Previous work in this laboratory showed that diethylstilbestrol was capable of suppressing induced furunculosis in rabbits. The present study indicates that the synthetic estrogenic hormone diethylstilbestrol which is used for acne, estrogen deficiency, cancer, and other disorders, can reduce the cytolytic action of staphylococcal alpha toxin. The cytotoxic action of purified alpha toxin for ti...

Bovine necrohemorrhagic enteritis is a major cause of mortality in veal calves. Clostridium perfringens is considered as the causative agent, but there has been controversy on the toxins responsible for the disease. Recently, it has been demonstrated that a variety of C. perfringens type A strains can induce necrohemorrhagic lesions in a calf intestinal loop assay. These results put forward alp...

McClatchy, J. K. (The University of Texas Southwestern Medical School, Dallas), and E. D. Rosenblum. Genetic recombination between alpha-toxin mutants of Staphylococcus aureus. J. Bacteriol. 92:580-583. 1966.-A demonstration of genetic recombination between Staphylococcus aureus nonhemolytic mutants was attempted by means of transduction. The results of two-point reciprocal transductions placed...

The plethora of virulence factors associated with Staphylococcus aureus make this bacterium an attractive candidate for a molecularly-designed epitope-focused vaccine. This approach, which necessitates the identification of neutralizing epitopes for incorporation into a vaccine construct, is being evaluated for pathogens where conventional approaches have failed to elicit protective humoral res...

Pathogenic staphylococci secrete a number of exotoxins, including alpha-toxin. alpha-Toxin induces lysis of erythrocytes and liposomes when its 3S protein monomers associate with the lipid bilayer and form a hexomeric transmembrane channel 3 nm in diameter. We have used alpha-toxin to render rat hepatocytes 93-100% permeable to trypan blue with a lactate dehydrogenase leakage less than or equal...

Atopic dermatitis (AD) is an inflammatory skin disease characterized by increased T-helper type 2 (Th2) cytokine expression. AD skin lesions are often exacerbated by Staphylococcus aureus-mediated secretion of the lytic virulence factor, alpha toxin. In the current study, we report that alpha toxin-induced cell death is greater in the skin from patients with AD compared with controls. Furthermo...

We have investigated the possible role of guanine nucleotide-binding proteins in the process of antigen-induced exocytosis in a cultured rat mast cell line, RBL-2H3 cells. The mRNAs for the alpha subunits of the guanine nucleotide-binding proteins G alpha S (short and long forms), G alpha i-2, G alpha i-3, and G alpha Z were detected by hybridization with G alpha-specific oligonucleotide probes...

Differences in the specificity of coupling of delta-opioid receptor with G-protein have been reported in the literature. We have observed a differential desensitization of delta-opioid receptors, endogenously expressed in the neuroblastoma cell line SK-N-BE, induced by peptide and alkaloid agonists. By combining photoaffinity labelling of receptor-activated G-proteins with [alpha-(32)P]azidoani...