Several studies have reported that the citrus red mites Panonychus citri were an important allergen of citrus-cultivating farmers in Jeju Island. The aim of the present study was to purify and assess properties of a cysteine protease from the mites acting as a potentially pathogenic factor to citrus-cultivating farmers. A cysteine protease was purified using column chromatography of Mono Q anio...

A nontoxic phospholipase A2 was purified from the venom of Indian krait (Bungarus caeruleus) by a four-step procedure involving electrophoresis, gel filtration and ion-exchange chromatography. The recovery of the enzyme activity was 37% and the purified preparation was 38 times as active as the crude venom. The purified enzyme had a molecular weight of 12,500 and the optimum pH of 7.2. The enzy...

A hydroxynitrile lyase was isolated and purified to homogeneity from seeds of Eriobotrya japonica (loquat). The final yield, of 36% with 49-fold purification, was obtained by 30-80% (NH(4))(2)SO(4) fractionation and column chromatography on DEAE-Toyopearl and Concanavalin A Sepharose 4B, which suggested the presence of a carbohydrate side chain. The purified enzyme was a monomer with a molecula...

The existence of a cardiac carnitine binding protein was demonstrated using an in vitro binding assay. The binding activity was solubilized with Triton X-100 from the pellet following a 59,000 X g centrifugation of rat ventricular homogenates. Preincubation at temperatures above 40 degrees C or treatment with pronase significantly reduced the binding activity, suggesting that the activity was t...

Experiments are described which have led to the selective alkylation of a histidine residue in streptococcal proteinase without concomitant reaction with the single essential sulfhydry1 group. The reduced, active form of the enzyme was first treated with sodium tetrathionate to protect the sulfhydry1 group and to introduce a negative charge near the active center. The resulting inactive derivat...

In a previous report, we have proposed that anaerobic glycolysis alone can maintain an action potential of normal duration in guinea-pig papillary muscle. This proposal followed from the observation that 50 m\i glucose, several sympathomimetic amines, and aminophylline all caused the duration of the action potential of muscles, which had been reduced by incubation in a medium containing 5 mM gl...

A combination of oligonucleotide-directed mutagenesis and chemical modification was used to produce reactive site (P1) variants of chymotrypsin inhibitor II (CI2) in an attempt to create more potent inhibitors and examine inhibitory specificity. Mutagenesis to introduce a unique cysteine (CI2M59C) followed by modification to S-carboxamidocysteine with iodoacetamide produced a 7-fold more potent...

Biodegradation is a potentially important loss process for haloacetic acids (HAAs), a class of chlorination byproducts, in water treatment and distribution systems, but little is known about the organisms involved (i.e., identity, substrate range, biodegradation kinetics). In this research, 10 biomass samples (i.e., tap water, distribution system biofilms, and prechlorinated granular activated ...

A trypsin-like protease was purified from spent culture medium of oral pathogen Porphyromonas gingivalis by chromatography on columns of DEAE-Sepharose, gel filtration on Sephadex G-100, and chromatofocusing on PBE-94. Purified enzyme showed a single band on SDS-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis with an estimated molecular weight of 55,000. Purified protease hydrolyzed type I, III, IV, and V c...