It has been shown previously that several endemic Y. pestis isolates with limited virulence contained the I259 isoform of the outer membrane protease Pla, while the epidemic highly virulent strains possessed only the T259 Pla isoform. Our sequence analysis of the pla gene from 118 Y. pestis subsp. microtus strains revealed that the I259 isoform was present exclusively in the endemic strains pro...

Polylactic acid (PLA) was successfully covalently grafted onto multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNT) by microwave-assisted polymerization of lactide monomers. The final products MWCNT-g-PLA were characterized with Fourier-transform IR (FTIR), Raman spectroscopy, thermogravimetric analyses (TGA) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). The results indicated PLA chain was covalently attached t...

Biodegradable carriers containing gentamicin for local treatment of bone infection were developed. This paper describes the preparation and in vitro evaluation of these biodegradable implants. Poly-L-lactic acid (PLA) and poly-L-lactic acid:polyethylene glycol (PLA/PEG) disk implants containing gentamicin sulphate were obtained by compression of microspheres prepared by a double emulsion proces...

Plasticized poly(lactic acid) PLA with epoxidized vegetable oils (EVO) were prepared using a melt blending method to improve the ductility of PLA. The plasticization of the PLA with EVO lowers the Tg as well as cold-crystallization temperature. The tensile properties demonstrated that the addition of EVO to PLA led to an increase of elongation at break, but a decrease of tensile modulus. Plasti...

Lipoprotein-associated phospholipase A(2) (Lp-PLA(2)) is an independent cardiovascular risk factor. We investigated the plasma levels of Lp-PLA(2) activity and mass as a function of plasma lipid levels, LDL subclass profile, and oxidative stress in patients with β-thalassemia. Thirty-five patients with β-thalassemia major (β-TM) and 25 patients with β-thalassemia intermedia (β-TI) participated ...

Programmable logic arrays (PLAs) are being used to implement complex multivalued logic (MVL) circuits. In this paper we introduce three new current-mode CMOS MVL-PLA structures for the implementation of MVL functions. These PLA structures use four current-mode CMOS building blocks namely, cycle, min, tsum and constants. Comparison between the introduced architectures is made based on their resp...

Three-dimensional printing is a versatile technique to generate large quantities of a wide variety of shapes and sizes of polymer. The aim of this study is to develop functionalized 3D printed poly(lactic acid) (PLA) scaffolds and use a mussel-inspired surface coating and Xu Duan (XD) immobilization to regulate cell adhesion, proliferation and differentiation of human bone-marrow mesenchymal st...

Phospholipase A(2) (PLA(2)) from the pyloric ceca of the starfish Asterina pectinifera showed high specific activity and characteristic substrate specificity, compared with commercially available PLA(2) from porcine pancreas. To investigate enzymatic properties of the starfish PLA(2) in further detail, we constructed a bacterial expression system for the enzyme. The starfish PLA(2) cDNA isolate...

We report the detailed molecular characterization of two PLA₂s, Lys49 and Asp49 isolated from Bothrops leucurus venom, and examined their effects against Dengue virus (DENV). The Bl-PLA₂s, named BlK-PLA₂ and BlD-PLA₂, are composed of 121 and 122 amino acids determined by automated sequencing of the native proteins and peptides produced by digestion with trypsin. They contain fourteen cysteines ...