Nerve elements of the heart of the rat after right-sided vagotomy

A quantitative electron microscopical investigation of the sinus node of the atrioventricular His' bundle and of the perinodal working myocardium in intact rats and 7, 15 and 30 days after right-sided vagotomy has revealed variable character of changes in the neural elements of the zones mentioned. Certain ultrastructural rearrangements in the neural apparatus are described; they reflect a combination of destructive and regenerative processes in the heart under vagotomy. Thirty days after the operation, regeneration of the neural elements in the sinoauricular area is of restorative and in the atrioventricular area--of excess character. The data are presented on dynamics of changes in the diameter of the amyelinated neural fibers in the cardiac areas investigated. Participation of both nervi vagi in innervation of the main and additional pacemakers of the organ is discussed.     

Characteristics of the differentiation of hematopoietic stem cells of the bone marrow in experimental lesions of the liver

The liver lesion in the CBA mice has been induced by administration of one of three agents five times every day; gamma-globulin fraction of antihepatocytotoxic serum in doses of 4.8 and 7.7 mg of protein per 100 g of body mass; gamma-globulin fraction of normal rabbit serum and bovine serum albumin in a dose of 4.8 mg of protein; three- four- or five-fold introduction of carbon tetrachloride in a dose of 0.5 ml per 100 g of body mass with oil (1:1) each three days; calibrated stenosis of the portal vein was produced. The total number of hemopoietic stem cells in the bone marrow was estimated by the colony-forming unit/spleen assay. Histological analysis of the colony-forming units was applied. The liver lesion was accompanied by a decrease in the ratio of the erythroid/granulocytic colonies.     

The isolation and characteristics of variant plague microbes not producing the capsular antigen

Fifteen stable variants of Yersinia pestis strains exhibiting different degrees of virulence for white mice and guinea pigs were obtained. Multiple passages of the organisms at 37 degrees C in a fluid nutrient medium containing antiplague agglutinating serum were found to be the most efficient method for obtaining noncapsular forms of the plague agent. Acquisition of the Fra(-) phenotype both by wild and laboratory strains was not associated with a loss of the high-molecular plasmid by cells but was probably a result of mutational alterations in the plasmid genes.     

A web services choreography scenario for interoperating bioinformatics applications

Background  

Very often genome-wide data analysis requires the interoperation of multiple databases and analytic tools. A large number of genome databases and bioinformatics applications are available through the web, but it is difficult to automate interoperation because: 1) the platforms on which the applications run are heterogeneous, 2) their web interface is not machine-friendly, 3) they use a non-standard format for data input and output, 4) they do not exploit standards to define application interface and message exchange, and 5) existing protocols for remote messaging are often not firewall-friendly. To overcome these issues, web services have emerged as a standard XML-based model for message exchange between heterogeneous applications. Web services engines have been developed to manage the configuration and execution of a web services workflow.     

Immobilized pH gradient-driven paper-based IEF: a new method for fractionating complex peptide mixtures before MS analysis

Introduction  

The vast difference in the abundance of different proteins in biological samples limits the determination of the complete proteome of a cell type, requiring fractionation of proteins and peptides before MS analysis.