[Comparison of Bacteria ERIC-PCR Fingerprints of Index Fingers and Contactants].

OBJECTIVES: To explore the bacteria relevance between index fingers and contactant' surfaces （mobile phone touch screen and desktop of personal office table）. METHODS: Bacteria were collected from the index fingers, mobile phone touch screen and desktop of personal office table of 10 volunteers. Enterobacterial repetitive intergenic consensus （ERIC）-PCR fingerprint was established by PCR amplification technique of metagenome. RESULTS: There were 7 volunteers' ERIC-PCR fingerprints of index fingers matched that took from the mobile phone touch screens, and different from each other. There were 3 volunteers' ERIC-PCR fingerprints of index fingers matched that took from desk top of personal office table, and other 7 volunteers' ERIC-PCR fingerprints did not match perfectly with that took from desk top of personal office table, but had at least one similar band for both. CONCLUSIONS: The bacteria on index finger shows individual specificity, which on mobile phone touching screen and personal desktop may be a new biological sample of forensic identification.

A strategy for rational design of fully synthetic glycopeptide conjugate vaccines.

The present study describes a strategy to rationally design fully synthetic glycopeptide conjugate vaccines. Glycopeptide immunogens were constructed by coupling synthetic oligosaccharides comprising repeating units of synthetic 3-beta-D-ribose-(1-1)-D-ribitol-5-phosphate (sPRP) to synthetic peptides containing potent T-helper cell determinants and B-cell epitopes of the Haemophilus influenzae type b (Hib) outer membrane proteins (OMPs) P1, P2, and P6. Rabbit immunogenicity studies revealed that some of these fully synthetic glycoconjugates were capable of eliciting high titers of both anti-PRP and anti-OMP immunoglobulin G antibodies. In addition, we systematically investigated the factors which could influence their immunogenicity. We observed that the magnitude of the anti-PRP antibody response markedly depended on the relative spatial orientation of sPRP and T-cell epitopes, the anti-PRP antibody response was enhanced when a multiple antigenic peptide was used as a carrier, the anti-PRP antibody response was optimal for three PRP repeating units, and lipidation of peptide-PRP conjugates had a minimal effect on the magnitude of the anti-PRP antibody response. The results of this study clearly demonstrate that coupling a carbohydrate hapten to a peptide can provide T-cell help and convert it into a T-cell-dependent antigen. The antisera raised against these conjugates were also found to be protective against Hib infection in the infant rat model of bacteremia.

Comparison of phosphatidylethanolamine and phosphatidylcholine vesicles produced by treating cholate-phospholipid micelles with cholestyramine.

We have previously reported the preparation and characterization of unilamellar phosphatidylcholine vesicles from cholate-phospholipid micelles treated with the bile-salt sequestrant cholestyramine (Ventimiglia, J.B., Levesque, M.C., and Chang, T.Y. (1986) Anal. Biochem. 157, 323-330). We now describe a slightly modified procedure for forming unilamellar vesicles consisting of phosphatidylethanolamine, and the characterization of the resultant vesicles by gel exclusion chromatography. In contrast to phosphatidylcholine vesicles, the formation of phosphatidylethanolamine vesicles is highly pH dependent; pH 9.2 is superior to pH 8.1 or pH 7.1. Via the dialysis step, the final pH of the vesicles could be altered to be at 8.1 or at 7.1, although decreasing the pH from 9.2 resulted in the loss of approx. 20% of the total lipid as large aggregates. Residual cholate was still present in the resultant vesicles after cholestyramine treatment; the low levels of cholate, removable by dialysis, was found to stabilize the phosphatidylethanolamine vesicles formed at pH 8.1. These results suggest that the majority of the amino groups of the phosphatidylethanolamine molecules should either be in the deprotonated form, or be neutralized and/or restricted by the anionic cholate monomers in order to facilitate the vesicle formation. Phosphatidylethanolamine vesicles were found to be much more permeable to small ions than phosphatidylcholine vesicles. The incorporation of phosphatidylserine, but not phosphatidylinositol, into the phosphatidylethanolamine vesicles at 10% resulted in decreased permeability of the bilayer against the cobalt ion influx, suggesting cooperative and complementary packing of phosphatidylethanolamine and phosphatidylserine molecules within the bilayer.

Purification and some properties of glycerol-3-phosphate dehydrogenase from rabbit skeletal muscle mitochondria.

Glycerol-3-phosphate dehydrogenase (E. C. 1. 1. 99. 5) was solubilized from rabbit skeletal muscle mitochondria by Triton X-100 and purified through hydroxyapatite column chromatography, DEAE-Sepharose CL-6B column chromatography and sucrose density gradient ultracentrifugation. The preparation was electrophoretically pure, the total recovery was 10% and the specific activity had been increased 200-fold. The apparent molecular weight of the enzyme polypeptide was 69,000, it existed in the form of enzyme-Triton X-100 complex with a Stokes' radius of 59 A and a sedimentation coefficient of 10.7 S. There were 1.7 mg Triton X-100 and 26 micrograms phospholipid per mg protein of the preparation. The enzyme absorbed at 410 and 460 nm which could be attributed to non-haem iron and FAD respectively. Both of the absorption would be largely diminished by adding the substrate glycerol-3-phosphate.

Functional changes in rat-liver mitochondria during the early phase of burn injury.

Using succinate as a substrate, the respiratory control ratios of liver mitochondria from burned male Sprague-Dawley rats with full skin thickness burns covering 20 per cent of the body surface area were increased at 15, 30, 45 and 60 min after burn, the peak being at 30 min post-burn. A sham group acted as control. In comparison with the sham group, the specific activity of succinic dehydrogenase was slightly decreased and the activities of cytochromes b and c + c were decreased significantly 30 min after burning. All the results suggest a lack of increased metabolic activity during the early phase of burn injury.