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Biomedical subjects

D W Bauer

Publications and source records attributed to D W Bauer.

5 recordsLinked to original sources

Harpin, elicitor of the hypersensitive response produced by the plant pathogen Erwinia amylovora.

A proteinaceous elicitor of the plant defense reaction known as the hypersensitive response was isolated from Erwinia amylovora, the bacterium that causes fire blight of pear, apple, and other rosaceous plants. The elicitor, named harpin, is an acidic, heat-stable, cell-envelope-associated protein with an apparent molecular weight of 44 kilodaltons. Harpin caused tobacco leaf lamina to collapse and caused an increase in the pH of bathing solutions of suspension-cultured tobacco cells. The gene encoding harpin (hrpN) was located in the 40-kilobase hrp gene cluster of E. amylovora, sequenced, and mutated with Tn5tac1. The hrpN mutants were not pathogenic to pear, did not elicit the hypersensitive response, and did not produce harpin.

Amino Acid Sequence

The Pseudomonas syringae pv. syringae 61 hrpH product, an envelope protein required for elicitation of the hypersensitive response in plants.

Pseudomonas syringae pv. syringae 61 contains a 25-kb cluster of hrp genes that are required for elicitation of the hypersensitive response (HR) in tobacco. TnphoA mutagenesis of cosmid pHIR11, which contains the hrp cluster, revealed two genes encoding exported or inner-membrane-spanning proteins (H.-C. Huang, S. W. Hutcheson, and A. Collmer, Mol. Plant-Microbe Interact. 4:469-476, 1991). The gene in complementation group X, designated hrpH, was subcloned on a 3.1-kb SalI fragment into pCPP30, a broad-host-range, mobilizable vector. The subclone restored the ability of hrpH mutant P. syringae pv. syringae 61-2089 to elicit the HR in tobacco. DNA sequence analysis of the 3.1-kb SalI fragment revealed a single open reading frame encoding an 81,956-Da preprotein with a typical amino-terminal signal peptide and no likely inner-membrane-spanning hydrophobic regions. hrpH was expressed in the presence of [35S]methionine by using the T7 RNA polymerase-promoter system and vector pT7-3 in Escherichia coli and was shown to encode a protein with an apparent molecular weight of 83,000 on sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gels. The HrpH protein in E. coli was located in the membrane fraction and was absent from the periplasm and cytoplasm. The HrpH protein possessed similarity with several outer membrane proteins that are known to be involved in protein or phage secretion, including the Klebsiella oxytoca PulD protein, the Yersinia enterocolitica YscC protein, and the pIV protein of filamentous coliphages. All of these proteins possess a possible secretion motif, GG(X)12VP(L/F)LXXIPXIGXL(F/L), near the carboxyl terminus, and they lack a carboxyl-terminal phenylalanine, in contrast to other outer membrane proteins with no known secretion function. These results suggest that the P. syringae pv. syringae HrpH protein is involved in the secretion of a proteinaceous HR elicitor.

Amino Acid Sequence

Irrelevant differences in the "same"--"different" task.

This article examines the effects of irrelevant information on the multidimensional "same"--"different" task. Subjects were instructed to compare two geometric figures with respect to certain attributes but to ignore other attributes in making the "same"--"different" decision. The irrelevant attributes were chosen in such a way that they could not easily be ignored to see how the existence of irrelevant differences would affect the comparison process. As expected, the overall latencies were longer than is usually found in tasks with no irrelevant differences. However, the nature of the comparison process appeared unchanged. The usual finding of a "fast-same" phenomenon persisted even when irrelevant information was present. The similarity of the results in this task to results in the "same"--"different" task with no irrelevant features supports the idea that the same comparison mechanism is used whether or not irrelevant differences are present in the stimulus pairs. The results suggest a more general-purpose comparison mechanism than is usually included in models of this task. Two-process models of visual comparisons are thus ruled out entirely. A modified version of Krueger's noisy-operator theory does appear consistent with the results.

Discrimination Learning

Reimbursement issues in diabetes.

Third-party reimbursement for outpatient education services and for new health care technologies in diabetes is an issue of concern to educators, administrators, and others in the diabetes health care system. Reimbursement for outpatient education has been obtained from 11 Blue Cross/Blue Shield plans in nine states, six commercial insurance companies in four states, Medicare in five states, and Medicaid in one state. Despite these successes, third-party payers still must be approached on an individual basis. We review approaches taken by different states and diabetes control programs and make recommendations on how to request third-party reimbursement for outpatient education services. Third-party reimbursement of diabetes-related technologies/services and equipment is found to be dependent on the type of coverage the individual has, the state in which he or she is located, and the item or procedure covered. Many third-party payers do not have stated policies on reimbursement of a particular piece of equipment such as the insulin pump, or they do not have consistent, well-communicated standards for determining coverage.

Ambulatory Care