Background: Common variable immunodeficiency (CVID) is a primary immune disorder associated with hypogammaglobulinemia, recurrent infections and autoimmune diseases. CVID patients are frequently in contact with infectious pathogens leading to the activation of innate immunity through Toll-like receptors (TLR) affecting adaptive immunity. The aim of the present study was to test the immunomedula...

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effects of alginate composition on the neurotrophic factor release, viability, and proliferation of encapsulated neural stem cells (NSCs), as well as on the mechanical stability of the scaffold itself. Four compositions were tested: a high guluronic acid (68%) and a high mannuronic acid (54%) content alginate, with or without a poly-L-lysine (PLL) c...

Alginic acid, a high molecular weight linear polymer obtained from seaweed, is widely used as an added product to food due to its property of forming highly viscous solutions. Originally described as a polymer of n-mannuronic acid, it has now been demonstrated, by the chemical studies of Fischer and DGrfel (l), to be a ,&l-4-linked polymer of n-mannuronic and L-guluronic acid. The ratio of the ...

Alginic acid, a high molecular weight linear polymer obtained from seaweed, is widely used as an added product to food due to its property of forming highly viscous solutions. Originally described as a polymer of n-mannuronic acid, it has now been demonstrated, by the chemical studies of Fischer and DGrfel (l), to be a ,&l-4-linked polymer of n-mannuronic and L-guluronic acid. The ratio of the ...

Alginic acid, a high molecular weight linear polymer obtained from seaweed, is widely used as an added product to food due to its property of forming highly viscous solutions. Originally described as a polymer of n-mannuronic acid, it has now been demonstrated, by the chemical studies of Fischer and DGrfel (l), to be a ,&l-4-linked polymer of n-mannuronic and L-guluronic acid. The ratio of the ...

Bacterial alginates are produced as 1-4-linked beta-D-mannuronan, followed by epimerization of some of the mannuronic acid residues to alpha-L-guluronic acid. Here we report the isolation of four different epimerization-defective point mutants of the periplasmic Pseudomonas fluorescens mannuronan C-5-epimerase AlgG. All mutations affected amino acids conserved among AlgG-epimerases and were clu...

Alginic acid, a high molecular weight linear polymer obtained from seaweed, is widely used as an added product to food due to its property of forming highly viscous solutions. Originally described as a polymer of n-mannuronic acid, it has now been demonstrated, by the chemical studies of Fischer and DGrfel (l), to be a ,&l-4-linked polymer of n-mannuronic and L-guluronic acid. The ratio of the ...

Guanosine diphosphate D-mannuronic acid and guanosine diphosphate L-guluronic acid were isolated from the marine brown alga, Fucus gardneri Silva. These uronic acid nucleotides, reported to occur for the first time in living cells, are considered to be the precursors for the biosynthesis of alginic acid which constitutes about 18% of this alga. A mixture of 3 moles of the two uronic acid nucleo...

Alginate is a family of linear copolymers of (1-->4)-linked beta-d-mannuronic acid and its C-5 epimer alpha-l-guluronic acid. The polymer is first produced as polymannuronic acid and the guluronic acid residues are then introduced at the polymer level by mannuronan C-5-epimerases. The structure of the catalytic A-module of the Azotobacter vinelandii mannuronan C-5-epimerase AlgE4 has been deter...