PubMed Health⌕ Search

Biomedical subjects

J Kowalska

Publications and source records attributed to J Kowalska.

7 recordsLinked to original sources

Isolation and amino acid sequence of a serine proteinase inhibitor from common flax (Linum usitatissimum) seeds.

LUTI (Linum usitatissimum trypsin inhibitor), a member of the potato inhibitor I family, has been isolated from seeds of flax by ethanol fractionation, ion exchange chromatography on CM-Sephadex C-25, affinity purification on immobilized methylchymotrypsin (alpha-chymotrypsin in which His57 has been converted to 3-methylhistidine) in the presence of 5M NaCl, and finally by reversed-phase HPLC. The 7655 Da inhibitor consists of a single polypeptide chain of 69 residues with one disulfide bridge. The molecule is acetylated at the N terminus. Its primary structure has been determined after limited proteolysis of the native molecule with trypsin at the reactive site, cleavage with cyanogen bromide or arginyl endopeptidase (Arg-gingipain), and alcoholytic deacetylation of the N-terminally blocked serine. The association constants (K(a)) of LUTI with bovine beta-trypsin and alpha-chymotrypsin are 3.58x10(10) M(-1) and 5.02x10(5) M(-1), respectively. High NaCl concentration (3M) increased the association constant of LUTI with alpha-chymotrypsin to 6.64x10(7) M(-1). To our knowledge, LUTI is the first serine-proteinase-type inhibitor isolated from a plant of the Linaceae family.

Amino Acid Sequence↗

Method of testing the penetration of acid solutions through safety gloves.

Because they cause burns that are difficult to heal, acids are dangerous, and steps should be taken to ensure that the human skin does not come into contact with them. For this purpose safety gloves are generally used by workers who have to handle acids. Such gloves need to be tested to ensure that they are acid resistant. Standard EN 374 (European Committee for Standardization [CEN], 1993c) specifies a method of testing the permeation of liquid chemicals, on a molecular level, through glove material, but it may be difficult to ensure the fitness of the joints of a two-compartment cell, when gloves are lined with jersey. To deal with this a simple pH-meter method to test the permeation of acid and alkali solutions through safety gloves has been developed. The permeation of H&inf2;SO&inf4;, HCl, HNO&inf3;, and CH&inf3;COOH through gloves made from neoprene, nitrile, and PVC was tested. This method seems to be simple and economical.

Acids↗

High concentrations of sodium chloride facilitate the use of immobilized chymotrypsin for separating virgin forms of specific trypsin inhibitors.

It has been shown that specific trypsin inhibitors exhibit also antichymotrypsin activity in the presence of high NaCl concentrations. Taking advantage of this phenomenon a simple procedure of separation of the virgin forms of trypsin inhibitors from squash seeds and porcine pancreas (Kazal) was elaborated. In a typical experiment the inhibitor sample was loaded onto immobilized chymotrypsin equilibrated with 5 M NaCl at pH 8. After washing out unadsorbed material the virgin forms of inhibitors could be eluted either with water, buffer pH 8.0 or 0.02 M citrate buffer pH 2.6 containing no NaCl.

Amino Acid Sequence↗

Temporal integration in a subjective accentuation task as a function of child cognitive development.

We have previously shown that temporal integration in the domain of a few seconds may be studied using a subjective accentuation paradigm. Here we report developmental effects on the limits of this temporal integration in 9-10-year-olds in comparison with 13-14-year-olds. The task was to listen to a string of identical metronome beats and mentally bind the presented beats by subjectively accentuating every second, third or nth beat. The integration interval length was defined as the number of stimuli mentally connected multiplied by the temporal interval between two successive beats. For the lowest stimulus frequency integration intervals were approximately 3 s for the older and 2.2 s for the younger children. For higher frequencies integration intervals got systematically shorter, but being always longer for the older age group. It is suggested that the prefrontal region is responsible for this developmental effect. The expansion of temporal integration correlates with cognitive development in the investigated phase of ontogenesis.

Adolescent↗