Three tobacco cell lines have been analyzed which are resistant to lethal inhibitors of either putrescine production or conversion of putrescine into polyamines. Free and conjugated putrescine pools, the enzymic activities (arginine, ornithine, and S-adenosylmethionine decarboxylases), and the growth characteristics during acidic stress were measured in suspension cultures of each cell line. On...

During beer fermentation, the brewer's yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae experiences a variety of shifting growth conditions, culminating in a low-oxygen, low-nutrient, high-ethanol, acidic environment. In beers that are bottle conditioned (i.e., carbonated in the bottle by supplying yeast with a small amount of sugar to metabolize into CO2), the S. cerevisiae cells must overcome these stressors t...

The pckA gene, encoding phosphoenolpyruvate carboxykinase, catalyzes the reversible decarboxylation and phosphorylation of oxaloacetate to form phosphoenolpyruvate. Located on the circular chromosome of Agrobacterium, this locus is adjacent to the loci chvG and chvI, encoding a two-component regulatory system that has been shown to be important in virulence. Using a reporter gene fusion, studie...

The Herman Pit, once a mercury mine, is an impoundment located in an active geothermal area. Its acidic waters are permeated by hundreds of gas seeps. One seep was sampled and found to be composed of mostly CO₂ with some CH₄ present. The δ(13)CH₄ value suggested a complex origin for the methane: i.e., a thermogenic component plus a biological methanogenic portion. The relatively (12)C-enriched ...

Drug release from polymeric matrix systems is the rate-limiting step for drug bioavailability and is determined by drug solubility; most drugs show pH-dependent solubility. Polymeric matrices remain in the gastrointestinal tract for a longer period of time and are exposed to environments of varying pH, which can adversely affect drug release. In the present study, the pH-independent drug releas...

Chemical analysis revealed that water samples collected from Wadi El-Natrun Lakes were highly alkaline, of pH ranging from 8.4 –9.5 and of high levels of total soluble salts, chlorides, sodium and potassium. Water collected from El-Zugm Lake showed the highest levels of organic matter, sodium, calcium, magnesium and chlorides among the 8 lakes investigated. On the other hand, some parameters sh...

OBJECTIVE In the deep microenvironments of advanced human atherosclerotic lesions, the intimal fluid becomes acidic. We examined the effect of an acidic extracellular pH on cholesterol removal (efflux) from primary human macrophages. METHODS AND RESULTS When cholesterol efflux from acetyl-low-density lipoprotein-loaded macrophages to various cholesterol acceptors was evaluated at pH 7.5, 6.5,...

The expression and activity of P-glycoprotein (pGP) play a role in the multidrug resistance of tumors. Because solid-growing tumors often show pronounced hypoxia or extracellular acidosis, this study attempted to analyze the impact of an acidic environment on the expression and activity of pGP and on the cytotoxicity of chemotherapeutic agents. For this, prostate carcinoma cells were exposed to...

Acidic clusters act as sorting signals for packaging cargo into clathrin-coated vesicles (CCVs), and also facilitate down-regulation of MHC-I by HIV-1 Nef. To find acidic cluster sorting machinery, we performed a gene-trap screen and identified the medium subunit (µ1) of the clathrin adaptor AP-1 as a top hit. In µ1 knockout cells, intracellular CCVs still form, but acidic cluster proteins are ...

Methane production and archaeal community composition were studied in samples from an acidic peat bog incubated at different temperatures and pH values. H(2)-dependent methanogenesis increased strongly at the lowest pH, 3.8, and Methanobacteriaceae became important except for Methanomicrobiaceae and Methanosarcinaceae. An acidophilic and psychrotolerant Methanobacterium sp. was isolated using H...