BACKGROUND The malaria parasite Plasmodium falciparum EBA-175 binds its receptor sialic acids on glycophorin A when invading erythrocytes. The receptor-binding region (RII) contains two cysteine-rich domains with similar cysteine motifs (F1 and F2). Functional relationships between F1 and F2 domains and characterization of EBA-175 were studied using specific monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) against...

We construct a class of three-Lee-weight and two infinite families of five-Lee-weight codes over the ring R = F2 + vF2 + v 2 F2 + v 3 F2 + v 4 F2, where v 5 = 1. The same ring occurs in the quintic construction of binary quasi-cyclic codes. They have the algebraic structure of abelian codes. Their Lee weight distribution is computed by using character sums. Given a linear Gray map, we obtain th...

Let F be an n-uniform hypergraph on 2n vertices. Suppose that |F1∩F2∩F3∩F4| ≥ 2 and |F1∪F2∪F3∪ F4| ≤ n−2 holds for all F1,F2,F3,F4 ∈F . We prove that the size of F is at most (2n−4 n−2 ) for n sufficiently large.

Let F be an n-uniform hypergraph on 2n vertices. Suppose that |F1 ∩ F2 ∩ F3| ≥ 1 and |F1 ∪ F2 ∪ F3| ≤ 2n− 1 holds for all F1, F2, F3 ∈ F . We prove that the size of F is at most ( 2n−2 n−1 ) .

The influenza virus PB1-F2 is an 87-amino acid mitochondrial protein that previously has been shown to induce cell death, although the mechanism of apoptosis induction has remained unclear. In the process of characterizing its mechanism of action we found that the viral PB1-F2 protein sensitizes cells to apoptotic stimuli such as tumor necrosis factor alpha, as demonstrated by increased cleavag...

Identification curves were estimated for the English consonants /b,d,g/ using five-formant CV synthetic stimuli comprehensively sampling the F2 onset-F2 vowel acoustic space in the vicinity of /b,d,g/ locus equations [H. Sussman et al., J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 90, 1309-1325 (1991)]. The stimuli included 10 English monophthongal vowel contexts, 11 levels of F2 onset per vowel, and 3 levels of F3 ons...

BACKGROUND The fungus of Ganoderma is a traditional medicine in Asia with a variety of pharmacological functions including anti-cancer activities. We have purified an extracellular heteropolysaccharide fraction, PS-F2, from the submerged mycelia culture of G. formosanum and shown that PS-F2 exhibits immunostimulatory activities. In this study, we investigated the molecular mechanisms of immunos...

The peptides produced enzymatically from various plants have shown various biological activities including cytotoxicity. Different types of cytotoxic peptides have been reported from the seeds and leaves of Violaceae, Rubiaceae and Annonaceae families. In this study, we report purification and characterization of peptide(s) showing cytotoxic activity against A549 and HeLa cancer cell lines from...

N-n-butyl haloperidol iodide (F2), a novel compound, has shown palliative effects in myocardial ischemia/reperfusion (I/R) injury. In this study, we investigated the effects of F2 on the extracellular signal-regulated kinase kinase (MEK)/extracellular signal-regulated kinase (ERK)/Na(+)/H(+) exchanger (NHE)/Na(+)/Ca(2+) exchanger (NCX) signal-transduction pathway involved in H2O2-induced Ca(2+)...

Highly pathogenic avian influenza A viruses (HPAIV) of the H5N1 subtype occasionally transmit from birds to humans and can cause severe systemic infections in both hosts. PB1-F2 is an alternative translation product of the viral PB1 segment that was initially characterized as a pro-apoptotic mitochondrial viral pathogenicity factor. A full-length PB1-F2 has been present in all human influenza p...