Oral and intranasal administration of somatostatin DNA vaccine mediated by attenuated Salmonella enterica serovar Typhimurium to promote growth of piglets.

An attenuated strain of Salmonella typhimurium has been used as a carrier for oral and intranasal genetic immunization. Here, we evaluate the efficacy of a vaccine strain of S. typhimurium. CSO22 (pGM-CSF/SS, plasmid granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor/somatostatin) expressing two copies of SS genes. A total of 115 piglets, aged 2 months old, were either orally or intranasally immunized against the vaccine strain CSO22 (pGM-CSF/SS) with three dosages (5 × 10(10) colony forming units (CFU), 5 × 10(9) CFU and 5 × 10(8) CFU). For oral immunization, the specific anti-SS antibodies were detected in the immunized piglets. The levels of SS antibodies in the high-dose immunized group (5 × 10(10) CFU) were significantly higher than that in the phosphate buffered saline immunized group (P < 0.01) and 40% of animals were positive in SS antibodies in the high-dose immunized group. Moreover, the weight gain of the high-dose group was increased by 20.86%, 10.26% and 15.30% during 4, 8 and 12 weeks, respectively, after immunization in comparison to the control. For intranasal immunization, the growth of the low-dose group was increased by 10.23% in the whole test period (12 weeks). In conclusion, our results suggest that the recombinant strain could elicit anti-SS antibodies and improve the growth performance of immunized piglets, and that the oral immunization program is better than the intranasal program.

Conformations of cis- and trans-2,3-methanomethionine stereoisomers in the tripeptide mimic system Ac[cyclo-M]NHiPr.

Quenched molecular dynamics (QMD) was used to simulate low-energy conformers of the tripeptide mimics Ac¿cyclo-Met¿NHiPr, where the 2.3-methanomethionine is the cis-derivative (2R,3S)-cyclo-Met and the trans-derivative (2R,3R)-cyclo-Met. Variations of the favored omicron, upsilon values. and differences between the simulated preferred conformations for the two structures, were rationalized and discussed. Physical data for the cis-derivative (NMR, CD and FT-IR) gave no conclusive evidence for any preferred conformation. However for the trans-derivative, Ac¿(2R,3R)-cyclo-Met¿NHiPr, the physical data suggests that a conformer with partial helical structure is favored. This work provides details of how the rigidly constrained side chain and cyclopropane of 2,3-methanoamino acids can be used to manipulate phi, psi values in a logical fashion.