IN the ordinary putrefaction of protein material the protein-sulphur is liberated mainly as hydrogen sulphide accompanied in a few cases by relatively small amounts of mercaptans. The present paper is an account of an organism which is capable of the aerobic degradation of l-cystine with the direct liberation of free sulphur. In earlier work on the bacterial decomposition of cystine the medium ...

The sulphide-binding protein that occurs in high concentrations in the vascular blood and coelomic fluid of the hydrothermal vent tube-worm Riftia pachyptila Jones is the haemoglobin. Sulphide binding does not occur at the oxygen-binding sites of the haem, but may occur via thiol-disulphide exchange at the interchain disulphide bridges on the macromolecule. We have confirmed the report that vas...

The majority of global petroleum is in the form of highly viscous heavy oil. Traditionally heavy oil in sands at shallow depths is accessed by large scale mining activities. Recently steam has been used to allow heavy oil extraction with greatly reduced surface disturbance. However, in situ thermal recovery processes can generate hydrogen sulphide, high levels of which are toxic to humans and c...

Zoothamnium niveum (Ciliophora, Oligohymenophora) is a giant, colonial marine ciliate from sulphide-rich, shallow-water habitats, obligatorily associated with the ectosymbiotic, chemoautotrophic, sulphide-oxidizing bacterium 'Candidatus Thiobios zoothamnicoli'. The aims of this study were to characterize the natural habitat and investigate growth, reproduction, survival and maintenance of the s...

1. The metabolism of diallyl disulphide was investigated in vitro with rat and human liver cell subfractions and ex vivo with an isolated perfused rat liver. 2. Diallyl disulphide was oxidized to diallylthiosulphinate by rat liver microsomes with an apparent K(m) = 0.86 +/- 0.1 mM and an apparent V(max) = 0.47 +/- 0.12 nmol min(-1) mg(-1) protein (mean +/- SE). Both cytochrome P450 (CYP) and fl...

found around East-Pacific Rise hydrothermal vents is the giant tube-worm Riftia pachyptila Jones, 1981. This “autotrophic” animal is devoid of a digestive system and acquires metabolic energy from the oxidation of sulphide by chemolithoautotrophic bacteria that live symbiotically inside a specific, highly vascularized organ, the trophosome. Therefore, blood transport nutrients is a crucial issu...

More than 80% of the world’s production of zinc from its concentrate is obtained by the roastleach-electrowin hydrometallurgical process. In the roast-leach process, very pure zinc sulphate solution must be prepared for zinc electrowinning, therefore, the purification process is one of the most important unit processes in zinc hydrometallurgy. The conventional methods for the zinc solution puri...

Reactions of trimethylphosphine or diphosphines with SbCl(3) in the presence of AlCl(3) or Me(3)SiSO(3)CF(3) give ligand stabilized stibenium and stibinidenium cations. The geometry at each antimony center reveals a variety of environments for antimony that describes new bonding and highlights new directions in the chemistry of the pnictogen elements.

Leishmania drug resistance and particularly antimony resistance still continues to emerge in different part of the world. Because visceral and cutaneous leishmaniasis are transmitted in foci with zoonotic or anthroponotic life-cycles, the link between chemotherapeutic resistance and the selection for drug resistance, through drug consumption, cannot be as obvious for all forms of leishmaniasis....

Antimonials remain the first line drug against the protozoan parasite Leishmania but their efficacy is threatened by resistance. We carried out a RNA expression profiling analysis comparing an antimony-sensitive and -resistant (Sb2000.1) strain of Leishmania infantum using whole-genome 70-mer oligonucleotide microarrays. Several genes were differentially expressed between the two strains, sever...