To investigate the functional significance of putative integrin divalent cation binding sites, several mutated alpha 4 subunit cDNAs were constructed. Mutants contained the conservative substitution of Glu for Asp or Asn at the third position in each of three putative divalent cation sites. Transfection of wild-type or mutated alpha 4 into K562 cells yielded comparable expression levels and imm...

Lead(II)-induced cleavage can be used as a tool to probe conformational changes in RNA. In this report, we have investigated the conformation of M1 RNA, the catalytic subunit of Escherichia coli RNase P, by studying the lead(II)-induced cleavage pattern in the presence of various divalent metal ions. Our data suggest that the overall conformation of M1 RNA is very similar in the presence of Mg(...

The potential for enhancing antibody potency by increasing avidity was investigated using monoclonal IgG homodimers. Chemically linked dimers were made from a human-murine chimeric monoclonal IgG (ChiBR96) which strongly binds to a variety of breast, lung, ovary, and colon carcinomas. This monoclonal antibody is capable of killing tumor cells directly without complement or effector cells in add...

The problem of DNA-DNA interaction mediated by divalent counterions is studied using computer simulation. Although divalent counterions cannot condense free DNA molecules in solution, we show that if DNA configurational entropy is restricted, divalent counterions can cause DNA reentrant condensation similar to that caused by tri- or tetravalent counterions. DNA-DNA interaction is strongly repul...

DNA vaccine may be a promising tool for controlling tuberculosis development. However, vaccines encoding single antigens of mycobacterium did not produce protective effect as BCG did. In the present study, we evaluated the immunogenicity and protective efficacy of a divalent DNA vaccine encoding two immunodominant antigens Ag85B and MPT64 of Mycobacterium tuberculosis. We found that both humora...

Several divalent cations were studied as agonists of a Ca2+-activated K+ channel obtained from rat muscle membranes and incorporated into planar lipid bilayers. The effect of these agonists on single-channel currents was tested in the absence and in the presence of Ca2+. Among the divalent cations that activate the channel, Ca2+ is the most effective, followed by Cd2+, Sr2+, Mn2+, Fe2+, and Co2...

To develop more effective anti-CD20 reagents for B-cell lymphoma, we designed and constructed a bispecific tetravalent anti-CD20 antibody, 11B8/2F2(ScFvHL)(4)-Fc, derived from two fully human monoclonal antibodies (mAb), 2F2 and 11B8. 2F2 is a type I CD20 mAb, which is potent in complement-dependent cytotoxicity (CDC) assays but poor at inducing apoptosis, whereas 11B8 is a type II CD20 mAb, wh...

A monoclonal antiplatelet antibody (MA-13G8E1) is described that dose-dependently induces platelet aggregation and serotonin release in an Fc-independent fashion. Whereas platelets were equally aggregated by F(ab')2 fragments of this monoclonal antibody (MoAb), its Fab fragments, on the other hand, were inactive, indicating that divalent interaction is an essential requirement to induce platele...