The purpose of this study is to develop strategies to facilitate nerve regeneration using a synergistic combination of guidance cues. We are investigating the cellular mechanisms of development using adult rat hippocampal progenitor cells (AHPCs) and have demonstrated that manipulating a combination of physical, chemical and biological cues can lead to oriented growth and alignment of astrocyte...

Poultry feathers consist mainly of the protein keratin, which is rich in β-pleated sheets and consequently resistant to proteolysis. Although many keratinases have been identified, the reasons for their substrate specificity towards β-keratin remain unclear due to difficulties in preparing a soluble feather keratin substrate for use in activity assays. In the present study, we overexpressed Gal...

In a previous report (5), evidence was presented indicating that insulin is probably proteolytically inactivated by a system in rat liver extract. In the course of these studies, it was found that, in contrast to the degradation which occurs with insulin-P31, incubation of human serum albumin-P31 or ribonuclease-1131 with liver extract resulted in no apparent degradation; that is, with either s...

Collagen galactosyltransferase was purified 50-150-fold from chick-embryo extract. The tissue homogenate was prepared in the presence of Triton X-100, since the addition of the detergent doubled the enzyme activity in the homogenate and the extract. Three species of the enzyme activity with different molecular weights were recovered on gel filtration, the mol.wts. being about 450000, 200000 and...

Previous work at the University of New Mexico and elsewhere has shown that sulfate-reducing bacteria are capable of reducing uranium from the soluble +6 oxidation state to the insoluble +4 oxidation state. This chemistry forms the basis of a proposed ground water remediation strategy in which microbial reduction would be used to immobilize soluble uranium. One such system would consist of a sub...

abstract this study was performed in order to determine a suitable alternative substrate for peat in soilless culture in 2007. different plant wastes including carbonized rice hull, saw dust and dry pine leaves (pinus eldarica) were examined. treatments were 100% peat as control, peat plus dry pine leaves (1:1 v/v), peat plus carbonized rice hull (1:1 v/v) and peat plus saw dust (1:1 v/v). the ...

Experiments with the soluble supernatant fraction of fetal rat liver indicate that it contains a glutamine-dependent carbamyl phosphate synthetase. This enzyme can utilize ammonia or glutamine as substrate, but the K, for glutamine is low (approximately low5 M) while the Km for ammonium ion-ammonia is at least 100 times higher. The ATP saturation curve for the enzyme appears to be sigmoidal. Th...

Semicarbazide-sensitive amine oxidase (SSAO) is a copper-containing enzyme that catalyzes the oxidative deamination of endogenous and exogenous primary amines. SSAO exists in mammals both as a plasma-soluble and as a membrane-bound form, and its active site is able to come into contact with numerous xenobiotic, amine-containing compounds. The kinetic studies performed in this work showed that c...