Protease activities in the haemolymph and fat body in a bloodsucking insect, Rhodnius prolixus, infected with Trypanosoma rangeli, were investigated. After SDS-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis containing gelatin as substrate, analysis of zymograms performed on samples of different tissues of controls and insects inoculated or orally infected with short or long epimastigotes of T. rangeli, dem...

The syndrome of high-altitude de-acclimatization commonly takes place after long-term exposure to high altitudes upon return to low altitudes. The syndrome severely affects the returnee's quality of life. However, little attention has been paid to careful characterization of the syndrome and their underlying mechanisms. Male subjects from Chongqing (n = 67, 180 m) and Kunming (n = 70, 1800 m) v...

Preeclampsia is a common pregnancy complication in the latter half of gestation diagnosed by hypertension and proteinuria. A key feature of preeclampsia is an altered placentation with reduced trophoblast invasion. Normal placentation requires controlled invasion of trophoblasts into the maternal uterine wall, with secretion of specific proteolytic enzymes able to degrade basement membranes and...

HE existence in natural populations of a protein polymorphism involving Ttwo forms of a nonspecific esterase has been established in Drosophila mlamgaster (WRIGHT 1961, 1963). The two forms of the esterase, Esterase 6, are distinguishable by their different electrophoretic mobilities in starch gel, Esterase 6" migrating more rapidly toward the anode than Esterase 6s. The inheritance of these tw...

N a previous publication (SCHWARTZ 1964a) evidence was presented to the I effect that enzymes specified by the same allele functioning in two different parts of the maize plant are not identical. The NN pH 7.5 esterases synthesized under the control of the E: allele in the seedling and endosperm show identical electrophoretic migration rates in starch gel electrophoresis; however, they differ i...

Toll-like receptor 9 (TLR9) recognizes microbial DNA. We show here that TLR9 protein is expressed in human breast cancer cells and clinical breast cancer samples. Stimulation of TLR9-expressing breast cancer cells with the TLR9 agonistic CpG oligonucleotides (1-10 mumol/L) dramatically increased their in vitro invasion in both Matrigel assays and three-dimensional collagen cultures. Similar eff...

Gene knockout mice studies indicate that urokinase-type plasminogen activator (u-PA) is importantly involved in fibrinolysis, but its physiologic mechanism of action remains poorly understood. We postulated that platelets may be involved in this mechanism, as they carry a novel receptor for u-PA and a portion of the single-chain u-PA (scu-PA) intrinsic to blood is tightly associated with platel...

This report describes a preliminary characterization of proteolytic activity of proteins isolated from lysate of Giardia trophozoites of an axenic Brazilian strain. Fractions obtained by high-performance liquid chromatography (FPLC) were tested in SDS-polyacrylamide gel for the protein profiles, and the proteases activity was analyzed using gelatin impregnated SDS-PAGE. The proteases characteri...

B Y means of starch gel electrophoresis BRBND and STORMONT (1964) demonstrated 16 different transferrin phenotypes in horses. Family data supported the theory that the observed differences were attributed to the action of six COdominant autosomal alleles designated TfD, TfF, Tf", TfM, Tfo and Tf". The theory of six alleles have been verified by BRBND (1964) and GRSTZER, HESSELIIOLT, MOUSTGAARD ...

A gene that encodes an extracellular aspartyl protease from Trichoderma harzianum CECT 2413, papA, has been isolated and characterized. Based on several conserved regions of other fungal acid proteases, primers were designed to amplify a probe that was used to isolate the papA gene from a genomic library of T. harzianum. papA was an intronless ORF which encoded a polypeptide of 404 aa, includin...