BACKGROUND Broadly cross-reactive, neutralizing human monoclonal antibodies, including 2F5, 2G12, 4E10 and IgG1 b12, can inhibit HIV-1 infection in vitro at very low concentrations. We examined the ability of these antibodies to inhibit cell-cell fusion between Clone69TRevEnv cells induced to express the viral envelope proteins, gp120/gp41 (Env), and highly CD4-positive SupT1 cells. The cells w...

The rice brown planthopper (BPH; Nilaparvata lugens) is a serious pest of rice crops throughout Asia, damaging plants both through its feeding behavior and by acting as a virus vector. Like many homopteran pests of crops, it is primarily a phloem feeder, abstracting sap via specially adapted mouthparts. An artificial diet bioassay system for this pest was developed to allow the effects of poten...

Evidence is accumulating that commonly used pesticides are linked to decline of pollinator populations; adverse effects of three neonicotinoids on bees have led to bans on their use across the European Union. Developing insecticides that pose negligible risks to beneficial organisms such as honeybees is desirable and timely. One strategy is to use recombinant fusion proteins containing neuroact...

Despite their importance as pollinators in crops and wild plants, solitary bees have not previously been included in non-target testing of insect-resistant transgenic crop plants. Larvae of many solitary bees feed almost exclusively on pollen and thus could be highly exposed to transgene products expressed in the pollen. The potential effects of pollen from oilseed rape expressing the cysteine ...

Human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) transmission often results from infection by a single transmitted/founder (T/F) virus. Here, we investigated the sensitivity of T/F HIV-1 envelope glycoproteins (Envs) to microbicide candidate carbohydrate-binding agents (CBAs) griffithsin (GRFT), cyanovirin-N (CV-N) and Galanthus nivalis agglutinin (GNA), showing that T/F Envs demonstrated different ...

A mannose (Man)-binding lectin has been isolated and characterized from the thallus of the liverwort Marchantia polymorpha. N-terminal sequencing indicated that the M. polymorpha agglutinin (Marpola) shares sequence similarity with the superfamily of monocot Man-binding lectins. Searches in the databases yielded expressed sequence tags encoding Marpola. Sequence analysis, molecular modeling, an...

The plant lectins from Hippeastrum hybrid (HHA) and Galanthus nivalis (GNA) are 50,000-D tetramers showing specificity for alpha-(1,3) and/or alpha-(1,6)-mannose oligomers. They inhibit HIV-1 infection at a 50% effective concentration of 0.2 to 0.3 microg/ml. Escalating HHA or GNA concentrations (up to 500 microg/ml) led to the isolation of three HIV-1(III(B)) strains in CEM T cell cultures tha...

A novel agglutinin gene was cloned from Arisaema lobatum using SMART RACE-PCR technology. The full-length cDNA of Arisaema lobatum agglutinin (ala) was 1078 bp and contained a 774 bp open reading frame encoding a lectin precursor (proproprotein) of 258 amino acid residues with a 23 aa signal peptide. ALA contained three mannose-binding sites (QXDXNXVXY) with two-conserved domains of 45% identit...

A large number of researches focused on glycoproteins E1 and E2 of hepatitis C virus (HCV) aimed at the development of anti-HCV vaccines and inhibitors. Enhancement of E1/E2 expression and secretion is critical for the characterization of these glycoproteins and thus for subunit vaccine development. In this study, we designed and synthesized three signal peptide sequences based on online progra...