The role of membrane sialic acid in erythrocyte survival is unclear, although there is evidence for a reduction in sialic acid and surface charge in older erythrocytes. We reduced the surface charge of human, rat, and rabbit erythrocytes by removing sialic acid with neuraminidase. Reduction in sialic acid correlated with decreases in electrophoretic mobility and loss of PAS staining of membrane...

AIM The objective of this study is to correlate microalbumin and sialic acid levels with anthropometric variables in type 2 diabetic patients with and without nephropathy. METHODS This study was a case control study and included 108 Trinidadian subjects (aged 15-60 years) of which 30 were healthy individuals, 38 had type 2 diabetes, and 40 were of type 2 diabetic patients with nephropathy. Bl...

Epidemic keratoconjunctivitis (EKC) is a severe eye infection caused mainly by adenovirus type 8 (Ad8), Ad19, and Ad37. We have shown that the EKC-causing adenoviruses use sialic acid as a cellular receptor on A549 cells instead of the coxsackie-adenovirus receptor, which is used by most adenoviruses. Recently, Wu et al. (Virology 279:78-89, 2001) proposed that Ad37 uses a 50-kDa protein as a r...

Serum sialic acid and total hexosamine values were remarkably elevated in the patients with malignant bone tumor and/or metastasis, in general, but in the great number of the patients with benign bone tumor both these levels remained within the normal range. Whereas, there were some cases with malignant bone tumor showing normal values in both serum sialic acid and total hexosamine levels, but ...

OBJECTIVE To test the hypothesis that an increased plasma concentration of sialic acid, a marker of the acute-phase response, is related to the presence of diabetic micro- and macrovascular complications in type 1 diabetes. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS We investigated the relationship between plasma sialic acid concentration and nephropathy, retinopathy, neuropathy, and coronary heart disease ...

ASPERGILLUS: fumigatus is a ubiquitous soil fungus that causes invasive lung disease in the immunocompromised host. The structure of the conidial wall has not been well characterized although it is thought that adhesins present on the surface are involved in attachment of the conidia to host lung cells and proteins, which is a prerequisite for the establishment of infection. Negatively charged ...

Avian influenza A viruses exhibit a strong preference for using alpha2,3-linked sialic acid as a receptor. Until recently, the presumed lack of this receptor in human airways was believed to constitute an efficient barrier to avian influenza A virus infection of humans. Recent zoonotic outbreaks of avian influenza A virus have triggered researchers to analyse tissue distribution of sialic acid ...

From 61 to 92% of the total sialic acid of a variety of human lymphoid cell lines maintained in tissue culture is present on the cell surface as measured by its susceptibility to cleavage by Clostridium perfringens neuraminidase. These cells contain from 1.22 x 10(8) to 6.99 x 10(8) molecules of surface sialic acid per cell. In synchronized cultures synthesis of surface sialic acid occurs only ...

A manual procedure for measuring sialic acids in blood and tissue and an automated procedure for measuring sialic acids in blood have been combined and modified so that sialic acid concentrations in both blood and tissue can be determined by continuous-flow analysis. Because 2-deoxyribose interferes with tissue sialic acid determinations, there must be a correction for color produced by it. In ...

Aspergillus fumigatus is an opportunistic fungal pathogen that causes a life-threatening invasive fungal disease (invasive aspergillosis, IA) in immunocompromised individuals. The first step of pathogenesis is thought to be the attachment of conidia to proteins in lung tissue. Previous studies in our laboratory have shown that conidia adhere to basal lamina proteins via negatively charged sugar...