We previously reported that an octaarginine- and pH-sensitive fusogenic peptide-modified multifunctional envelope-type nano device (R8-GALA-MEND) produces a high level of gene expression in the liver. In this study, we report on an examination of whether this gene delivery system exerts potent hepatoprotective effects against lipopolysaccharide/D-galactosamine (LPS/D-GalN)-induced acute liver i...

Tu, Yicheng, M.S., Purdue University, December, 2000. Endogenous Gibberellins in Developing Apple Seeds in Relation to Biennial Bearing. Major Professor: Peter M. Hirst. It is believed that Gibberellins (GA) produced in apple seeds act as an inhibitory signal to flower induction in the neighboring buds. As an exception, GA4 is not inhibitory and sometimes found to be promotive to apple flowerin...

The phytopathogenic bacterium Ralstonia solanacearum encodes type III effectors, called GALA proteins, which contain F-box and LRR domains. The GALA LRRs do not perfectly fit any of the previously described LRR subfamilies. By applying protein sequence analysis and structural prediction, we clarify this ambiguous case of LRR classification and assign GALA-LRRs to CC-LRR subfamily. We demonstrat...

Inductive algorithms rely strongly on their representational biases. Representational inadequacy can be mitigated by constructive induction. This paper introduces the notion of a relative gain measure and describes a new constructive induction algorithm (GALA) which is independent of the learning algorithm. GALA generates a small number of new boolean attributes from existing boolean, nominal o...

Type III effectors from phytopathogenic bacteria exhibit a high degree of functional redundancy, hampering the evaluation of their precise contribution to pathogenicity. This is illustrated by the GALA type III effectors from Ralstonia solanacearum, which have been shown to be collectively, but not individually, required for disease on Arabidopsis thaliana and tomato. We investigated evolution,...

Vibrio alginolyticus (CNCM I-4994) secretes an exopolysaccharide that can be used as an ingredient in cosmetic applications. The structure was resolved using chromatography and one- and two-dimensional NMR spectroscopy experiments. The results show that the carbohydrate backbone is made of two residues: d-galacturonic acid and N-acetyl-d-glucosamine (GlcNac), which together constitute a tetrasa...

Hydroxyl radicals (•OH) cause non-enzymic scission of polysaccharides in diverse biological systems. Such reactions can be detrimental (e.g. causing rheumatic and arthritic diseases in mammals) or beneficial (e.g. promoting the softening of ripening fruit, and biomass saccharification). Here we present a method for documenting •OH action, based on fluorescent labelling of the oxo groups that ar...

BACKGROUND Qualitative and quantitative analyses of 'Zonouz' and 'Gala' apples phenolic compounds were accomplished by HPLC. MATERIAL AND METHODS Samples for phenolics study were taken at three different growing stages [1 - fruit early growing stage 2 - mid-stage of fruit development (80 days after full bloom) 3 - during commercial harvest time]. RESULTS The results showed qualitative diffe...

Mastoparan (MP), a potent facilitator of mitochondrial permeability transition (PT), could be used as an antitumor agent, if it were encapsulated in a tumor selective delivery system. We recently developed transferrin-modified liposomes (Tf-L) with a pH-sensitive fusogenic peptide (GALA), which delivers an encapsulated fluorescent marker into cytosol efficiently. In this study, we encapsulated ...

Fruit size regulation was studied in the apple cultivar 'Gala' and a large fruit size spontaneous mutant of 'Gala', 'Grand Gala' (GG). GG fruits were 15% larger in diameter and 38% heavier than 'Gala' fruits, largely due to an increase in size of the fruit cortex. The mutation in GG altered growth prior to fruit set and during fruit development. Prior to fruit set, the carpel/floral-tube size w...