Protein interactions with surfactants are dependent on their physiochemical properties. The effect of cationic gemini surfactant hexanediyl-a,u-bis-(N-(2-hydroxyethyl)-N-methylhexadecylammonium dibromide) on the stability and activity of hen egg white lysozyme was compared with its monomeric counterpart N-(2-hyroxyethyl)-N,N-dimethylhexadecylammonium bromide at pre and post micellar concentrati...

The structure of the mutant of bacteriophage T4 lysozyme in which Gly-156 is replaced by aspartic acid is described. The lysozyme was isolated by screening for temperature-sensitive mutants and has a melting temperature at pH 6.5 that is 6.1 degrees C lower than wild type. The mutant structure is destabilized, in part, because Gly-156 has conformational angles (phi, psi) that are not optimal fo...

The study investigated the effect of spraying chicken legs with skin with lysozyme solutions of varying activity on their microbiological stability and organoleptic features. Lysozyme was applied at concentrations ranging from 3000 to 48000 U/ml. The effect of storage time at the temperature of +4C on the total aerobic bacterial count, coli titre, the occurrence of enterococci, anaerobic sporef...

Our recent determination of the complete antigenic structure of native lysozyme was made possible by our introduction of the "surface simulation" synthetic concept. The remarkable success afforded by this strategy in the synthetic construction of antigenic sites prompted us to investigate whether it can be applied to mimic antibody-combining sites. Two peptides, designed to be complementary to ...

The hallmarks of Alzheimer disease are amyloid-β plaques and neurofibrillary tangles accompanied by signs of neuroinflammation. Lysozyme is a major player in the innate immune system and has recently been shown to prevent the aggregation of amyloid-β1-40 in vitro. In this study we found that patients with Alzheimer disease have increased lysozyme levels in the cerebrospinal fluid and lysozyme c...

A method based on cold ethyl alcohol fractionation at different pH levels and ionic strengths and on gel filtration on a Sephadex G-200 column was used to concentrate and purify lysozyme from the culture supernatant fluid of Staphylococcus aureus strain 524. The final, nondialyzable product exhibited a 163-fold rise in specific activity over that of the starting material. Staphylococcal lysozym...

In previous studies, we have demonstrated that the low molecular weight protein lysozyme can be used as a renal-selective drug carrier for delivery of the angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitor captopril. Typically, such macromolecular drug-targeting preparations are administered intravenously. In the present study, we investigated the fate of captopril-lysozyme following subcutaneous ad...

Lysozymes are key effectors of the animal innate immunity system that kill bacteria by hydrolyzing peptidoglycan, their major cell wall constituent. Recently, specific inhibitors of the three major lysozyme families occuring in the animal kingdom (c-, g- and i-type) have been discovered in Gram-negative bacteria, and it has been proposed that these may help bacteria to evade lysozyme mediated l...

Listeria monocytogenes is a Gram-positive facultative intracellular pathogen that is highly resistant to lysozyme, a ubiquitous enzyme of the innate immune system that degrades cell wall peptidoglycan. Two peptidoglycan-modifying enzymes, PgdA and OatA, confer lysozyme resistance on L. monocytogenes; however, these enzymes are also conserved among lysozyme-sensitive nonpathogens. We sought to i...

PURPOSE The aim of the study was the comparison of lysozyme concentration and peroxidase activity in mixed, non-stimulated saliva of HIV-positive patients and healthy subjects. MATERIAL AND METHODS The study was carried out in the group of 37 patients infected with HIV. The control group comprised of non-infected individuals, counterpart of the examined group. Mixed non-stimulated saliva, col...