Free radicals are implicated in several diseases of prematurity. The study aimed to correlate plasma antioxidants levels and lipid peroxidation between maternal and cord blood in normal and preterm deliveries. Superoxide dismutase (SOD), Reduced Glutathione (GSH) and Uric acid were the measured antioxidants while Malondialdehyde (MDA) was an index of lipid peroxidation. 32 mothers who delivered...

Studies on signalling dynamics in living embryos have been limited by a scarcity of in vivo reporters. Tandem fluorescent protein timers provide a generic method for detecting changes in protein population age and thus provide readouts for signalling events that lead to changes in protein stability or location. When imaged with quantitative dual-colour fluorescence microscopy, tandem timers off...

The network theory of the immune system proposes that idiotype-anti-idiotype interactions provide important immunoregulatory controls (1). In many experimental systems, the passive administration of heterologous anti-idiotypic ant ibody has been shown to enhance (2) or suppress (3) immune responses. In addition, spontaneous auto-anti-idiotypic antibody has been detected after antigenic challeng...

We explore the ability of optimal foraging theory to explain the observation among marine bacteriophages that host range appears to be negatively correlated with host abundance in the local marine environment. We modified Charnov's classic diet composition model to describe the ecological dynamics of the related generalist and specialist bacteriophages phiX174 and G4, and confirmed that special...

Bacteriophage phiX174 is unable to replicate in Escherichia coli t3 at the restrictive temperature. However, if progeny phage synthesis is initiated at the permissive temperature, it will continue after a shift to the restrictive temperature.

Mycoplasmavirus MVL2 is a nonlytic enveloped virion containing DNA. This DNA has been shown to be a double-stranded circular superhelical molecule of 11.8 kilobase pairs (7.8 X 10(6) daltons). The superhelix density is greater than that of phi X174 RFI but less than that of PM2 phage DNA. A physical map of the MVL2 genome has been obtained using restriction endonucleases.

To determine bacteriophage PhiX174's ecological niche, 783 Escherichia coli isolates were screened for susceptibility. Sensitive strains are diverse regarding their phylogenies and core lipopolysaccharides (LPS), but all have rough phenotypes. Further analysis of E. coli K-12 LPS mutants revealed that PhiX174 can use a wide diversity of LPS structures to initiate its infectious process.