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P Soetaert

Publications and source records attributed to P Soetaert.

8 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed1997

Quality of life of candidates for and recipients of heart transplants.

OBJECTIVE: To describe the quality of life (QOL) of candidates for and recipients of heart transplants over a five-year period. DESIGN: Descriptive, longitudinal. SETTING: Canadian university-affiliated tertiary care medical centre. PATIENTS: Sixty-five candidates for heart transplantation; after one year, six candidates were still awaiting transplantation; 42 patients received transplants and were included in the study six months post-transplant. OUTCOME MEASURES: Three measures of QOL were used: the Index of Well-Being, Cantril's Self-Anchoring Striving Scale and the "time-trade-off technique'. INTERVENTION: Data were collected before transplantation, six months post-transplantation, one year post-transplantation and annually for the next four years; for individuals who did not receive transplants, data were collected six months and one year after the first interview. MAIN RESULTS: QOL scores were considerably higher after than before transplantation, and compared favourably with norms for the general population. For 11 individuals who did not receive transplants, QOL remained low. QOL for heart transplant recipients was remarkably stable over the five-year study period. The major predictors of QOL for candidates awaiting transplantation were health status, outlook and ability to work. After transplantation, the major predictors of QOL were outlook, health status and employment status. CONCLUSIONS: There is evidence to suggest that QOL improves after heart transplantation, and that improvement is relatively stable over time. Further work is needed to identify the factors that could result in improvements in QOL.

Adult↗
PubMed1995

cry IA(b) transcript formation in tobacco is inefficient.

Chimaeric PCaMV35Scry genes direct in tobacco mesophyll protoplasts mRNA levels of less than one transcript per cell. We provide evidence that this low cytoplasmic cry IA(b) mRNA level is not due to a rapid turnover but rather results from a marginal import flow of cry messenger into the cytoplasm. Run-on assays indicate that the frequency of transcription initiation is not limiting. However, the cry precursor mRNA carries at least three regions that are recognized as introns. The absence of high cytoplasmic levels of spliced cry mRNAs suggests that these mRNAs are unstable and/or not efficiently made. Point mutations in the 5' splice site of the most distal intron allows high accumulation levels of the full-length mRNA. This implies that the inefficient formation of full-size mRNA is a major cause of the low expression level of chimaeric cry IA(b) genes in tobacco.

Bacillus thuringiensis Toxins↗
PubMed1992

Novel Bacillus thuringiensis insecticidal crystal protein with a silent activity against coleopteran larvae.

A novel Bacillus thuringiensis crystal protein with a silent activity against the Colorado potato beetle is described. The crystal proteins are produced as bipyramidal crystals. These crystals contain a protein of 129 kDa with a trypsin-resistant core fragment of 72 kDa. Neither a spore-crystal mixture nor in vitro-solubilized crystals are toxic to any of several Lepidoptera and Coleoptera species tested. In contrast, a trypsin-treated solution containing the 72-kDa tryptic core fragment of the protoxin is highly toxic to Colorado potato beetle larvae. The crystal protein-encoding gene was cloned and sequenced. The inferred amino acid sequence of the putative toxic fragment has 37, 32, and 33% homology to the CryIIIA, CryIIIB, and CryIIID toxins, respectively. Interestingly, the 501 C-terminal amino acids show 41 to 48% amino acid identity with corresponding C-terminal amino acid sequences of other crystal proteins. Because of the toxicity of the fragment to the Colorado potato beetle and because of the distinct similarities of the toxic fragment with the other CryIII proteins, this gene was given a new subclass name (cryIIIC) within the CryIII class of coleopteran-active crystal proteins. CryIIIC represents the first example of a crystal protein with a silent activity towards coleopteran insect larvae. Natural CryIIIC crystals are not toxic. Toxicity is revealed only after an in vitro solubilization and activation step.

Amino Acid Sequence↗
PubMed1990

Lactobacillus hilgardii plasmid pLAB1000 consists of two functional cassettes commonly found in other gram-positive organisms.

A Lactobacillus hilgardii plasmid, pLAB1000, was studied to understand the organization of autonomous replicons from lactobacilli. Two cassettes could be identified. First, the replication region consisted of a sequence coding for a replication protein (Rep) and its corresponding target site, similar to those from plasmids pUB110, pC194 (Staphylococcus aureus), pFTB14, pBAA1 (Bacillus sp.), and pLP1 (Lactobacillus sp.). Sequence analysis indicated the possible synthesis of an antisense RNA that might regulate Rep production. The results also suggested that pLAB1000 replicates via a single-stranded DNA intermediate, and a putative lagging-strand initiation site was found that had similarities to those of alpha 3, St-1, and G4 isometric bacteriophages. The second cassette of pLAB1000 consisted of a sequence coding for a putative mobilization protein (Mob) and its corresponding RSA site. This cassette was similar to those found in pT181, pUB110, pE194 (S. aureus), and pG12 (Bacillus sp.), and it was found to be conserved among different Lactobacillus plasmid replicons. The origin and evolution of these functional cassettes are also discussed.

Bacterial Proteins↗
PubMed1988

Primary structure of a hormonally regulated beta-glucanase of Nicotiana plumbaginifolia.

A cDNA clone for a hormonally regulated beta-glucanase from Nicotiana plumbaginifolia has been isolated by using an oligodeoxynucleotide probe, synthesized to match the previously determined N-terminal amino acid sequence. The cDNA has the complete sequence of the mature protein and contains at least part of a hydrophobic signal peptide. At the amino acid level, the beta-glucanase of N. plumbaginifolia is 73% homologous to a beta(1,3)-glucanase from tobacco and 52% homologous to a beta(1,3;1,4)-glucanase from barley. Southern-blot analysis clearly demonstrated that N. plumbaginifolia contains at least two related genes encoding beta-glucanase. The extent of the complete signal peptide of the cloned beta-glucanase was determined by sequencing part of the corresponding gene. Northern analysis showed that the expression of the beta-glucanase gene is influenced by auxins and cytokinins.

Amino Acid Sequence↗
PubMed1973

[Not Available].

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Belgium↗