Three known Cinchona alkaloids of the quinine type, quinine (1), cupreine (2), cinchonine (3), and the possible artifact cinchonine-HCl (3-HCl), along with two new ones, acetylcupreine (4) and N-ethylquinine (5), have been isolated from the bark of Remijia peruviana (Rubiaceae). Their stereochemical structures were established by high resolution NMR spectroscopy. Alkaloids 2-4 had antifeedant e...

  Objective(s):  Infection by high-risk papillomavirus is regarded as the major risk factor in the development of cervical cancer. Recombinant DNA technology allows expression of the L1 major capsid protein of HPV in different expression systems, which has intrinsic capacity to self-assemble into viral-like particles (VLP). VLPS are non-infectious, highly immunogenic and can elicit neutralizing...

Insect-specific ascoviruses with a circular genome are distributed in the USA, France, Australia and Indonesia. Here, we report the first ascovirus isolation from Spodoptera exigua in Hunan, China. DNA-DNA hybridization to published ascoviruses demonstrated that the new China ascovirus isolate is a variant of Heliothis virescens ascovirus 3a (HvAV-3a), thus named HvAV-3h. We investigated the ph...

Insect ovarian Sf9 cells extend processes with complex morphologies when infected with a recombinant baculovirus encoding the catalytic subunit of protein kinase A. Within the shafts of the processes are abundant microtubules, which, in contrast to those in Sf9 cells expressing the microtubule-associated protein tau, are generally not organized into parallel bundles. During infection the late v...

Using the baculovirus expression system the gene products of human tap1 and tap2 were over-expressed as wild-type as well as oligohistidine fusion proteins in Spodoptera frugiperda (Sf9) insect cells. Both gene products were co-expressed within the same cells and were found enriched in microsomal membranes. Immunoprecipitation and immobilized metal affinity chromatography revealed complex forma...

Our single cell analytical experiments for future protein fingerprinting combines microfluidic on-chip protein electrophoresis with latest laser technology for single cell manipulation and (label-free) protein detection, and is presented by the following issues: 1) Single cells were trapped and navigated by optical tweezers (OT) in a PDMS microfluidic device, and lysed at a predefined position....

We have designed a microfluidic device in which we can manipulate, lyse, label, separate, and quantify the protein contents of a single cell using single-molecule fluorescence counting. Generic labeling of proteins is achieved through fluorescent-antibody binding. The use of cylindrical optics enables high-efficiency (approximately 60%) counting of molecules in micrometer-sized channels. We use...

In an effort to develop genetically engineered Brucella abortus (BA) vaccines, the genes encoding heat shock proteins (HSPs) GroEL, GroES, and HtrA were cloned and expressed in the BAC-TO-BAC Baculovirus System, and the kinetics of protein expression were analyzed using various insect cell lines in suspension cultures, different cell densities in suspension cultures, multiplicities of infection...