Biomedical subjects
Publications and source records attributed to T Bittner.
The effectiveness of PCR inhibitor removal by silica membranes in combination with the Amplicor Mycobacterium tuberculosis kit was analyzed for 655 respiratory and nonrespiratory specimens. The overall inhibition rate was reduced from 12.5%, when applying the Amplicor kit alone, to 1.1% with the addition of silica membrane DNA purification.
Enteric pathogens harbor a set of enzymes (e.g., superoxide dismutases [SOD]) for detoxification of endogenous and exogenous reactive oxygen species which are encountered during infection. To analyze the role of the Mn-cofactored SOD (SodA) in the pathogenicity of yersiniae, we cloned the sodA gene of Yersinia enterocolitica serotype O8 by complementation of an Escherichia coli sodA sodB mutant and subsequently constructed an isogenic mutant by allelic exchange. Sequence analysis revealed an open reading frame that enabled the deduction of a sequence of 207 amino acids with 85% identity to SodA of E. coli. In a mouse infection model, the sodA null mutant was strongly attenuated in comparison to its parental strain. After intravenous infection, the survival and multiplication of the mutant in the spleen and liver were markedly reduced. In contrast, inactivation of sodA had only minor effects on survival and multiplication in the gut and Peyer's patches, as could be demonstrated in the orogastric infection model. The reduction in virulence was accompanied by a low but significant increase of susceptibility of the soda mutant to bacterial killing by polymorphonuclear leukocytes (PMN) and an alteration of the intracellular chemiluminescence response of PMN. These results suggest that the resistance of Y. enterocolitica to exogenous oxygen radicals produced by phagocytes involves the Mn-cofactored SOD. The important role of sodA for the pathogenicity of Y. enterocolitica could also be due to detoxification of endogenous, metabolically produced oxygen radicals which are encountered by extracellular enteric pathogens during the invasion of the host.
Measurements of flash-induced absorption changes at 325, 436, and 830 nm and of oxygen evolution were performed in order to analyze in detail the inhibition of photosystem II (PS II) by Cu(II) in PS II membrane fragments from spinach. (a) The kinetics of P680+ reduction become markedly slower in the presence of 100 microM CuSO4. (b) The CuSO4-induced kinetics of P680+ reduction are dominated by a 140-160-microsecond decay. (c) The extent of these 140-160-microsecond kinetics, normalized to the overall decay, remains virtually unaffected by addition of the exogenous PS II donor, NH2OH. (d) In thoroughly dark-adapted samples the CuSO4-induced 140-160-microsecond kinetics are already observed after the first flash and remain unchanged by a train of excitation flashes. (e) The extent of P680+ and QA- formation under repetitive flash excitation is not diminished by addition of 100 microM CuSO4. (f) The induction of microsecond kinetics of P680+ reduction at the expense of ns kinetics and the inhibition of the saturation rate of oxygen evolution exhibit the same dependence on CuSO4 concentration. (g) CuSO4 also transforms the 10-20-microsecond reduction of P680+ by TyrZ in Tris-washed PS II membrane fragments into 140-160-microsecond kinetics without any effect on the extent of flash-induced P680+ formation. These results unambiguously show that Cu(II) does not affect the charge separation (P680+QA-), but instead specifically modifies TyrZ and/or its micro environment so that the electron transfer to P680+ becomes blocked.
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