BACKGROUND Despite limited evidence, woollen clothing has traditionally been considered to be an irritant that should be avoided by individuals with atopic dermatitis (AD). Wool fibres come in a range of diameters, and have beneficial thermodynamic and moisture transport properties. OBJECTIVES This study examines the effects of superfine merino wool on symptoms in participants with mild-to-mo...

Wool fibres consist of micro to nano scale protein constituents that could be used for innovative applications. While techniques for extracting these constituents or making wool fibres into organic powders have been developed, effectively dispersing the particles and accurately determining their size has been difficult in practice. In this study, an ultrasonic method was employed to disperse co...

During treatment with oxidizing agents, the disulfide sulfur in wool appears to be changed to higher states of oxidation. The exist ence of oxidation derivatives of the disulfide compounds is indicated by the alkali-solubility determination, the lead acetate test, b y reduction with hydrochloric acid-potassium iodide solutions, and by cystine analyses. The intermediate oxidation derivatives of ...

The American or Blood System The American system of grading wool was developed in the early 1800s when the native coarse-wooled sheep were being bred to finewooled Merino rams imported from Spain. It assumes that the offspring of the cross would have fleeces which were intermediate in fineness between the two parents. The wool grade is defined as the percentage of Merino blood carried by the sh...

Monoclonal antibodies that recognize components of the low-sulfur keratin proteins extracted from Merino wool have been used to locate these components within the wool follicle. Immunoblotting procedures showed that all of the monoclonal antibodies bound more than one of the eight low-sulfur protein components, indicating that these proteins have antigenic determinants in common. Immunofluoresc...

Methionine synthase (MTR) plays a crucial role in maintaining homeostasis of intracellular methionine, folate, and homocysteine, and its activity correlates with DNA methylation in many mammalian tissues. Our previous genomewide association study identified that 1 SNP located in the gene was associated with several wool production and quality traits in Chinese Merino. To confirm the potential i...

Synthetic vitreous fibers are inorganic fibrous materials, manufactured principally from glass, rock, minerals, slag, and processed inorganic oxides. Synthetic vitreous fibers are manufactured by several processes, all of which involve cooling of a stream of high-temperature, molten inorganic oxides. Commercially important synthetic vitreous fibers are primarily silica-based, but contain variou...

OBJECTIVE The pathogenesis of neurologic and neuropsychologic dysfunction in HIV-1 infection is unclear. The purpose of the study was to determine an association between cerebral perfusion and HIV-1-related ocular microangiopathic syndrome. METHODS We studied 28 HIV-1-infected patients, seven of whom presented with asymptomatic HIV infection, nine with lymphadenopathy syndrome or AIDS-related...