Acknowledgements The authors would like to thank Leona McLaren from Kooyong Squab for supplying the pigeon breeding pairs and Nicholas Kieselbach and Adam Stein for pigeon husbandry. The authors acknowledge the support of the Australian Microscopy and Microanalysis Facility provided to the AAHL Biosecurity Microscopy Facility. In addition we wish to thank Alex Hyatt, Sandra Crameri, Honglei Che...

Ia region gene products have long been postulated to be antigen-binding (recognition) molecules (1); in particular, one set of hypotheses suggests that they are participants along with a T cell product in the antigen-binding complex (2, 3). It has recently been observed that certain T cell clones will react to antigen in association with two different major histocompatibility complex (MHC) 1 ha...

∆-1-Piperideine-6-carboxylate dehydrogenase, a new enzyme that forms α-aminoadipate in Streptomyces clavuligerus and other cephamycin C-producing actinomycetes Juan L. de la FUENTE*, Angel RUMBERO†, Juan F. MARTI;N*‡ and Paloma LIRAS*‡ *Area of Microbiology, Faculty of Biology, University of Leo! n, 24071 Leo! n, Spain, †Department of Organic Chemistry, Autonomous University of Madrid, 28049 Ca...

DESCRIPTION Amedical residentwoke up in the nightwith an intense itch of the left wrist and recovered a tick nearby. The bite mark over 2 days progressed as a long linear erythematous, swollen and tender streak extending up to the axilla along the medial aspect of the upper limb (figures 1 and 2) alongwith a tender axillary lymphadenopathy. A Doppler ultrasound revealed normal venous system wit...

INTRODUCTION Pigeon fanciers lung, a form of hypersensitivity pneumonitis, is an unusual but important occupational and recreational cause of severe and debilitating breathlessness. CASE PRESENTATION We report the case of a 61-year-old Caucasian man suffering with severe breathlessness due to pigeon fanciers lung. He had previously raced and bred pigeons for 25 years but had discontinued the ...

background: it is commonly acknowledged that the most safe and method of choice anesthesia in birds is inhalation anesthesia but in some clinical situations, such as tracheal resection, injectable anesthetic agents are the only choice of surgeons regardless of whether or not an anesthesia machine is available. objectives: this study aimed to compare the quality of anesthesia and recovery time o...

The COOH-terminal peptides of pigeon and moth cytochrome c, bound to mouse IE(k), are two of the most thoroughly studied T cell antigens. We have solved the crystal structures of the moth peptide and a weak agonist-antagonist variant of the pigeon peptide bound to IE(k). The moth peptide and all other peptides whose structures have been solved bound to IE(k), have a lysine filling the p9 pocket...

Toll-like receptor 7 (TLR7) is activated by single-stranded RNA and synthetic imidazoquinoline components, and induces interferon production. In this study, we cloned the TLR7 gene from King pigeon (Columba livia). The TLR7 open reading frame is 3144 bp and encodes a 1047-amino acid protein, consisting of a canonical TLR composition with 15 leucine-rich repeats (LRRs). Amino acid-inserting modi...

The purpose of this study is to identify pathological findings among pigeon breeders in the Salonica area. Fifty-four volunteer breeders with varying intensity of contact with pigeons participated in the study. All the breeders, after filling in a questionnaire that included questions about the existence of conjunctivitis, rhinitis, chronic cough and sputum, were subjected to clinical examinati...

Aortic smooth muscle cells from atherosclerosis-susceptible White Carneau (WC) pigeons lack a functional low density lipoprotein (LDL) receptor pathway. The purpose of the present study was to determine if atherosclerosis-resistant Show Racer pigeons (SR) shared this lack of an LDL receptor pathway and if LDL from normal and hypercholesterolemic pigeons were metabolized similarly. The amount of...