the activated sludge process is the most widely used biological wastewater treatment for both domestic and industrial plants in the world. one of the drawbacks of conventional activated sludge (cas) processes is high sludge production. excess sludge treatment and disposal currently represents a rising challenge for wastewater treatment plants (wwtps) due to economic, environmental and regulatio...

Antifreeze protein (AFP) types, I, II and III were tested for their ability to protect red blood cells from lysis during warming, after cryopreservation in hydroxyethyl starch. All three types reduced hemolysis to 25% of control values at similar micromolar concentrations but enhanced lysis as the AFP concentration approached millimolar levels. Site-directed mutants of type III AFP with differe...

The murine Ly-49 antigen belongs to a family of type II transmembrane molecules containing lectin-like domains. The original member of this family, Ly-49A, has been demonstrated to be expressed by a subpopulation of natural killer (NK) cells, bind certain class I major histocompatibility complexes (MHC), and act as a negative regulator of lytic activity. The expression patterns and functional a...

Proteins encoded by members of the Ly-49 gene family are predominantly expressed on murine natural killer (NK) cells. Several members of this gene family have been demonstrated to inhibit NK cell lysis upon recognizing their class I ligands on target cells. In this report, we present data supporting that not all Ly-49 proteins inhibit NK cell function. Our laboratory has generated and character...

The changes in bacteriolytic and proteolytic activities of skin cathepsins L and B were studied Ž . in thermal-stressed European eel Anguilla anguilla . When fish were kept in 108C water, all activities increased to reach maximum levels at Day 8 with varying increasing rates of 3.0 Ž . Ž . Ž . proteolysis , 4.2 lysis of FlaÕobacterium columnare , 5.7 lysis of Vibrio anguillarum and 7.8 Ž . lysi...

Development of new diagnostic platforms that incorporate lab-on-a-chip technologies for portable assays is driving the need for rapid, simple, low cost methods to prepare samples for downstream processing or detection. An important component of the sample preparation process is cell lysis. In this work, a simple microfluidic thermal lysis device is used to quickly release intracellular nucleic ...

Article history: Received 25 July 2016 Received in revised form 19 September 2016 Accepted 30 October 2016 Available online xxxx Soluble microbial products (SMP) and extracellular polymeric substances (EPS) produced by photoautotrophic cyanobacteria become substrates for heterotrophic bacteria in photobioreactors (PBRs). Understanding the roles of SMP and EPS depends on reliable extraction and ...

Animal body temperature (Tbody) varies over daily and annual cycles, affecting multiple aspects of biological performance in both endothermic and ectothermic animals. Yet a comprehensive comparison of thermal performance among animals varying in Tbody (mean and variance) and heat production is lacking. Thus, we examined the thermal sensitivity of immune function (a crucial fitness determinant) ...

Murine NK cells express the Ly-49 family of class I MHC-binding receptors that control their ability to lyse tumor or virally infected host target cells. X-ray crystallography studies have identified two predominant contact sites (sites 1 and 2) that are involved in the binding of the inhibitory receptor, Ly-49A, to H-2D(d). Ly-49G2 (inhibitory) and Ly-49D (activating) are highly homologous to ...

Ly-49 is a recently identified cell surface molecule expressed on a subpopulation of natural killer (NK) cells and certain T lymphomas. It has been suggested, based on gene transfection and antibody blocking studies, that Ly-49 is a negative regulator of NK lytic activity, possibly through an interaction with target cell class I molecules. However, it has not been demonstrated that class I mole...