Antibacterial peptides were isolated from immune haemolymph of Rhinoceros beetle (Oryctes rhinoceros L.) larvae and evaluated for antibacterial activity against bacterial pathogens, viz., Klebsiella pneumoniae, Micrococcus luteus, Bacillus subtilis, Paenebacillus macerans and Pseudomonas sp. The peptides were found to be stable upto 37°C and antibacterial activity observed at pH 7.0. The peptid...

A discontinuous sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (SDS-PAGE) system for the separation of proteins in the range from 1 to 100 kDa is described. Tricine, used as the trailing ion, allows a resolution of small proteins at lower acrylamide concentrations than in glycine-SDS-PAGE systems. A superior resolution of proteins, especially in the range between 5 and 20 kDa, is ach...

The saliva of Rhynocoris marginatus consists of amylase, invertase, trehalase, protease, acid phosphatase, alkaline phosphatase, phospholipase, lipase, trypsin, hyaluronidase, and esterase. All enzyme activities were significantly higher in the saliva of female R. marginatus when compared to the saliva of male individuals. The saliva was analyzed by tricine SDS/PAGE, sephadex column chromatogra...

Colchicine as a vascular disrupting agent creates microtubule destabilization which induces vessel blockage and consequently cell death. Accordingly, colchicines and its analogues radiolabeled with 99mTc may have potential for visualization of tumor. In this work, deacetylcolchicine a colchicine analogue was labeled with 99mTc via tricine as a coligand and characterized for its tumor targeting ...

A protein purification procedure using sonication extraction from polyacrylamide gels (PAGE), which involves identification of a particular protein band and its excision, homogenization, sonication, and subsequent passage through a Sephadex G-25 minicolumn, is reported. Our results show a high degree of recovery regardless of the nature of the protein (soluble or membrane bound) or the characte...

The flavin analogue 5-deazariboflavin is a convenient catalyst for the photoreduction of low-potential redox compounds. In an anaerobic medium with Tricine buffer as the electron donor, 5-deazariboflavin is capable of photo-reducing both ferredoxin and methyl viologen. We have used this method to conduct a comparative study of the Photosystem I photophosphorylation activities supported by the r...

An investigation was made to determine the univalent cation requirements of s.tarch synthetase from a variety of plant species of economic importance. The particulate enzyme from sweet corn was shown to have an absolute requirement for potassium, with the optimum activation occurring at 0.05 M KCI. Rubidium, cesium, and ammonium were 80 as effective as potassium while sodium and lithium were re...

The occurrence of a delayed light emission in photosynthetic organisms was first reported by Strehler and Arnold.' This emission was shown to have the same spectrum as that of the fluorescence of chlorophyll in vivo,2 but a much greater lifetime. It therefore reflects the restoration of singlet excited states in chlorophyll at the expense of metastable energy. Arnold and Sherwood3 have proposed...

Gastrin-releasing peptide (GRP) receptors are over-expressed in various human tumor including breast and prostate which can be targeted with bombesin for diagnosis and targeted therapy. High abdominal accumulation and the poor in vivo stability of radiolabeled bombesin analogues may represent a limitation for diagnostic imaging and targeted therapy. In this study a new bombesin derivative was l...