Antibiotics are losing effectiveness as bacteria become resistant to conventional drugs. To find new alternatives, antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) rationally designed with different lengths, charges, hydrophobicities (H), and hydrophobic moments (μH), containing only three types of amino acids: arginine, tryptophan, valine. Six AMPs low minimum inhibitory concentrations (MICs) <25% toxicity mamma...

Background: HLA-G is a nonclassical HLA class I molecule which, when elevated in tumor cells, is one of the main factors involved in tumor evasion of immune responses including NK and T cells. Objective: To evaluate the effect of HLA-G downregulation on NK cell cytotoxicity in tumor cell lines. Methods: The expression level of HLA-G was measured by real-time PCR and flowcytometry after transfec...

we searched for novel chinese hamster ovary (cho) cell mutants defective in peroxisome biogenesis by an improved method using peroxisome targeting sequence (pts) of pex3p (amino acid residues 1–40)-fused enhanced green fluorescent protein (egfp). from mutagenized tkaeg3(1–40) cells, the wild-type cho-k1 stably expressing rat pex2p and of rat pex3p(1–40)-egfp, numerous cell colonies resistant to...

Previous studies showed that the glycoprotein (G) of vesicular stomatitis virus is synthesized in association with the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) membrane and that all G mRNA co-fractionates with ER membrane. Here, we show that treatment of infected cells with puromycin results in dissociation of G mRNA, and presumably the associated ribosomes, from the ER membrane. Even it extracts from treate...

Ankyrin-G and βII-spectrin colocalize at sites of cell-cell contact in columnar epithelial cells and promote lateral membrane assembly. This study identifies two critical inputs from lipids that together provide a rationale for how ankyrin-G and βII-spectrin selectively localize to Madin-Darby canine kidney (MDCK) cell lateral membranes. We identify aspartate-histidine-histidine-cysteine 5/8 (D...

Albeit anthracyclines are widely used in the treatment of solid tumors and leukemias, their mechanism of action has not been elucidated. The present study gives relevant information about the role of nonlamellar membrane structures in signaling pathways, which could explain how anthracyclines can exert their cytocidal action without entering the cell [Tritton, T. R. & Yee, G. (1982) Science 217...

introduction: the functional effects of orexin-b on the calcium spikes and excitability of the neuronal soma membrane of garden snail, helix aspersa were studied. methods: conventional intracellular recording, under the current clamp conditions was performed to examine the effects of orexin-b on the configuration and electrophysiological properties of calcium spikes. results: application of ore...

background and objectives: red beet extract concentrate can be used as a natural colorant in food products; however, destructive effects of thermal methods to produce juice concentrate decrease nutritional value in the final product. materials and methods: in this study, red beet extract was concentrated using osmotic distillation method, and the best pretreatment was evaluated to increase the ...

in this study, the influence of the salts as an additive on the performance of the membrane was investigated and an extensive work was performed to optimize pvdf hollow fiber membranes through a response surface methodology (rsm). the prepared membranes were characterized by sem, contact angle and lep measurement. then, the rsm was used for the optimization of surface pore size, porosity and hy...