Apo(a) is a large glycoprotein of unknown function that circulates in plasma as part of lipoprotein(a). Apo(a) is structurally related to plasminogen and contains at least 10 kringle (K)4 repeats (type 1-10), a K5 repeat and sequences similar to the protease domain of plasminogen. Plasminogen generates two biologically active peptides: plasmin and angiostatin, a kringle-containing peptide. As a...

BACKGROUND Antimicrobial peptides are components of the innate immunity that play an important role in systemic and oral health. OBJECTIVES The antibacterial activity of the amphibian-derived K4 -S4(1-15)a antimicrobial peptide was tested against oral pathogens associated with caries and periodontitis and compared with the activities of the human-derived antimicrobial peptides LL-37 and dhvar...

In the present study, we developed an antitumor immunoconjugate that appears to be promising as a novel curative antitumor agent against a variety of human solid tumors. We generated a new antihuman endoglin (EDG) monoclonal antibody (mAb) K4-2C10 (or termed SN6f) that cross-reacts with mouse endothelial cells. Such cross-reactive anti-EDG mAbs have not been reported previously. This mAb was us...

A kinetic study of the regeneration reaction of vitamin E (tocopherol) with eight biological hydroquinones (HQs) (ubiquinol-10 (Q10H2 1); ubiquinol-0 (Q0H2 2); vitamin K1 HQ (VK1H2 3); vitamin K3 HQ (VK3H2 4); alpha-, beta-, and gamma-tocopherol-HQs (alpha-, beta-, and gamma-TQH2 5-7); and 2,3,5-trimethyl-1,4-HQ (TMQH2 8)) in solution was performed. The second-order rate constants (k4) for the ...

OBJECTIVE To investigate the roles of the cyclin D1/CDK4 and E2F-1/4 pathways and compare their work patterns in cell cycle changes induced by different doses of B[a]P. METHODS Human embryo lung fibroblasts (HELFs) were treated with 2 micromol/L or 100 micromol/L B[a]P which were provided with some characteristics of transformed cells (T-HELFs). Cyclin D1, CDK4 and E2F-1/4 expressions were de...

A kinetic study of the regeneration reaction of vitamin E (tocopherol) with eight biological hydroquinones (HQs) (ubiquinol-10 (QloH2 1); ubiquinol-0 (QoH2 2); vitamin K1 HQ (VKIH2 3); vitamin Kg HQ (VKSHZ 4); a-, 8-, and y-tocopherol-HQs (a-, B-, and r-TQH2 B-z); and 2,3,5-trimethyl-1,4-HQ (TMQH2 S)) in solution was performed. The second-order rate constants (k4) for the reaction of HQs 1-S wi...

BACKGROUND Glycosaminoglycans, such as hyaluronic acid, heparin, and chondroitin sulfate, are among the top ranked products in industrial biotechnology for biomedical applications, with a growing world market of billion dollars per year. Recently a remarkable progress has been made in the development of tailor-made strains as sources for the manufacturing of such products. The genetic modificat...

A stable cutset in a connected graph is a stable set whose deletion disconnects the graph. Let K4 and K1,3 (claw) denote the complete (bipartite) graph on 4 and 1+ 3 vertices. It is NP-complete to decide whether a line graph (hence a claw-free graph) with maximum degree five or a K4-free graph admits a stable cutset. Here we describe algorithms deciding in polynomial time whether a claw-free gr...

A kinetic analysis of cleavage of simian virus DNA (SV40 DNA) inside and outside green monkey BSC-1 cells by the enediyne-protein antibiotic C-1027 and its free chromophore is described. Information on rate constants was obtained by fitting populations of forms I (closed circular DNA), II (nicked circular DNA) and III (linear DNA) SV40 DNA as a function of drug concentration to a kinetic model ...