chédiak-higashi syndrome is a rare autosomal recessive congenital immunodeficiency mainly characterized by a condition called oculo-cutaneous albinism. the affected subjects have light-colored hair, vision problems, blood clotting (coagulation) abnormalities and in adulthood varying neurologic disorders. recurrent infections, particularly viral infection with other disorders in childhood are us...

We show that the deformed Virasoro algebra specializes in a certain limit to LepowskyWilson’s Z-algebra. This leads to a free field realization of the affine Lie algebra ŝl2 which respects the principal gradation. We discuss some features of this bosonization including the screening current and vertex operators. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, The University of Tokyo, Komaba, Tokyo 153-89...

Chediak-Higashi syndrome is a rare condition characterized by susceptibility to bacterial infections, defective natural killer activity, and episodes of macrophage activation known as accelerated phases. Chemotherapy can induce transient remission of the accelerated phase, but relapses become less and less sensitive to treatment and ultimately lead to death. Allogenic bone marrow transplantatio...

Cultured fibroblasts from a patient with the Chediak-Higashi syndrome, the mother of the patient, and a normal control were studied by light and electron microscopy. The distribution pattern of PAS-positive and acid phosphatase-containing granules in the cytoplasm differed significantly in the fibroblasts from the patient when compared with those from the mother and control. The granules in the...

The origin of giant granules in the retinal pigment epithelium of the beige mouse was investigated with electron microscopy and ultrastructural histochemistry. These granules were found to contain melanin and acid phosphatase. Apparently they arise from fusions of primary lysosomes with melanin granules which are already enlarged from multiple fusions among melanosomes. Therefore, the giant gra...

Proteins of the Chediak-Higashi/Beige (BEACH) family have been implicated in the function of lysosomes, as well as in signal transduction, but their molecular role is still poorly understood. In Dictyostelium, at least six members of the family can be identified. Here cells with mutations in two of these genes, LVSA and LVSB, were analyzed. Interestingly both mutants exhibited defects in the or...

A diminished chemotactic response was observed with the neutrophils of a patient with the Chediak-Higashi syndrome, who was not in the accelerated phase of the disease. An abnormally low release of myeloperoxidase from these cells during phagocytosis was also noted; this resulted in a decreased iodination capacity and probably also caused the defect in the intracellular killing of bacteria by t...