HIROKI TOYODA, KOJI OHNO, JUNKO YAMADA, MASAHIKO IKEDA, AKIHITO OKABE, KOHJI SATO, KENJI HASHIMOTO, AND ATSUO FUKUDA Departments of Physiology, Anatomy, and Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, Hamamatsu University School of Medicine, Hamamatsu, Shizuoka 431-3192; and Department of Biological Information Processing, Graduate School of Electronic Science and Technology, Shizuoka University, Hamamatsu...

Loss of K99 and STaP genes from enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli 431 during infection occurred by either plasmid curing or plasmid deletion. These mutants expressed the F41 adhesion and colonized neonatal pigs, but only those mutants that retained STaP caused diarrhea with significant weight loss.

BACKGROUND Feline calicivirus (FCV) is a common cause of upper respiratory tract disease in cats worldwide. Its characteristically high mutation rate leads to escape from the humoral immune response induced by natural infection and/or vaccination and consequently vaccines are not always effective against field isolates. Thus, there is a need to continuously investigate the ability of FCV vaccin...

In his recent paper, Dobson (2005) concludes that, contrary to the work of McHenry and Berger (1998a,b), the pattern of differences in joint proportions between the partial skeleton Stw 431 and A.L. 288-1 ‘‘does not correspond to the pattern revealed from a comparison of large samples of unassociated postcranial material from Sterkfontein Member 4 and Hadar’’ (Dobson, 2005, p. 153). Using exact...

Background: Macroalgae are sources of bioactive compounds due to the large number of secondary metabolites they synthesize. The Antarctica region is characterized by extreme weather conditions and abundant aggregations of macroalgae. However, current knowledge on their biodiversity and their potential for bio-prospecting is still fledging. This study evaluates the antimicrobial and cytotoxic ac...

Cdc25 phosphatases are dual specificity phosphatases that dephosphorylate and activate cyclin-dependent kinases (CDKs), thereby effecting the progression from one phase of the cell cycle to the next. Despite its central role in the cell cycle, relatively little is known about the catalytic mechanism of Cdc25. In order to provide insights into the catalytic mechanism of Cdc25, we have performed ...

Neonatal pigs were inoculated with porcine enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli 431, which carries genes for K99 fimbriae and STaP enterotoxin. Colonies of strain 431 were recovered from feces of pigs for up to 17 days after inoculation and tested for hybridization with gene probes for K99 and STaP. Variants of strain 431 that did not hybridize with the probes were considered to have lost the genes...

Certain strains of Clostridium difficile produce the ADP-ribosyltransferase CDT, which is a binary actin ADP-ribosylating toxin. The toxin consists of the binding component CDTb, which mediates receptor binding and cellular uptake, and the enzyme component CDTa. Here we studied the enzyme component (CDTa) of the toxin using the binding component of Clostridium perfringens iota toxin (Ib), which...