The controversy about the immune stimulatory properties of lipoteichoic acid (LTA) from Staphylococcus aureus was solved recently by showing decomposition and inactivation of LTA obtained by conventional purification strategies, as well as pronounced LPS contamination of commercial preparations. By introducing a novel preparation method, the structure of bioactive LTA was elucidated. This struc...

Human Toll-like receptor (TLR) 4 and TLR2 receptors recognize LPS or lipoteichoic acid (LTA), respectively. Prolonged exposure of human macrophages/monocytes to bacterial LPS induces a state of adaptation/tolerance to subsequent LPS challenge. Inflammatory gene expressions such as IL-1beta and TNF-alpha are selectively repressed, while certain anti-inflammatory genes such as secretory IL-1R ant...

BACKGROUND Lipoteichoic acid (LTA) and lipopolysaccharide (LPS), the toxicants from bacteria, are potent inducers of inflammatory cytokines, such as tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF) and interleukin-1beta (IL-1). Although LTA is much less reported than that on LPS, LTA is regarded as the gram-positive equivalent to LPS in some aspects. We investigated the LTA-induced signal transduction and bio...

BACKGROUND Lipoteichoic acid (LTA), a gram-positive bacterial outer membrane component, can cause septic shock. Our previous studies showed that the gram-negative endotoxin, lipopolysaccharide (LPS), could induce surfactant protein-A (SP-A) production in human alveolar epithelial (A549) cells. OBJECTIVES In this study, we further evaluated the effect of LTA on SP-A biosynthesis and its possib...

Highlights 2  Single phase LaTi2Al9O19 (LTA) has been successfully synthesized by sol-gel method at relatively low temperature (1350 o C), something not previously investigated.  The sol-gel synthesized LTA shows good thermochemical stability up to 1500 o C.  Sol-gel synthesized LTA shows higher coefficients of thermal expansion than the solid state reaction synthesized LTA.  LTA is a face ...

Many Gram-positive bacteria produce lipoteichoic acid (LTA) polymers whose physiological roles have remained a matter of debate because of the lack of LTA-deficient mutants. The ypfP gene responsible for biosynthesis of a glycolipid found in LTA was deleted in Staphylococcus aureus SA113, causing 87% reduction of the LTA content. Mass spectrometry and nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy rev...

Modulation of activity in the left temporoparietal area (LTA) by 10 Hz repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) results in a transient reduction of tinnitus. We aimed to replicate these results and test whether transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) of LTA could yield similar effect. Patients with tinnitus underwent six different types of stimulation in a random order: 10-Hz ...

Lipoteichoic acids (LTA) released by gram-positive bacteria can spontaneously bind to mammalian cell surfaces. In the present study, erythrocytes (E) sensitized with pneumococcal LTA (LTA-E) were used as a model system to determine if LTA could render host cells susceptible to damage by autologous complement. Complement (C)-mediated lysis of LTA-E from normal rats and normal humans occurred whe...

Dried and wet mouse fibroblast monolayers with labeled collagenous substrate were used to study the effects of lipoteichoic acid (LTA) on cellular prolyl hydroxylase activity. LTA is a scavenger of cations, and Fe2+ is essential for prolyl hydroxylase activity. Surprisingly, addition of LTA to dried monolayers resulted in increased prolyl hydroxylase activity, whereas preincubation of Fe2+ with...

Lipoteichoic acids (LTAs) have been proposed as putative Gram-positive immunostimulatory counterparts to Gram-negative lipopolysaccharides. However, LTA from Staphylococcus aureus, the clinically most frequent Gram-positive pathogen, was inactive after purification. Here, a novel isolation procedure to prepare pure (>99%) biologically active LTA, allowing the first structural analysis by nuclea...