The innate immune system in humans consists of both cellular and humoral components that collaborate to eradicate invading bacteria from the body. Here, we discover that the gram-positive bacterium Bacillus anthracis, the causative agent of anthrax, does not grow in human serum. Fractionation of serum by gel filtration chromatography led to the identification of human transferrin as the inhibit...

Following suggestions that transferrin present in fetal-bovine serum, a common supplement used in tissue-culture media, may not bind well to human cells, we have isolated the protein and investigated its interaction with both human and bovine cells. Bovine transferrin bound to a human cell line, K562, at 4 degrees C with a kd of 590 nM, whereas human transferrin bound with a kd of 3.57 nM, a 16...

In previous studies, we have demonstrated that transferrin-gallium inhibits cellular proliferation by a mechanism whereby cellular iron utilization is impaired. Since indium, a similar class 3A metal, has not been well studied, we examined its effects on cellular iron uptake and cellular proliferation. In these studies, we provide evidence that indium, when bound to transferrin, has a 50-fold h...

We have previously demonstrated that transferrin-polycation conjugates are efficient carrier molecules for the introduction of genes into eukaryotic cells. We describe here a more specific method for conjugation of transferrin with DNA-binding compounds involving attachment at the transferrin carbohydrate moiety. We used the polycation poly(L-lysine) or the DNA intercalator, ethidium homodimer ...

Transferrin is an important growth-promoting serum glycoprotein synthesized chiefly in the liver in adults. The transferrin found in the mouse foetus is thought to be wholly a product of the foetus itself and its synthesis starts at lest as early as the 7th day of gestation. The major sites of synthesis in mouse foetuses are the visceral yolk sac (VYS) and liver (Adamson, 1982). We now report t...

BACKGROUND Carbohydrate-deficient transferrin (CDT) is a promising biomarker of alcohol abuse. We describe the development and multicenter evaluation of N Latex CDT (Dade Behring), an automated, particle-enhanced, homogeneous immunonephelometric assay for directly determining CDT. METHODS N Latex CDT uses a monoclonal antibody that recognizes the structure of transferrin glycoforms lacking 1 ...

The rate of receptor-mediated endocytosis of diferric 125I-transferrin by Chinese-hamster ovary cells expressing human transferrin receptors was compared with the rate measured for cells expressing hamster transferrin receptors. It was observed that the rate of endocytosis of the human transferrin receptor was significantly higher than that for the hamster receptor. In order to examine the mole...

Iron regulation of the human transferrin receptor gene was examined in murine cells transformed with chimeric constructs containing the human transferrin receptor gene's promoter and either the structural gene for bacterial chloramphenicol acetyltransferase or the human transferrin receptor cDNA. The activity of the transferrin receptor gene's promoter with the heterologous indicator gene was f...

Characterization of proteins by capillary electro-phoresis in fused-silica columns: review on serum protein analysis and application to immunoassays. Capillary Electrophoresis of serum proteins. Reproducibility, comparison with agarose gel electrophoresis and a review of the literature. Multicenter evaluation of the Paragon CZE 2000 capillary zone electrophore-sis system for serum protein elect...