Psychologists often use latent transition analysis (LTA) to investigate state-to-state change in discrete latent constructs involving delinquent or risky behaviors. In this setting, latent-state-dependent nonignorable missingness is a potential concern. For some longitudinal models (e.g., growth models), a large literature has addressed extensions to accommodate nonignorable missingness. In con...

Lipoteichoic acid (LTA), extracted from Streptococcus mutans 10449 by hot aqueous phenol, was partially purified by Sepharose 6B column chromatography in 0.01 M sodium acetate, pH 6.0, containing 0.25 M sodium chloride and 0.001 M EDTA. Nucleic acid and polysaccharide were precipitated from the LTA-containing column peak by the addition of 2 volumes of chloroform-methanol (1:5). The resulting s...

Lipoteichoic acid (LTA) is an important cell wall polymer in gram-positive bacteria and often consists a polyglycerolphosphate backbone chain that is linked to the membrane by a glycolipid. In Listeria monocytogenes this glycolipid is Gal-Glc-DAG or Gal-Ptd-6Glc-DAG. Using a bioinformatics approach, we have identified L. monocytogenes genes predicted to be involved in glycolipid (lmo2555 and lm...

We recently purified lipoteichoic acid (LTA) from Staphylococcus aureus to more than 99% purity by a novel preparation method and deduced its structure with the first nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) of a complete LTA. In contrast to Gram-negative lipopolysaccharides, this LTA requires the toll-like receptor (TLR)-2 and not TLR-4 for cytokine induction in monocytes and macrophages. To elucidate...

Bacterial cell surface molecules are at the forefront of host-bacterium interactions. Teichoic acids are observed only in Gram-positive bacteria, and they are one of the main cell surface components. Teichoic acids play important physiological roles and contribute to the bacterial interaction with their host. In particular, lipoteichoic acid (LTA) anchored to the cell membrane has attracted att...

Lipoteichoic acid (LTA) is a major immunostimulatory molecule in the cell wall of Gram-positive bacteria. Adhesion of LTA to a polystyrene surface drastically increased its immunostimulatory potency in human whole blood in comparison to soluble LTA, although only 1% of the LTA had bound, as determined using rhodamine-labelled LTA. The release of the proinflammatory cytokines IL-1beta, TNF and I...

Drastic changes can take place in the structure, dynamics, and thermodynamics of a fluid when it is confined to spaces of molecular dimensions, as compared to its bulk counterpart. Water confinement in the nanometer-scale channels and pores of inorganic open framework materials, such as zeolites, are of great scientific interest. Zeolites are crystalline aluminosilicates, with various controlle...

Macrophage stimulation by lipoteichoic acid (LTA) and hemoglobin (Hb) requires Toll-like receptors 2 and 4 (TLR2 and -4). There are two distinct temporal phases of interleukin-6 (IL-6) production. The first results in a slight enhancement of IL-6 secretion in response to LTA plus Hb compared to that with LTA alone and is TLR4 independent. The second requires TLR4 and accounts for most of the ad...

Lipoteichoic acid (LTA), a key cell wall component of Gram-positive bacteria, seems to function as an immune activator with characteristics very similar to lipopolysaccharide from Gram-negative bacteria. It has been shown that LTA binds CD14 and triggers activation via Toll-like receptor 2, but whether the activation occurs at the cell surface or internalization is required to trigger signaling...

Protoplasts of a group A streptococcal strain were shown to contain enzymatic activity capable of converting lipoteichoic acid (LTA) to deacylated lipoteichoic acid (dLTA). The enzyme(s) appear to be located mainly in the membrane, although activity was also found in the cytoplasm. Determination of the sites of cleavage within the LTA molecule was approached by comparing the chemical compositio...