The vesicular neurotransmitter transporter VMAT2 is responsible for the transport of monoamines into synaptic and storage vesicles. VMAT2 is the target of many psychoactive drugs and is essential for proper neurotransmission and survival. Here we describe a new expression system in Saccharomyces cerevisiae that takes advantage of the polyspecificity of VMAT2. Expression of rVMAT2 confers resist...

Acridine dyes, including proflavine and acriflavine, were commonly used as antiseptics before the advent of penicillins in the mid-1940s. While their mode of action on pathogens was originally attributed to their DNA intercalating activity, work in the early 1970s suggested involvement of the host immune responses, characterized by induction of interferon (IFN)-like activities through an unknow...

Multidrug efflux pumps play an important role as a self-defense system in bacteria. Bacterial multidrug efflux pumps are classified into five families based on structure and coupling energy: resistance-nodulation-cell division (RND), small multidrug resistance (SMR), major facilitator (MF), ATP binding cassette (ABC), and multidrug and toxic compounds extrusion (MATE). We cloned a gene encoding...

BACKGROUND Confocal endomicroscopy (CEM) is an endoscopic technology permitting in vivo cellular and subcellular imaging. CEM aids real-time clinical assessment and diagnosis of various gastrointestinal diseases in people. CEM allows in vivo characterization of small intestinal mucosal morphology in dogs. OBJECTIVE To determine the feasibility of CEM to evaluate gastric mucosal morphology in ...

Confocal laser endomicroscopy is a novel endoscopic technique that may allow imaging of living cells in lung tissue in vivo. We assessed the potential of this technique for the detection of histology during screening bronchoscopy for lung cancer. 32 patients with suspected malignancies underwent bronchoscopy with endomicroscopy using acriflavine hydrochloride. Standardised areas and localised l...

An analysis of acrA (acriflavine- and methylene blue-sensitive) and lir (lincomycin- and erythromycin-sensitive) mutants of Escherichia coli indicated that these mutations are probably within the same gene.