Treatment of burns casualties after fire at Bradford City football ground.

On 11 May 1985 the main stand of Bradford City Football Club caught fire. Within four minutes the stand was alight from end to end. Fifty three people were burnt to death and about 250 injured; 83 required admission to hospital, and 55 of these were treated by primary excision of their burns and skin grafting. In such disasters the help of staff from other hospitals and areas is essential. Patients should be assessed to see whether they have burns that will ultimately be fatal; if they have they should not be sent to regional burns units, where they would take up beds that could be used for patients with treatable burns. All districts should ensure that their plans for accidents in which burns injuries predominate are adequate.     

The sequence of rat leukosialin (W3/13 antigen) reveals a molecule with O-linked glycosylation of one third of its extracellular amino acids.

Leukosialin is one of the major glycoproteins of thymocytes and T lymphocytes and is notable for a very high content of O-linked carbohydrate structures. The full protein sequence for rat leukosialin as translated from cDNA clones is now reported. The molecule contains 371 amino acids with 224 residues outside the cell, one transmembrane sequence and 124 cytoplasmic residues. Data from the peptide sequence and carbohydrate composition suggest that one in three of the extracellular amino acids may be O-glycosylated with no N-linked glycosylation sites. The cDNA sequence contained a CpG rich region in the 3' coding sequence and a large 3' non-coding region which included tandem repeats of the sequence GGAT.     

Assessing toxicity of Lake Diefenbaker (Saskatchewan,Canada) sediments using algal and nematode bioassays

Lake Diefenbaker, on the South Saskatchewan River, Saskatchewan, Canada, receives, on average, 90% of its inflow from snowmelt and rainfall in the Rocky Mountains. The inflowing rivers also receive irrigation return flows and municipal and industrial effluents which may result in the contamination of lake sediments. The sediments were assessed by nematode and algal bioassays.The toxicity of five chemical fractions of the sediment was determined using the nematode Panagrellus redivivus as the test organisms. The results suggest that the sediment chemical fractions frequently inhibit growth and maturation, while lethality was observed at 4 of 12 sites.Samples from 3 of these sites were further evaluated using conventional elutriate Algal Fractionation Bioassays (AFB) with both natural Lake Diefenbaker phytoplankton and a mixed laboratory grown algal culture. The natural phytoplankton showed inhibition at sediment: water ratios of 10: 1; whereas the algal cultures showed both enhancement and inhibition. Evidently, the sediments are frequently toxic to the species tested except for the algal culture. The AFB assesses the mitigative and synergistic effects of contaminants and nutrients and being a conventional elutriate, is more realistic and potentially more acceptable than the chemical fractionation/nematode bioassay technique which essentially considers potential trace organic contaminant effects.     

The cooperative antioxidant role of glutathione with a lipid-soluble and a water-soluble antioxidant during peroxidation of liposomes initiated in the aqueous phase and in the lipid phase

A study is made of the effect of GSH as a co-antioxidant with vitamin E during free radical chain autoxidation inhibition studies of dilinoleoylphosphatidylcholine (DLPC) liposomes. Oxidations are initiated in the aqueous phase with azobis(2-amidinopropane hydrochloride) and in the bilayer phase of DLPC with azobis(2,4-dimethylvaleronitrile) under known conditions of the rate of free radical chain initiation (Ri). In reactions initiated in the aqueous phase, GSH is not an efficient antioxidant when acting alone; however, in cooperation with vitamin E in the bilayers, it does effect significant extensions of the efficient induction period of vitamin E. Quantitative studies show that GSH "spares" 0.4 molecules of vitamin E in the bilayer/molecule of GSH and therefore terminates approximately 0.8 peroxyl radical chains as a co-antioxidant with vitamin E. In contrast, GSH is not an effective co-antioxidant with an efficient water-soluble antioxidant, 6-hydroxy-2,5,7,8-tetramethylchroman-2-carboxylate (Trolox). GSH spares only 0.08 molecules of Trolox/molecule of GSH during autoxidation initiated in the aqueous phase with azobis(2-amidinopropane hydrochloride). The inhibition rate constant for GSH in trapping aqueous phase peroxyls is at least an order of magnitude less than that of Trolox. When peroxidation is initiated in the bilayer phase of DLPC with azobis(2,4-dimethylvaleronitrile), GSH is not an effective co-antioxidant with either vitamin E in the bilayer or Trolox in the water. Comparatively higher ratios of GSH to E (GSH/E = 50) or Trolox (GSH/Trolox = 30) are required to give significant extensions of the E or Trolox induction periods. GSH is estimated to preserve only approximately one vitamin E or Trolox molecule for a hundred GSH for peroxidations initiated in the DLPC bilayers. From the kinetic studies and GSH decay studies during inhibition periods, it is concluded that GSH does not act synergistically by regenerating ArOH from the phenoxyl, ArO, radical of vitamin E or Trolox. The mode of antioxidant action of GSH is concluded to be that of trapping peroxyl radicals in the aqueous phase and thereby indirectly sparing vitamin E in the bilayer.     

Isolation, identification, and structural analysis of the mycobactins of Mycobacterium avium, Mycobacterium intracellulare, Mycobacterium scrofulaceum, and Mycobacterium paratuberculosis.

Methods were devised to purify the cell-associated, iron-binding compounds known as mycobactins from the closely related species Mycobacterium avium, Mycobacterium intracellulare, and Mycobacterium scrofulaceum (i.e., the MAIS complex of organisms). The mycobactins from these three species showed a structure that is common to the mycobactins from all the mycobacteria examined to date. However, these mycobactins were unique in that they had more than one alkyl chain. The M. scrofulaceum mycobactins differed from other MAIS mycobactins by a shift in the position of the double bond in the R1 alkyl chain. Traces of other mycobactin types were observed in ethanol extracts of the three species, and examination of the chromatographic properties of these mycobactins showed that each species produced five mycobactin types. Each mycobactin could be subdivided further by the length of its R1 alkyl chain. No differences in the production of these novel mycobactin were observed among species. Mycobactins from three strains of Mycobacterium paratuberculosis and two wood pigeon strains of Mycobacterium avium which had lost their original growth requirements for mycobactin after repeated subculturing in laboratory growth media were examined by thin-layer chromatography and high-pressure liquid chromatography. Each organism produced a mycobactin with similar chromatographic properties to those synthesized by MAIS organisms. M. paratuberculosis NADC 18 produced at least two components in our laboratory, and nuclear magnetic resonance analysis of the major component showed this mycobactin to be identical to that produced by M. intracellulare M12. However, a sample of mycobactin J isolated by Merkal and McCullough (Curr. Microbiol. 7:333-335, 1982) from M. paratuberculosis NADC 18 was different from our isolates and appeared to correspond to a minor mycobactin component we had seen by thin-layer chromatography. No reason for this difference could be evinced. Our findings indicate that there is a close taxonomic relationship between M. paratuberculosis and the MAIS complex.