Aspergillus niger is known for its efficient excretion machinery. However, problems have often arisen in obtaining high amounts of heterologous proteins in the culture medium. Here we present a quick method using sandwiched colonies to evaluate transgenic strains for secretion of heterologous proteins. Expressing the ABH1 hydrophobin of Agaricus bisporus in A. niger, we showed that low producti...

Rapid culture of Mycobacterium avium subspecies paratuberculosis (MAP) from patients remains a challenge. During the process of developing a rapid culture method for MAP, we found that there is an alternative growth behavior present in MAP, MAH (Mycobacterium avium subspecies hominissuis) and other bacteria such as Staphylococcus aureus, and Staphylococcus pseudintermedius. The bacterial DNA, R...

Chick embryo extract (CEE) contains a variety of growth factors which may improve in vitro follicle growth. Therefore, the effect of CEE on mouse pre-antral follicle culture was evaluated. Different percentages of CEE (0, 0.50%, 1.00%, 5.00% and 10.00%) were added to culture medium. Hence, the osmolarity of media was measured. Pre-antral follicles with diameter of 120-150 μm were isola...

We have developed a new computational modelling paradigm for predicting the emergent behaviour resulting from the interaction of cells in epithelial tissue. As proof-of-concept, an agent-based model, in which there is a one-to-one correspondence between biological cells and software agents, has been coupled to a simple physical model. Behaviour of the computational model is compared with the gr...

We hypothesize that a universal quantitative relation exists between the number of necrotic cells in culture and LDH activity in culture media. Previously this relation was found in immortalised cell lines. We hypothesized that similar correlation exists in normal cells of human origin. We investigated cultured human oseoblast-like cells. LDH activity in the media of cultured samples (n=8) was ...