Aspergillus nidulans is a saprophytic ascomycete that utilizes a wide variety of nitrogen sources. We identified a sequence from A. nidulans similar to the glutathione S-transferase-like nitrogen regulatory domain of Saccharomyces cerevisiae Ure2. Cloning and sequencing of the gene, designated gstA, revealed it to be more similar to URE2 than the S. cerevisiae glutathione S-transferases. Howeve...

This Highlight explores the evolution of applications of mass spectrometric technologies in the context of natural products research since the 1970's. The central themes are the analysis of mixtures, dereplication (identification) and structure determination. The ascension of HPLC as the method of choice for the analysis of pharmaceuticals was a driving force for the development of interfaces f...

Individuals with the T blood group contain terminal serme !threonine-linked N-acetylgalactosamine residues in their blood cells. This is due to lack of UDP-D-galactose: D-N-acetyl galactosamine /9-D-galactosyl transferase from part of their red cells and probably from their leukocytes. We have established B lymphoblastoid cell lines from such an individual by in vitro infection of his lymphocyt...

This study of galactose-induced galactose transport in Escherichia coli K12 showed that in most strains two transport systems having the properties of “galactose permease” and “P-methyl galactoside permease” are responsible for the observed transport. Several strains contain only the galactose transport system but still grow normally on galactose. The regulation of this system was shown to be v...

The GlgE pathway is thought to be responsible for the conversion of trehalose into a glycogen-like α-glucan polymer in bacteria. Trehalose is first converted to maltose, which is phosphorylated by maltose kinase Pep2 to give α-maltose 1-phosphate. This is the donor substrate of the maltosyl transferase GlgE that is known to extend α-1,4-linked maltooligosaccharides, which are thought to be bran...

A group of five tests utilizing wheat germ and soybean lectins and chromogenic substrates (orthonitrophenyl-beta-D-galactopyranoside, gamma-glutamyl-beta-naphthylamide, and prolyl-beta-naphthylamide derivatives) was used as a rapid (30-min) method for the identification of Neisseria gonorrhoeae. The rapid method agreed with Minitek test results for all 126 N. gonorrhoeae isolates and all 39 non...

A significant percentage of eukaryotic proteins contain posttranslational modifications, including glycosylation, which are required for biological function. However, the understanding of the structure-function relationships of N-glycans has lagged significantly due to the microheterogeneity of glycosylation in mammalian produced proteins. Recently we reported on the cellular engineering of yea...

The chemotactic response to galactose in wild-type Salmonella typhimurium is not inducible by galactose, but is inducible by fucose, a non-metabolizable analog. In a galactokinase mutant, however, the galactose receptor is inducible by galactose. These data indicate that the concentration of free galactose in the cell controls the levels of the galactose receptor. The intensities of the chemota...

Four monosaccharide glycosyltransferases have been found to be present in particles prepared from normal canine respiratory tissue, and this report describes some of their properties. One is a sialyltransferase which catalyzes the transfer of sialic acid from cytidine monophosphate N-acetylneuraminic acid to glycoproteins containing N-acetylgalactosamine as terminal residues. Another transferas...