Nicotinic acid is required by most isolates of Salmonella enterica (serovar Dublin), a pathogen of cattle. A single nadA missense mutation causes the nutritional requirement of all serovar Dublin isolates tested. Models for persistence of this allele are tested and discussed.

Comparison of nadA and nadB in 14 Shigella strains and enteroinvasive Escherichia coli versus E. coli showed that at least one locus is altered in all strains. These observations explain the characteristic nicotinic acid auxotrophy of Shigella organisms and are consistent with the previously identified antivirulence nature of these genes for these pathogens.

Nada M. A. Suliman, Anne N. Åstrøm, Raouf W. Ali, Hussein Salman, Anne C. Johannessen 5, § Section for pathology, The Gade Institute, University of Bergen, Bergen, Norway Department of Clinical Dentistry, University of Bergen, Bergen, Norway Faculty of Dentistry, University of Science and Technology, Umdurman, Sudan Dermatology Clinic, Khartoum Teaching Hospital, Khartoum, Sudan Haukeland Unive...

BACKGROUND A common alternative treatment for substance abuse is auricular acupuncture. The aim of the study was to evaluate the short and long-term effect of auricular acupuncture on anxiety, sleep, drug use and addiction treatment utilization in adults with substance abuse. METHOD Of the patients included, 280 adults with substance abuse and psychiatric comorbidity, 80 were randomly assigne...

Cannabinoid (CB) agonists suppress nausea and vomiting (emesis). Similarly, transient receptor potential vanilloid-1 (TRPV1) receptor agonists are anti-emetic. Arvanil, N-(3-methoxy-4-hydroxy-benzyl)-arachidonamide, is a synthetic 'hybrid' agonist of CB1 and TRPV1 receptors. Anandamide and N-arachidonoyl-dopamine (NADA) are endogenous agonists at both these receptors. We investigated if arvanil...

Neisseria meningitidis adhesin A (NadA) is a meningococcus surface protein thought to assist in the adhesion of the bacterium to host cells. We have previously shown that NadA also promotes bacterial internalization in a heterologous expression system. Here we have used the soluble recombinant NadA (rNadA) lacking the membrane anchor region to characterize its internalization route in Chang epi...

The quinone-tanning hypothesis for insect cuticle sclerotization proposes that N-acylcatecholamines are oxidized by a phenoloxidase to quinones and quinone methides, which serve as electrophilic cross-linking agents to form covalent cross-links between cuticular proteins. We investigated model reactions for protein cross-linking that occurs during insect cuticle sclerotization using recombinant...