Huntington's disease (HD) is a progressive degenerative neurological disorder. Individuals who inherit the IT15 gene with an expansion of the CAG repeat region inevitably succumb to increasingly sever motor, psychological, and cognitive symptoms. I sought to develop an assay system with the capability for identification of chemical compounds that selectively decrease the intracellular levels of...

Buffer type, pH and ionic strength, as well as the fraction of polyvinylpyrrolidone were optimized for efficient extraction of b-galactosidase from almond seeds. The enzyme was purified up to electrophoretic homogeneity employing (NH4)2SO4 (15–60 %) fractionation, size exclusion and ion-exchange chromatography. Molecular mass of b-galactosidase as estimated by gel filtration and SDS-PAGE was ap...

A new method for the enumeration of lymphoid cells with specific surface-receptors for antigen is described, based on the use of beta-D-galactosidase (EC 3.2.1.23), either directly as an antigen or as a conjugated antigen. Binding of beta-D-galactosidase is revealed by its activity in releasing riboflavin from a synthetic substrate, riboflavin-beta-D-galactopyranoside. The riboflavin, inactive ...

In this report we describe the use of recombinant retroviruses to characterize the activity of an exogenous promoter in primary cells obtained from patients with lymphoproliferative disorders. The infection of a variety of cultured and primary lymphoid cells with a recombinant retrovirus containing a histone promoter-driven beta-galactosidase gene is shown to result in the expression of beta-ga...

A previously constructed trp-S-lacZ fusion encoding a hybrid protein with beta-galactosidase activity was subcloned from a multicopy plasmid onto a lambda vector. Single-copy lysogens of lambda trpS-lacZ were used to determine whether trpS was regulated in a manner similar to that of other aminoacyl-tRNA synthetases. trpS regulation was found to resemble that of the majority of synthetases, in ...

beta-galactosidase is a ubiquitous lysosomal hydrolase that specifically cleaves terminal beta-galactosyl residues from glycoproteins, glycosaminoglycans, oligosaccharides, and glycolipids. To study the intracellular distribution of this enzyme, we prepared a specific polyclonal antibody to lysosomal beta-galactosidase by immunizing rabbits with a highly purified preparation of beta-galactosida...

On the basis of previous frequency determinations we could set up large numbers of cultures, each containing less than one competent precursor B cell specific for beta-galactosidase or for each of three idiotopes previously found on a monoclonal anti-beta-galactosidase antibody. Cultures were polyclonally activated by either lipopolysaccharide or Nocardia-delipidated cell mitogen. Each culture ...

Inducible and constitutive beta-galactosidase formation and radioactive amino acid incorporation were measured in cells recovering from various treatments which inhibit protein synthesis in the cell. Undelayed beta-galactosidase formation was found in stringent auxotrophs recovering from amino acid starvation, in cells recovering from glycerol or potassium starvation, and in bacteria recovering...