In Vitro Inhibition of Neutrophil Elastase Activity by Inhaled Anti-Pseudomonas Antibiotics Used in Cystic Fibrosis Patients

Background. Inhaled antibiotics are commonly used in the treatment of cystic fibrosis lung disease. A previous study suggested neutrophil elastase activation by colistin in vitro. Here, we investigated direct effects of the commonly used antibiotics colistin and tobramycin on neutrophil elastase activity. Methods. Neutrophil elastase was measured spectrophotometrically. The antibiotics colistin and tobramycin were added in different concentrations with or without the addition of albumin. Results. Generally, neutrophil elastase activity was lower in the absence of albumin compared to its presence. Both antibiotics, colistin and tobramycin, had inhibitory effects on neutrophil elastase activity except for high concentrations of colistin when albumin was absent. Conclusions. Our results suggest inhibitory effects of colistin and tobramycin in vitro. There was a clear dependency of neutrophil elastase measurements on the presence of albumin. Clinical studies are needed to investigate potential direct effects of inhaled antibiotics on neutrophil elastase activity in cystic fibrosis airways

Enzyme-coupled assays for flip-flop of acyl-Coenzyme A in liposomes

Acyl-Coenzyme A is made in the cytosol. Certain enzymes using acyl-CoA seem to operate in the lumen of the ER but no corresponding flippases for acyl-CoA or an activated acyl have been described. In order to test the ability of purified candidate flippases to operate the transport of acyl-CoA through lipid bilayers in vitro we developed three enzyme-coupled assays using large unilamellar vesicles (LUVs) obtained by detergent removal. The first assay uses liposomes encapsulating a water-soluble acyl-CoA:glycerol-3-phosphate acyl transferase plus glycerol-3-phosphate (G3P). It measures formation of [3H]lyso-phosphatidic acid inside liposomes after [3H]palmitoyl-CoA has been added from outside. Two other tests use empty liposomes containing [3H]palmitoyl-CoA in the inner membrane leaflet, to which either soluble acyl-CoA:glycerol-3-phosphate acyl transferase plus glycerol-3-phosphate or alkaline phosphatase are added from outside. Here one can follow the appearance of [3H]lyso-phosphatidic acid or of dephosphorylated [3H]acyl-CoA, respectively, both being made outside the liposomes. Although the liposomes may retain small amounts of detergent, all these tests show that palmitoyl-CoA crosses the lipid bilayer only very slowly and that the lipid composition of liposomes barely affects the flip-flop rate. Thus, palmitoyl-CoA cannot cross the membrane spontaneously implying that in vivo some transport mechanism is required

Assoziation mütterlicher und fetaler mRNA-Niveaus von CD14 und Toll-like Rezeptor 2 und 4 mit allergischen Erkrankungen der Mutter

Der Kontakt mit Mikroorganismen im frühen Kindesalter oder bereits in utero kann die Entwicklung des Immunsystems und folglich die Entstehung von atopischen Erkrankungen beeinflussen. Toll-like Rezeptoren (TLR) - wie das TLR2 und TLR4 - und das Cluster of Differentiation 14 (CD14) sind maßgeblich an der Erkennung von Mikroorganismen beteiligt. Wir stellten die Hypothese auf, dass mütterliche Allergien mit erniedrigten mRNA-Expressionsniveaus für TLR2, TLR4 und CD14 im Blut der Mütter sowie im Nabelschnurblut ihrer Kinder einhergehen. Für die vorliegende Arbeit konnten im Rahmen einer europäischen Multizentrum-Studie 185 gesunde schwangere Probandinnen aus Deutschland (n = 48), Ungarn (n = 50) und Spanien (n = 87) untersucht werden. Bei Geburt wurde peripheres Blut der Probandinnen sowie Nabelschnurblut derer Kinder gewonnen. Nach RNA-Isolation und cDNA-Synthese wurde mittels Real-Time RT-PCR die mRNA-Expression von TLR2, TLR4 und CD14 quantifiziert. Bei 42 Nabelschnurblutproben in der deutschen Subpopulation bestimmten wir außerdem den Anteil der TLR2+-, TLR4+-und CD14+-Monozyten in der Durchflusszytometrie. Zur Auswertung wurden bivariate und multivariate Regressionsanalysen durchgeführt. Mütterliche Allergien waren assoziiert mit signifikant erniedrigten mRNA-Expressionsniveaus für TLR2, TLR4 und CD14 in mütterlichem sowie im Nabelschnurblut. Ferner korrelierten die mRNA-Expressionsniveaus in mütterlichem Blut signifikant mit denen in fetalem Blut. Der durchflusszytometrisch untersuchte Prozentsatz der TLR2+-, TLR4+-und CD14+-Monozyten korrelierte mit den dazugehörigen mRNA-Expressionsniveaus für TLR2 (r = 0,5 ; p < 0,01) und TLR4 (r = 0,61 ; p < 0,01), jedoch nicht mit CD14 (r = 0,1 ; p = 0,34)

Ferromagnetic fluctuations in the Rashba-Hubbard model

We study the occurrence and the origin of ferromagnetic fluctuations in the longitudinal spin susceptibility of the t-t′-Rashba-Hubbard model on the square lattice. The combined effect of the second-neighbor hopping t′ and the spin-orbit coupling leads to ferromagnetic fluctuations in a broad filling region. The spin-orbit coupling splits the energy bands, leading to two Van Hove fillings, where the sheets of the Fermi surface change their topology. Between these two Van Hove fillings the model shows ferromagnetic fluctuations. We find that these ferromagnetic fluctuations originate from interband contributions to the spin susceptibility. These interband contributions only arise if there is one holelike and one electronlike Fermi surface, which is the case for fillings in between the two Van Hove fillings. We discuss implications for experimental systems and propose a test on how to identify these types of ferromagnetic fluctuations in experiments.Fil: Greco, Andrés. Max-Planck-Institut für Festkörperforschung; AlemaniaFil: Bejas, Matias Hector. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Rosario. Instituto de Física de Rosario. Universidad Nacional de Rosario. Instituto de Física de Rosario; ArgentinaFil: Schnyder, Andreas P.. Max-Planck-Institut für Festkörperforschung; Alemani

Current Concepts of Hyperinflammation in Chronic Granulomatous Disease

Chronic granulomatous disease (CGD) is the most common inherited disorder of phagocytic functions, caused by genetic defects in the leukocyte nicotinamide dinucleotide phosphate (NADPH) oxidase. Consequently, CGD phagocytes are impaired in destroying phagocytosed microorganisms, rendering the patients susceptible to bacterial and fungal infections. Besides this immunodeficiency, CGD patients suffer from various autoinflammatory symptoms, such as granuloma formation in the skin or urinary tract and Crohn-like colitis. Owing to improved antimicrobial treatment strategies, the majority of CGD patients reaches adulthood, yet the autoinflammatory manifestations become more prominent by lack of causative treatment options. The underlying pathomechanisms driving hyperinflammatory reactions in CGD are poorly understood, but recent studies implicate reduced neutrophil apoptosis and efferocytosis, dysbalanced innate immune receptors, altered T-cell surface redox levels, induction of Th17 cells, the enzyme indolamine-2,3-dioxygenase (IDO), impaired Nrf2 activity, and inflammasome activation. Here we discuss immunological mechanisms of hyperinflammation and their potential therapeutic implications in CGD

Chemogenetic E-MAP in Saccharomyces cerevisiae for identification of membrane transporters operating lipid flip flop

While most yeast enzymes for the biosynthesis of glycerophospholipids, sphingolipids and ergosterol are known, genes for several postulated transporters allowing the flopping of biosynthetic intermediates and newly made lipids from the cytosolic to the lumenal side of the membrane are still not identified. An E-MAP measuring the growth of 142'108 double mutants generated by systematically crossing 543 hypomorphic or deletion alleles in genes encoding multispan membrane proteins, both on media with or without an inhibitor of fatty acid synthesis, was generated. Flc proteins, represented by 4 homologous genes encoding presumed FAD or calcium transporters of the ER, have a severe depression of sphingolipid biosynthesis and elevated detergent sensitivity of the ER. FLC1, FLC2 and FLC3 are redundant in granting a common function, which remains essential even when the severe cell wall defect of flc mutants is compensated by osmotic support. Biochemical characterization of some other genetic interactions shows that Cst26 is the enzyme mainly responsible for the introduction of saturated very long chain fatty acids into phosphatidylinositol and that the GPI lipid remodelase Cwh43, responsible for introducing ceramides into GPI anchors having a C26:0 fatty acid in sn-2 of the glycerol moiety can also use lyso-GPI protein anchors and various base resistant lipids as substrates. Furthermore, we observe that adjacent deletions in several chromosomal regions show strong negative genetic interactions with a single gene on another chromosome suggesting the presence of undeclared suppressor mutations in certain chromosomal regions that need to be identified in order to yield meaningful E-map data

Saccharomyces cerevisiae depend on vesicular traffic between Golgi and vacuole when Inositolphosphorylceramide synthase Aur1 is inactivated

Inositolphosphorylceramide (IPC) and its mannosylated derivatives are the only complex sphingolipids of yeast. Their synthesis can be reduced by aureobasidin A (AbA), which specifically inhibits the IPC synthase Aur1. AbA reportedly, by diminishing IPC levels, causes endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress, an increase in cytosolic calcium, reactive oxygen production, and mitochondrial damage leading to apoptosis. We found that when Aur1 is gradually depleted by transcriptional downregulation, the accumulation of ceramides becomes a major hindrance to cell survival. Overexpression of the alkaline ceramidase YPC1 rescues cells under this condition. We established hydroxylated C(26) fatty acids as a reliable hallmark of ceramide hydrolysis. Such hydrolysis occurs only when YPC1 is overexpressed. In contrast, overexpression of YPC1 has no beneficial effect when Aur1 is acutely repressed by AbA. A high-throughput genetic screen revealed that vesicle-mediated transport between Golgi apparatus, endosomes, and vacuole becomes crucial for survival when Aur1 is repressed, irrespective of the mode of repression. In addition, vacuolar acidification becomes essential when cells are acutely stressed by AbA, and quinacrine uptake into vacuoles shows that AbA activates vacuolar acidification. The antioxidant N-acetylcysteine does not improve cell growth on AbA, indicating that reactive oxygen radicals induced by AbA play a minor role in its toxicity. AbA strongly induces the cell wall integrity pathway, but osmotic support does not improve the viability of wild-type cells on AbA. Altogether, the data support and refine current models of AbA-mediated cell death and add vacuolar protein transport and acidification as novel critical elements of stress resistance

Early tolerance in pediatric liver allograft recipients

The authors report on six pediatric liver transplant recipients for whom allograft tolerance occurred shortly after transplantation (ie, less than 1.5 years). All the patients had associated life-threatening viral complications. They are currently immmunocompetent. The tolerant state may be related to the development of a TH2 cytokine pattern. © 1994

Application of Quantum Cascade Laser-Infrared Spectroscopy and Chemometrics for In-Line Discrimination of Coeluting Proteins from Preparative Size Exclusion Chromatography

An external-cavity quantum cascade laser (EC-QCL)-based flow-through mid-infrared (IR) spectrometer was placed in line with a preparative size exclusion chromatography system to demonstrate real-time analysis of protein elutions with strongly overlapping chromatographic peaks. Two different case studies involving three and four model proteins were performed under typical lab-scale purification conditions. The large optical path length (25 μm), high signal-to-noise ratios, and wide spectral coverage (1350 to 1750 cm-1) of the QCL-IR spectrometer allow for robust spectra acquisition across both the amide I and II bands. Chemometric analysis by self-modeling mixture analysis and multivariate curve resolution enabled accurate quantitation and structural fingerprinting across the protein elution transient. The acquired concentration profiles were found to be in excellent agreement with the off-line high-performance liquid chromatography reference analytics performed on the collected effluent fractions. These results demonstrate that QCL-IR detectors can be used effectively for in-line, real-time analysis of protein elutions, providing critical quality attribute data that are typically only accessible through time-consuming and resource-intensive off-line methods.Fil: Akhgar, Christopher K.. Vienna University of Technology; AustriaFil: Ebner, Julian. Vienna University of Technology; AustriaFil: Alcaraz, Mirta R.. Institute Of Chemical Technologies And Analytics; AustriaFil: Kopp, Julian. Vienna University of Technology; AustriaFil: Goicoechea, Hector Casimiro. Universidad Nacional del Litoral; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Santa Fe; ArgentinaFil: Spadiut, Oliver. Vienna University of Technology; AustriaFil: Schwaighofer, Andreas. Vienna University of Technology; AustriaFil: Lendl, Bernhard. Vienna University of Technology; Austri