Penicillin acylase (EC 3.5.1.11) has been a target of study for a long time because of its pivotal role in the deacylation of the penicillin into the 6- aminopenicillanic acid (6-APA) and the side-chain organic acids. This property of penicillin acylase has been exploited commercially for large scale production of 6-APA, which is the key intermediate in the manufacture of semi-synthetic penicil...

To determine whether homocysteine (Hcy)-mediated activation of endocardial endothelial (EE) cells is ameliorated by peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor (PPAR), we isolated EE cells from mouse endocardium. Matrix metalloproteinase (MMP) activity and intercellular adhesion molecule (ICAM)-1 in EE cells were measured in the presence and absence of Hcy, and ciprofibrate (CF; PPAR-alpha agoni...

The culturability of several actinobacteria is controlled by resuscitation-promoting factors (Rpfs). These are proteins containing a c. 70-residue domain that adopts a lysozyme-like fold. The invariant catalytic glutamate residue found in lysozyme and various bacterial lytic transglycosylases is also conserved in the Rpf proteins. Rpf from Micrococcus luteus, the founder member of this protein ...

Ligatin, a filamentous protein previously found in suckling rat ileum, has been purified from plasma membranes of embryonic chick neural retina. The isolated plasma membranes are covered in part by 4.5-nm filaments that can be released from the membranes by treatment with Ca++. Subsequent dialysis against EGTA followed by sieve chromatography results in purification of the 10,000-dalton ligatin...

Ten clinical isolates of Candida albicans, five strains belonging to each of fluconazole resistant and susceptible groups isolated from diabetic patients, were studied for the membrane fluidity and lipid composition. Compared to fluconazole susceptible strains, fluconazole resistant ones exhibited enhanced membrane fluidity as measured by fluorescence polarization technique. The increased membr...

The solubilized coupling factor (Ft) of Rps. sphaeroides chromatophores was allowed to react with fiuorescamine which led to a fluorescence labelled Ft . After reconstitution with the depleted membranes the fluorescence-labelled Fj was shown to restore photophosphorylation in continuous light in a similar way to the non-labelled Ft . In parallel, a decrease of the fluorescence emission of the l...

The paper reviews the methods described in the literature for the determination of total dissolved free primary amines (TDFPA) by fluorescence. A wide set of reaction conditions can be found, but they rely on few experiments for their validation. Among fluorogenic compounds, o-phthaldialdehyde (OPA) is more sensitive than fluorescamine and was thus examined here. However, the use of mercaptoeth...

Rat liver microsomes were incubated with the monofunctional aminoreagent fluorescamine. Although the probe easily penetrated the membranes, two pools of phosphatidylethanolamine (PE) could be detected. The first pool rapidly reacted with the probe and comprised 80% of the total PE. The second pool exhibited a very slow interaction. The two pools showed differences in fatty acid composition as w...