Clostridium perfringens iota-toxin is a binary toxin composed of an enzyme component (Ia) and a binding component (Ib). Each component alone lacks toxic activity, but together they produce cytotoxic effects. We examined the cytotoxicity of iota-toxin Ib in eight cell lines. A431 and A549 cells were susceptible to Ib, but MDCK, Vero, CHO, Caco-2, HT-29, and DLD-1 cells were not. Ib bound and for...

Background: Asthma is recognized as a common cause of disability, of great economic cost, and of preventable deaths. In this study we aimed to test our hypothesis to evaluate the relationship between the Human Platelet Antigen-1(HPA-1) polymorphism and bronchial asthma and its severity, which would suggest genetic variances that may be responsible for expression or activation of these receptors...

Inattentional Blindness (IB) occurs when an observer who is engaged in a resource consuming task fails to notice an unexpected although salient stimulus appearing in his/her visual field. The incidence of IB can be affected by changes in stimulus-driven properties of the display, but very little research has examined individual differences in propensity for IB. The current research examines ind...

The Col Ib-P9 plasmid content of colicinogenic cells has been measured by both sedimentation analysis of cleared lysates and by deoxyribonucleic acid hybridization to purified Col Ib-P9 factor deoxyribonucleic acid. The results show an independence between mitomycin C-induced colicin synthesis and Col Ib-P9 replication. In addition, the ratio of the various molecular configurations (i.e., coval...

One of the major issues banks are faced with in providing Internet Banking (IB) services is the adoption of these services by the customers. This study seeks answer to the question that whether bank customers’ awareness of the services and advantages of IB is effective in reducing the negative effect of customers’ perceived risk on their intention of IB adoption. To this end, the two constructs...

The aac(6')-Ib gene is the most prevalent gene that encodes aminoglycoside-modifying enzymes and confers resistance to tobramycin, kanamycin, and amikacin. The aac(6')-Ib-cr variant gene can induce resistance against aminoglycoside and fluoroquinolone simultaneously. Two main methods, sequence analysis and the restriction enzyme method, can detect the aac(6')-Ib-cr variant in clinical strains. ...

The detection of autoantibodies to epidermal or basement membrane zone proteins by immunoblot (IB) is useful for the diagnosis and the classification of autoimmune bullous diseases (AIBD). IB using human skin extracts is actually the reference method but A431 cell line is proposed as easier alternate antigen source. We explored the performances of “A431 IB” in comparison with the reference tech...

BACKGROUND In our previous study, we detected decreased expression of phospho-Smad1/5/8 and its upstream signaling molecule, bone morphogenetic protein receptor IB subunit (BMPR-IB), in certain glioblastoma tissues, unlike normal brain tissues. In order to clarify the functional roles and mechanism of BMPR-IB in the development of glioblastoma, we studied the effects of BMPR-IB overexpression o...