The objective of this study was to test the hypothesis that in ovo injection of carbohydrates into pigeon (Columba livia) amnion may improve the small intestine development. At d 14.5 of incubation, 80 fertile eggs were injected with 200 μL of carbohydrate solution, and 80 control eggs were not injected. The carbohydrate solution (wt/vol) contained 2.5% maltose + 2.5% sucrose, all dissolved in ...

High-level expression of human trypsinogens as inclusion bodies in Escherichia coli requires deletion of the secretory signal sequence and placement of an initiator methionine at the N terminus. Trypsinogen preparations obtained this way contain a mixture of abnormal N termini, as a result of processing by cytoplasmic aminopeptidases. Here, we describe an expression system that produces recombi...

The increase of blood pressure with development and ageing has been extensively reported. The aim of this study is to analyse the changes in the angiotensinase and vasopressin-degrading activities in men and women in various age groups. Aminopeptidase N ( A P N ) , a m i n o p e p t i d a s e B ( A P B ) a n d vasopressin-degrading activity (AVP-DA) were measured fluorometrically using arylamid...

Aminopeptidase N purified from whole Manduca sexta midgut binds the Cry1Ac insecticidal toxin from Bacillus thuringiensis and this binding is inhibited by N-acetylgalactosamine (GalNAc). We have examined the membrane permeabilising activity of the Cry1Ac toxin using brush border membrane vesicles (BBMV) prepared from the anterior (A-BBMV) and posterior (P-BBMV) subregions of the M. sexta midgut...

Aminopeptidases process the N-terminal amino acids of target substrates by sequential cleavage of one residue at a time. They are found in all cell compartments of prokaryotes and eukaryotes, being implicated in the major proteolytic events of cell survival, defense, growth, and development. We present a new approach for the fast and reliable evaluation of the substrate specificity of individua...

Cell-associated glutamyl aminopeptidase activity was detected in several strains of Neisseria meningitidis and Moraxella urethralis grown in liquid culture. Enzymatic activity was released from washed cells by ultrasonic treatment and monitored fluorometrically by measuring the release of aryl groups from 17 different aminoacyl-beta-naphthylamides. Substrates containing a glutamyl moiety were r...