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Biomedical subjects

L Ingham

Publications and source records attributed to L Ingham.

5 recordsLinked to original sources

Comparison of a new, bismuth-iron-sulfite-cycloserine agar for isolation of Clostridium perfringens with the tryptose-sulfite-cycloserine and blood agars.

A new differential and selective, bismuth-iron-sulfite-cycloserine (BISC) medium, for isolation and enumeration of Clostridium perfringens from food and feces, was developed. The medium was compared with the widely-used tryptose-sulfite-cycloserine (TSC) medium and blood agar (BA) in recovering actively growing cells, cold- (refrigerated and frozen) stressed, and heat-stressed C. perfringens cells, and heat-activated spores from human feces. Both selective media were satisfactory in recovering actively growing cells and heat-activated spores of C. perfringens. Both were inferior to non-inhibitory blood agar in recovering heat or cold-stressed cells. The advantages of the new BISC medium over the TSC medium were: elimination of the need to prepare pour- or overlay-agar plates, which simplified inoculation of specimens on the medium and simplified the subcultures of colonies for confirmatory identification. All colonies of C. perfringens developed on BISC were black or dark gray. This was contrary to TSC medium, which gave, on average, 39.6% of white colonies when inoculated with the pure cultures of C. perfringens.

Bacteriological Techniques↗

De novo synthesis of an intron by the maize transposable element Dissociation.

The mechanisms by which introns are gained or lost in the evolution of eukaryotic genes remain poorly understood. The discovery that transposable elements sometimes alter RNA splicing to allow partial or imperfect removal of the element from the primary transcripts suggests that transposons are a potential and continuing source of new introns. To date, splicing events that precisely restore the wild-type RNA sequence at the site of insertion have not been detected. Here we describe alternative RNA splicing patterns that result in precise removal of a Dissociation (Ds) insertion and one copy of its eight-nucleotide host site duplication from an exon sequence of the maize shrunken2-mutabe1 (sh2-m1) mutant. In one case, perfect splicing of Ds was associated with aberrant splicing of an intron located 32 bp upstream of the insertion site. The second transcript type was indistinguishable from wild-type mRNA, indicating that Ds was spliced like a normal intron in about 2% of the sh2-m1 transcripts. Our results suggest that the transposition of Ds into sh2 in 1968, in effect, marked the creation of a new intron in a modern eukaryotic gene. The possibility of precise intron formation by a transposable element demonstrated here may be a general phenomenon of intron formation, since consensus intron splice sites can be explained by insertions that duplicate host sequences upon integration. A model is presented.

Alleles↗

Detection of bacterial nitrate reductase activity by the use of a powdered reagent and rapid swab methods as compared to the conventional test.

A rapid swab method using either a dry or moist swab soaked with potassium nitrate/benzalkonium chloride solution, and a method employing a single powdered reagent were assessed as possible alternatives to the conventional test for the detection of bacterial nitrate reductase activity. Results obtained by the use of the powdered reagent agreed 100% with those obtained by the conventional method. The moist swab method had a sensitivity and predictive value of the negative test of 80% and 73%, respectively. The dry swab method was least sensitive (72%) and had the lowest predictive value of the negative test (66%). The use of the single powdered reagent, which has a long shelf life, is a reliable alternative to the use of conventional reagents A and B. Results obtained by the rapid swab methods were inferior to those obtained by the conventional method.

1-Naphthylamine↗