonmembrane transition regions in sequences of integral human membrane proteins with high accuracy. Similar results have been obtained for both training and test set data, indicating that the network has focused on general features of transmembrane sequences rather than specializing on the training data. Seven physicochemical amino acid properties have been used for sequence encoding. The predictions are compared to hydrophobicity plots.     

几种濒危植物及其近缘类群总DNA的提取与鉴定

用低ｐＨ 介质,高盐沉淀蛋白质方法成功地从银杉（Ｃａｔｈａｙａ ａｒｇｙｒｏｐｈｙｌｌａ Ｃｈｕｎ ｅｔＫｕａｎｇ）、矮牡丹（Ｐａｅｏｎｉａ ｓｕｆｆｒｕｔｉｃｏｓａ ｖａｒ． ｓｐｏｎｔａｎｅａ）、南川升麻（Ｃｉｍ ｉｃｉｆｕｇａ ｎａｎｃｈｕａｎｅｎｓｉｓＨｓｉａｏ）、裂叶沙参（Ａｄｅｎｏｐｈｏｒａ ｌｏｂｏｐｈｙｌｌａ）的同属种泡沙参（Ａ． ｐｏｔａｎｉｎｉｉ）等植物中提取和部分纯化了细胞总ＤＮＡ,并对其产率、质量和纯度作了鉴定。此方法的关键是用了一个低ｐＨ提取介质,它能有效防止组织破碎及沉淀大量材料时的电离化作用及酚化合物的进一步氧化。所得ＤＮＡ 不需经氯化铯梯度离心或柱层析,直接可用于限制性片断长度多态性（ＲＦＬＰ）及随机扩增的ＤＮＡ多态性（ＲＡＰＤ）等分子水平的遗传标记。为检测濒危植物的遗传多样性提供了一套迅速、简便和可靠的技术方案