Malignant transformation of murine and human cells is commonly associated with increased —GlcNAcffl-6Manal-6Manff— branching in asparagine-linked Oligosaccharides. Somatic mutations and drugs which block expression of the ,/l 6 branched Oligosaccharides are potent inhib itors of tumor cell invasion and metastasis in animal models. This suggests that the Oligosaccharides are required for met...

Allocation trade-offs of carotenoids between their use in the immune system and production of integumentary colouration have been suggested as a proximate mechanism maintaining honesty of signal traits. We tested how dietary carotenoid supplementation, immune activation and immune suppression affect intensity of coccidian infection in captive greenfinches Carduelis chloris, a passerine with car...

Synthesis of polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHAs) from intermediates of fatty acid beta-oxidation was used as a tool to study fatty acid degradation in developing seeds of Arabidopsis. Transgenic plants expressing a peroxisomal PHA synthase under the control of a napin promoter accumulated PHA in developing seeds to a final level of 0. 06 mg g(-1) dry weight. In plants co-expressing a plastidial acyl-a...

Polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHAs) are accumulated as intracellular carbon and energy storage polymers by various bacteria and a few haloarchaea. In this study, 28 strains belonging to 15 genera in the family Halobacteriaceae were investigated with respect to their ability to synthesize PHAs and the types of their PHA synthases. Fermentation results showed that 18 strains from 12 genera could synthes...

The polyhydroxyalkanoate (PHA) synthase gene of Comamonas acidovorans DS-17 (phaCCa) was cloned by using the synthase gene of Alcaligenes eutrophus as a heterologous hybridization probe. Complete sequencing of a 4.0-kbp SmaI-HindIII (SH40) subfragment revealed the presence of a 1,893-bp PHA synthase coding region which was followed by a 1,182-bp beta-ketothiolase gene (phaACa). Both the transla...

Class I and III polyhydroxyalkanoate (PHA) synthases catalyze the conversion of beta-hydroxybutyryl coenzyme A (HBCoA) to polyhydroxybutyrate. The Class I PHA synthase from Ralstonia eutropha has been purified by numerous labs with reported specific activities that vary between 1 and 160 U/mg. An N-terminal (His)6-PHA synthase was constructed and purified with specific activity of 40 U/mg. The ...

In the 4-cell Caenorhabditis elegans embryo, two blastomeres are destined to generate pharyngeal cells, each by a distinct developmental strategy: one pathway is inductive, while the other is autonomous. Here, we identify the pha-4 locus. In animals lacking pha-4 activity, an early step in pharyngeal organogenesis is blocked: no pharyngeal primordium is formed and differentiated pharyngeal cell...

We have previously demonstrated that lentil phytohemagglutinin (lentil-PHA) binds to human platelet membranes without causing either aggregation or the release reaction. When platelets are treated with thrombin, there is an increase in lentil-PHA binding suggesting the appearance of new receptor sites on the cell surface. We prepared a lentil-PHA-ferritin conjugate using affinity chromatography...

A psychrotrophic bacterium, Pseudomonas fluorescens BM07, which is able to accumulate polyhydroxyalkanoic acid (PHA) containing large amounts of 3-hydroxy-cis-5-dodecenoate unit up to 35 mol% in the cell from unrelated substrates such as fructose, succinate, etc., was isolated from an activated sludge in a municipal wastewater treatment plant. When it was grown on heptanoic acid (C(7)) to hexad...

Addition of supramitogenic doses of phytohemagglutinin (PHA) to short-term cultures of neoplastic or nonneoplastic lymphocytes infected with bovine leukemia virus increased the synthesis of the major core virion antigen (p25) by 5- to 10-fold. Such stimulation was not due to the mitogenic effect of PHA or to a generalized increase in cellular RNA or protein synthesis but rather to enhanced tran...