Previous reports (Drescher, D. G., and Lee, K. S. (1978) Anal. Biochem. 84, 559-569; Lee, K. S., and Drescher, D. G. (1978) Int. J. Biochem. 9,457-467) have shown that high performance liquid chromatographic analysis of amino acids with the o-phthaldialdehyde/2mercaptoethanol reagent (OPA/P-ME) is one of the most sensitive procedures currently available for micro amino acid analysis. In the pre...

Lipooligosaccharide (LOS) has been implicated in the adhesion and invasion of host epithelial cells. We examined the adhesive and invasive abilities of isogenic gonococcal opacity-associated outer membrane protein-negative, pilus-positive (Opa-Pil+) Neisseria gonorrhoeae strains expressing genetically defined LOS. Strain F62 (Opa-Pil+), expressing the lacto-N-neotetraose and the galNac-lacto-N-...

BACKGROUND Several human-restricted gram-negative bacteria exploit carcinoembryonic antigen-related cell adhesion molecules (CEACAMs) for host colonization. For example, Neisseria meningitidis engages these human receptors via outer membrane proteins of the colony opacity-associated (Opa) protein family triggering internalization into non-phagocytic cells. PRINCIPAL FINDINGS We report that a ...

Acute salpingitis complicating cervical gonococcal infection is a significant cause of infertility. Relatively little data are available concerning the pathophysiologic mechanisms of this disease. A cohort of 243 prostitutes residing in Nairobi were followed between March 1985 and April 1988. Gonococcal cultures were performed at each visit, and acute salpingitis was diagnosed clinically. Serum...

BACKGROUND Few studies have examined which lifestyle factors relate to the development of fat distribution. Therefore, the identification of the determinants of changes in fat deposition is highly relevant. METHODS The association between the change in physical activity (PA) and the subsequent changes in regional body fat distributions was examined. In total, 1,236 men and 1,201 women were in...

Hox genes have large expression domains yet control the formation of fine pattern elements at specific locations. We have examined the mechanism underlying subdivision of the abdominal-A (abdA) Hox domain in the visceral mesoderm. AbdA directs formation of an embryonic midgut constriction at a precise location within the broad and uniform abdA expression domain. The constriction divides the abd...

Classical target detection can suffer large error probabilities in noisy and lossy environments when noise photons are mistaken for signal photons reflected from an object. It has been shown theoretically that the correlation between entangled photons can be used to better discriminate between the signal photons reflected by an object and noise photons, thus reducing the probability of error [1...

We introduce a general method in order to construct the non-chiral fusion rules which determine the operator content of the operator product algebra for rational conformal field theories. We are particularly interested in the models of the complementary D−like solutions of the modular invariant partition functions with cyclic center ZN . We find that the non-chiral fusion rules have a ZN−gradin...

Future wireless communications technology should fulfill the demands of multimedia applications, interactive internet service, high data rates and power efficiency. However, wireless channel is affected by multipath fading that can degrade the system performance. To overcome the problem, cooperative communication has been introduced to be an efficient diversity technique to combat the multipath...

Bordetella pertussis is the causative agent of pertussis (whooping cough). Despite high vaccination coverage, pertussis remains a significant disease in many countries. Besides vaccination, transient carriage of Bordetella spp. or other cross-reacting organisms adds to the immunity against pertussis. However, the various immunological mechanisms conferring protection remain largely unknown. In ...