Group B streptococcal infection is a major cause of neonatal mortality. Antibody to the capsular polysaccharide protects against invasive neonatal disease, but immunization with capsular polysaccharides fails to elicit protective antibody in many recipients. Conjugation of the polysaccharide to tetanus toxoid has been shown to increase immune response to the polysaccharide. In animal models, C ...

Haemophilus influenzae type b is a common cause of invasive bacterial disease, especially among children in underdeveloped countries. The type b polysaccharide capsule is a polymer of ribose and ribitol-5-phosphate and is a critical determinant of virulence. Expression of the type b capsule is dependent upon the cap b locus, which consists of three functionally distinct regions, designated regi...

Products of the intercellular adhesion (ica) operon in Staphylococcus aureus and Staphylococcus epidermidis synthesize a linear beta-1,6-linked glucosaminylglycan. This extracellular polysaccharide mediates bacterial cell-cell adhesion and is required for biofilm formation, which is thought to increase the virulence of both pathogens in association with prosthetic biomedical implants. The envir...

AIM To investigate the fate of Streptococcus pneumoniae C-polysaccharide antigen in serum in patients with S pneumoniae bacteraemia. METHOD In vitro dissociation experiments were performed to demonstrate that C-polysaccharide was masked by ligands in normal and acute phase serum. Serum samples from 22 patients with S pneumoniae bacteraemia were treated to dissociate immune complexes and then ...

Jacob and Monod have proposed that regulator genes may control the syntheses of several related enzymes in Escherichia coli K12.1 The present paper provides evidence for a regulator gene (designated R1)2 which controls capsular polysaccharide synthesis in E. coli K12. Certain mutants of E. coli produce large mucoid colonies which are characterized by overproduction of polysaccharide. The polysa...

coincidence of autoimmune diseases such as immune thrombocytopenic purpura (itp) with  immunodeficiencies has  been  reported  previously in  patients  who  suffered  from primary antibody deficiency (pad). but there is no original study on immunological profiles of itp patients to find out their probable immune deficiency. in this case-control study, itp patients’ humoral immunity was investig...

Chemically synthesized nanostructure-initiator mass spectrometry (NIMS) probes derivatized with tetrasaccharides were used to study the reactivity of representative Clostridium thermocellum β-glucosidase, endoglucanases, and cellobiohydrolase. Diagnostic patterns for reactions of these different classes of enzymes were observed. Results show sequential removal of glucose by the β-glucosidase an...

Pluripotent embryonic stem cells (ESCs) must select between alternative fates of self-renewal and lineage commitment at each division during continuous proliferation. Heparan sulfate (HS) is a highly sulfated polysaccharide and is present abundantly on the ESC surface. In this study, we investigated the role of HS in ESC self-renewal by examining Ext1(-/-) ESCs that are deficient in HS. We foun...

Eucalyptus globulus chips were steam exploded followed by treatment with a laccase-mediator system (LMS) under different experimental conditions. Removal of hemicelluloses and, to a lesser extent, lignin was observed. Thermogravimetic analyses of whole meal obtained from chips before and after steam explosion indicated an increase in lignin degradation temperature due to lignin condensation. In...

Kanamycin belongs to the aminoglycoside class of bacteriostatic antibiotics that inhibits protein synthesis. Previous studies have shown that treatment with sublethal levels of kanamycin causes the extracellular polysaccharide capsule in E. coli B23 to increase in size, and potentially confers the bacterium with kanamycin resistance. This study attempted to confirm this by establishing that inc...