Porphyromonas gingivalis is a major etiologic agent of periodontitis and exhibits hemagglutinating and adherence activities. We previously succeeded in molecular cloning the 200-kDa cell-surface antigenic protein (200-k AP), designated pMD101, that is recognized in sera from periodontitis patients, and identified the 200-k AP as a hemagglutinin A (HagA) derivative. HagA is one of the hemaggluti...

Historically, vaccine safety assessments have been conducted by animal testing (e.g., quality control tests and adjuvant development). However, classical evaluation methods do not provide sufficient information to make treatment decisions. We previously identified biomarker genes as novel safety markers. Here, we developed a practical safety assessment system used to evaluate the intramuscular,...

Epidemiologic observations that have been made in the context of the current pandemic influenza virus include a stable virulence phenotype and a lack of propensity to reassort with seasonal strains. In an attempt to determine whether either of these observations could change in the future, we coinfected differentiated human airway cells with seasonal oseltamivir-resistant A/New Jersey/15/07 and...

One selection pressure shaping sequence evolution is the requirement that a protein fold with sufficient stability to perform its biological functions. We present a conceptual framework that explains how this requirement causes the probability that a particular amino acid mutation is fixed during evolution to depend on its effect on protein stability. We mathematically formalize this framework ...

Clostridium botulinum is a genetically diverse Gram-positive bacterium producing extremely potent neurotoxins (botulinum neurotoxins A through G [BoNT/A-G]). The complete genome sequences of three strains harboring only the BoNT/A1 nucleotide sequence are publicly available. Although these strains contain a toxin cluster (HA(+) OrfX(-)) associated with hemagglutinin genes, little is known about...

We have constructed an artificial ligand for the hepatocyte-specific asialoglycoprotein receptor for the purpose of generating a synthetic delivery system for DNA. This ligand has a tetra-antennary structure, containing four terminal galactose residues on a branched carrier peptide. The carbohydrate residues of this glycopeptide were introduced by reductive coupling of lactose to the alpha- and...

The composition of the plasma membrane domains of epithelial cells is maintained by biosynthetic pathways that can sort both proteins and lipids into transport vesicles destined for either the apical or basolateral surface. In MDCK cells, the influenza virus hemagglutinin is sorted in the trans-Golgi network into detergent-insoluble, glycosphingolipid-enriched membrane domains that are proposed...

In Madin-Darby canine kidney (MDCK) cells (a polarized epithelial cell line) infected with influenza virus, the hemagglutinin behaves as an apical plasma membrane glycoprotein. To determine biochemically the domain on the plasma membrane, apical or basolateral, where newly synthesized hemagglutinin first appears, cells were cultured on Millipore filters to make both cell surface domains indepen...

The "Spanish" influenza pandemic of 1918 was characterized by exceptionally high mortality, especially among young adults. The surface proteins of influenza viruses, hemagglutinin and neuraminidase, play important roles in virulence, host specificity, and the human immune response. The complete coding sequence of hemagglutinin was reported last year. This laboratory has now determined the compl...

Rapid antigenic evolution in the influenza A virus hemagglutinin precludes effective vaccination with existing vaccines. To understand this phenomenon, we passaged virus in mice immunized with influenza vaccine. Neutralizing antibodies selected mutants with single-amino acid hemagglutinin substitutions that increased virus binding to cell surface glycan receptors. Passaging these high-avidity b...