The metabolism of the fifth component of complement (C5), and its relatonship to metabolism of the third component of complement (C3), has been studied in normal subjects and patients by simultaneous administration of radioiodine labeled C5 and C3. In seven normal subjects the fractional catabolic rate of C5 ranged from 1.5 to 2.1% of the plasma pool/h and extravascular/intravascular distributi...

A combination of methods, including laser-induced fluorescence excitation, fluorescence-dip infrared ~FDIR! spectroscopy, and UV-UV hole-burning spectroscopy, have been used to study the infrared and ultraviolet spectra of single conformations of two methyl-capped dipeptides: N-acetyl tryptophan amide ~NATA! and N-acetyl tryptophan methyl amide ~NATMA!. Density functional theory calculations pr...

INTRODUCTION The effector functions of immunoglobulin G (IgG) are mediated by interaction of its Fc region with Fc receptors (FcγRs) and/or the complement system. The three main pathways of complement activation converge at C3. However, C3-independent pathways can activate C5 and other downstream complement components during IgG-initiated inflammatory responses. These C3-independent pathways of...

Replication and distributed communication are usually tightly coupled. This code tangling forbids their independent reuse and adaptation. In this position paper the problems resulting from coupling replication with distributed communication are discussed. In addition, a solution based on separation of concerns is proposed. The abstractions for each concern are presented as well as their composi...

Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is an inflammatory autoimmune joint disease in which the complement system plays an important role. Of the several components of complement, current evidence points to C5 as the most important inducer of inflammation. Several groups generated Abs or small interfering RNAs (siRNAs) or small molecule inhibitors against C5 and C5aR1 (CD88) that have showed some efficacy i...

To the Editor: A 48‐year‐old female underwent C4/5 and C5/6 Bryan cervical disc arthroplasty 3 years earlier for right shoulder pain and right arm numbness and weakness. The symptoms resolved postoperatively, and the location of the implant was good 6 weeks after the surgery; however, the range of motion (ROM) of the C4/5 and C5/6 implant were only 1° and 4°, respectively. The patient complaine...

Complement acts as a danger-sensing system in the innate immune system, and its activation initiates a strong inflammatory response and cleavage of the proteins C3 and C5 by proteolytic enzymes, the convertases. These contain a non-catalytic substrate contacting subunit (C3b or C4b) in complex with a protease subunit (Bb or C2a). We determined the crystal structures of the C3b homologue cobra v...

Inhibiting complement anaphlytoxin C5a during sepsis may prevent sepsis mortality. Although human anti-C5 antibodies exist, their therapeutic use in microbial sepsis has been avoided because of the hypothesis that inhibiting C5b will prevent formation of the bactericidal membrane attack complex (MAC) and worsen clinical outcome. We wished to test the hypothesis that inhibition of C5 would impro...

Mesoporous H-ZSM-5–carbon composites, prepared via tetrapropylammonium hydroxide (TPAOH) post treatment of H-ZSM-5 followed by deposition of pyrolytic carbon, have been used as the support for the preparation of Co-based Fischer–Tropsch catalysts. The resulting catalysts display an improved performance during Fischer–Tropsch synthesis (FTS), with higher activity, higher selectivity towards C5–C...