MICROBIOLOGY and IMMUNOLOGY
Online ISSN : 1348-0421
Print ISSN : 0385-5600
ISSN-L : 0385-5600
Volume 39, Issue 3
Displaying 1-9 of 9 articles from this issue
  • Keiji Oguma, Yukako Fujinaga, Kaoru Inoue
    1995 Volume 39 Issue 3 Pages 161-168
    Published: 1995
    Released on J-STAGE: March 17, 2008
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
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  • Jun-ichi Mashimo, Akira Mita
    1995 Volume 39 Issue 3 Pages 169-175
    Published: 1995
    Released on J-STAGE: March 17, 2008
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    The effects of an intravenous administration of lipid A from Salmonella minnesota R595 lipopolysaccharide on the in vivo production of interleukin-2 (IL-2), IL-4, IL-5 and IL-6 in the spleens of mice intravenously immunized with sheep red blood cell (SRBC) antigen were investigated. The increased number of antigen-specific IgM antibody-producing cells and the titer of the IgM serum antibody were measured using the plaque-forming cell (PFC) assay and an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). Simultaneous injections of SRBC antigen and lipid A adjuvant enhanced IgM-PFC number on days 3 and 4 and the serum IgM titer on days 4 and 5 after the immunization. We found that the enhanced IL-4 and IL-5 levels correlated with the PFC number and IgM titer. When lipid A was injected intravenously 2 days after immunization with SRBC, the PFC number in lipid A-treated groups were similar to those in controls 3 and 4 days after the immunization. However, it was found that a twofold increase in the IgM titer in serum was induced by lipid A 5 days after immunization. In relation to this increase, lipid A stimulated the production of only IL-5 among the cytokines tested.
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  • Chia-Yin Lee, Chien-Hsien Chen, Yi-Wen Chou
    1995 Volume 39 Issue 3 Pages 177-183
    Published: 1995
    Released on J-STAGE: March 17, 2008
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    Vibrio parahaemolyticus is a halophilic bacterium often found in shellfish and is an important causative agent of food poisoning in Taiwan. A rapid and efficient detection method is required to identify this foodborne pathogen. A 0.76-Kb HindIII DNA fragment was cloned from the chromosomal DNA of V. parahaemolyticus strain no. 93, designated as pR72H fragment, was used as a polynucleotide probe. It was labeled with digoxigenin-11-dUTP (DIG) by the random primer-labeling method. The sensitivity and specificity of the digoxigenin-labeled 0.76-Kb DNA probe was determined by colony hybridization assay. Under stringent hybridization conditions, 122 of 124 isolates of V. parahaemolyticus showed positive hybridization reaction with DIG-0.76-Kb DNA probe; the negative strains were attributed to slow growth. The DIG-0.76-Kb probe did not hybridize with 86 isolates of other vibrios and a number of other enterics as well as nonenteric microorganisms. The sensitivity and specificity of this DIG probe are 98% and 100%, respectively. This nonisotopic colony hybridization assay can be very useful for routine monitoring of V. parahaemolyticus in the food industry, environmental analysis and clinical laboratories.
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  • Ayako Yamamoto, Noriko Kikuta, Tetsuo Hashimoto, Hiroshi Oyaizu, Nobui ...
    1995 Volume 39 Issue 3 Pages 185-192
    Published: 1995
    Released on J-STAGE: March 17, 2008
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    The small subunit ribosomal RNA (SrRNA) gene of Entamoeba gingivalis was amplified by PCR and the product of 1.9-kbp sequence was cloned into a plasmid vector pUC18. Four clones were isolated and sequenced. The insert DNAs were 1918- to 1921-bp long and A+T rich (65.5%). The four SrRNA sequences of E. gingivalis were found to be aligned with those of nine related protozoans while searching for E. gingivalis-specific sequences. A sequence of 28 oligonucleotides was chosen, chemically synthesized, and labeled with digoxigenin for use as a DNA probe. The probe thus constructed was shown to hybridize only with either the SrRNA-coding DNAs or the cells of the two E. gingivalis strains and not with those of other protozoans or oral fungi tested. A representative SrRNA-sequence was analyzed and a phylogenetic tree was constructed by the neighbor-joining (NJ) method. Among the protists examined, E. gingivalis was placed next to Entamoeba histolytica as expected from the traditional taxonomy.
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  • Keinosuke Okamoto, Rie Takatori, Kyoko Okamoto
    1995 Volume 39 Issue 3 Pages 193-200
    Published: 1995
    Released on J-STAGE: March 17, 2008
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    Escherichia coli heat-labile enterotoxin (LT) is a holotoxin which consists of one A and five B subunits. Although B subunit monomers released into periplasm can associate into pentameric structures in the absence of the A subunit, the A subunit accelerates the assembly. To express the function, A subunit constructs the proper spatial structure. However, the regions involved in the construction are unknown. To identify the regions, we substituted arginine residues near position 146 of the A subunit with glycine by oligonucleotide-directed site-specific mutagenesis and obtained the mutants expressing LT(R141G), LT(R143G), LT(R146G), LT(R143G, R146G), LT(R141G, R143G, R146G) and LT(R143G, R146G, R148G). We purified these mutant LTs by using an immobilized D-galactose column and analyzed the purified mutant LTs by SDS-PAGE to examine the amount of A subunit associated with B-subunit oligomer. The substitution of an arginine residue at any position did not induce a significant alteration in the amount of A subunit associated with B-subunit oligomer. However, the substitution of more than two arginine residues induced a significant decrease in the amount of A subunits associated with the B-subunit oligomer. Subsequently, we measured the level of the intracellular B-subunit oligomer of these mutant strains. The measurement revealed that the amount of B-subunit oligomer in cells decreased as the number of substituted arginine residues increased. These results show that all arginine residues near position 146 are important for the construction of the functional A subunit, and thus for holotoxin formation, although each individual arginine residue is not an absolute requirement.
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  • Haruhiko Machida, Makiko Nishitani, Yohko Watanabe, Yuichi Yoshimura, ...
    1995 Volume 39 Issue 3 Pages 201-206
    Published: 1995
    Released on J-STAGE: March 17, 2008
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    We compared the selectivity of six anti-varicella-zoster virus (VZV) drugs, which are clinically available or of which clinical efficacy for the treatment of VZV infections has been reported. Sorivudine (BV-araU) had the most potent anti-VZV effect in the plaque inhibition assay, followed by brivudine (BVDU) and 5-propynyl-arabinofuranosyluracil (Pry-araU). All test compounds, except vidarabine (AraA), had only a very weak effect on human embryonic lung cell growth. The selectivity indexes (ID50 for cell growth/ED50 for VZV plaque inhibition) of BV-araU, BVDU, and Pry-araU were >1, 000, 000, 20, 000, and >10, 000, respectively, while those of acyclovir and penciclovir ranged from 600 to 800. AraA was much less selective than any of the other drugs tested. We measured the amount of [3H] thymidine incorporated into the acid-insoluble fraction of VZV-infected cells to determine the ability of these drugs to selectively inhibit viral DNA synthesis. [3H]Thymidine incorporation was markedly inhibited by all anti-VZV compounds, except BVDU. Treatment of infected cells with drugs from 32 to 38hr after infection inhibited the DNA synthesis to the same extent as VZV plaque formation, except that AraA inhibited the DNA synthesis at a lower dose than for VZV plaque formation. DNA synthesis in non-infected growing cells was inhibited to the same extent as cell growth. A particularly high selectivity index for the inhibition of DNA synthesis was noted for BV-araU, which was defined as the ratio of inhibitions of DNA synthesis in VZV-infected and non-infected. The highest selectivity indexes were recorded for BV-araU>Pry-araU>acyclovir_??_penciclovir>AraA.
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  • Christine A. Facer
    1995 Volume 39 Issue 3 Pages 207-211
    Published: 1995
    Released on J-STAGE: March 17, 2008
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    Lysates of Plasmodium falciparum parasitized human erythrocytes stimulate U937 cells to secrete neopterin during a 48hr co-culture period. Neopterin secretion by U937 cells was enhanced by the addition of human interferon gamma (IFN-γ). Several P. falciparum antigens, ‘FC27’ (a synthetic ‘S’ antigen), Ag16 (a recombinant ‘S’ antigen) and Ag44/RHOP3 (a recombinant merozoite rhoptry protein), also activated U937 cells to neopterin secretion and produced a similar effect on peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) from 2 of 3 normal healthy donors cultured with the antigens for 7 days. Plasma from six Nigerian malaria patients contained high neopterin concentrations ranging from 5.06 to 14.17ng/ml. This preliminary pilot study lends support for further investigation incorporating a larger number of malaria patients and further culture experiments with U937 cells and PBMC with the aim of defining the cause and source of the large quantities of plasma neopterin produced in this infection.
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  • Tetsuro Koga, Kenji Takumi
    1995 Volume 39 Issue 3 Pages 213-215
    Published: 1995
    Released on J-STAGE: March 17, 2008
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    Glucose-starved cells of Vibrio parahaemolyticus were compared with non-starved counterparts with respects to heat, osmotic, and oxidative challenges. The starved cells demonstrated greater thermal and oxidative resistance than did the non-starved cells. The starved cells also showed greater resistance against low osmotic challenge than did the non-starved cells although both cells showed a comparable resistance against high osmotic challenge.
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  • Ken-ichi Mizutani, Masahiro Ito, Hitoshi Kamiya, Minoru Sakurai
    1995 Volume 39 Issue 3 Pages 217-220
    Published: 1995
    Released on J-STAGE: March 17, 2008
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    The effect of peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) on expression of varicella-zoster virus (VZV) glycoproteins (Gps) was analyzed by flow cytometry. PBMC from VZV seropositive and seronegative donors and supernatant of PBMC co-cultured with VZV-infected human embryonic fibroblasts reduced VZV Gp expression. Neutralization of supernatant fluid with mixture of anti-interferons (IFN)-α, -β, -γ, and tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-α partially reduced inhibitory activity of supernatant on VZV Gp expression. Deletion of natural killer (NK) cells and adherent cells from PBMC reduced inhibitory activity of PBMC on VZV Gp expression. These results suggest that IFN-α, -β, -γ, TNF-α and other soluble factors released from NK cells and monocytes by co-cultivation with VZV-infected fibroblasts inhibit VZV Gp expression.
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