New Method of Vaccination Against Anthrax

The aim of this work was to develop an oral method of vaccination against anthrax, since wide vaccination campaigns using this method require no special conditions, equipment, and instruments. Also, minimum number of medical personnel is sufficient to ensure control over the intake of the drug. Materials and methods. Domestic raw materials, consumables and reagents that passed the incoming inspection and met the requirements of State and industry standards, technical specifications, and the articles of the Pharmacopoeia were used for the work. Batches of anthrax vaccines based on Bacillus anthracis strain STI-1, manufactured at the Research Center (Kirov) of the “48th Central Research Institute” of the Ministry of Defense of Russia were put to the test. Results and discussion. The immunization schemes have been tested on animals, taking into account the features of the antigen. One of the crucial factors that determine the effectiveness of oral vaccination is the correct choice of the type and form of the oral anthrax vaccine administered enterally. It has been shown that in contrast to oral vaccines, the vaccine strain in enteral vaccines must be protected from the harmful effects of stomach contents. Thus, enteric-coated capsules coated with a shell that is resistant to the action of stomach acid were used for the study. The presented experimental data indicate that a single administration of the capsules with oral anthrax vaccine STI protects at least 70 % of laboratory animals from a highly virulent strain of the anthrax microbe and confirm the safety and non-reactogenicity of the drug. The developed laboratory technology makes it possible to obtain a finished product containing one inoculation dose of an oral vaccine for laboratory animals. So, a new method of vaccination has been designed. It is necessary to conduct preclinical and clinical trials to promptly introduce the oral administration of anthrax vaccine into medical practice as the simplest method for mass vaccination of humans

Layered Synthesis of Workpieces by the Method of Mig-Pulse Surface with the Use of Austenitic Metal-Core Wire with Nitrogen

Works were carried out on the synthesis of a workpiece using metal-cored wire with nitrogen (0,322 wt. %) using the mig-pulse-technology. It was possible to obtain a defect-free dense deposited metal with high strength and plastic characteristics.Работа выполнена при финансовой поддержке Министерства науки и высшего образования Российской Федерации (государственное задание № FSNM-2021-0011) и Российского фонда фундаментальных исследований (проект РФФИ 20-48-596006 р_НОЦ_Пермский край)

Влияние изофермента CYP2D6 на метаболизм лекарственных препаратов и методы определения его активности

The article presents relevant information on the features of cytochrome P450 isoenzyme CYP2D6 functioning. 20-25% of drugs are metabolized by the action of CYP2D6. Determination of its activity allows for adjusting pharmacotherapy to increase the efficacy and safety of a drug or a combination of drugs. Cytochrome P450 isoenzymes genotyping and phenotyping methods allow for choosing the dosage and dosing regimen for patients on an individual basis. This article describes the genetic characteristics affecting CYP2D6. CYP2D6 polymorphism has a significant impact on pharmacokinetics and metabolism of a drug. This may lead to side effects, or decrease the pharmacological action of the drug. The article covers the cases of change in clinical response to receiving β-blockers (metoprolol), antidepressants (venlafaxine) and opioids (codeine). These changes occurred in the presence of certain CYP2D6 alleles which speed up or slow down the metabolism. It also provides information on drug-drug interactions involving inhibition of cytochrome P450 isoenzyme CYP2D6. Genotyping methods are used to determine the potential activity of CYP2D6. Dose adjustment is carried out basing on the results obtained. The current isoenzyme status is defined by phenotyping methods. CYP2D6 activity can be evaluated by determining the ratio of the substrate and its metabolite using HPLC. Pinoline, which is metabolized to 6-hydroxy-1,2,3,4-tetrahydro-β-carboline, is the endogenous substrate for estimating the activity of CYP2D6.В статье приведена актуальная информация об особенностях функционирования изофермента цитохрома Р450 CYP2D6. Метаболизм 20-25% лекарственных препаратов происходит под действием изофермента CYP2D6. Определение его активности позволяет скорректировать фармакотерапию с увеличением эффективности и безопасности препарата или комбинации препаратов. Методы генотипирования и фенотипирования изоферментов цитохрома Р450 позволяют индивидуально для пациента подбирать дозировку, режим дозирования. В статье описаны генетические особенности, которые оказывают воздействие на изофермент CYP2D6. Полиморфизм изофермента CYP2D6 оказывает существенное влияние на метаболизм и фармакокинетику лекарственного препарата, что может привести кпобочным эффектом или снижению фармакологического действия препарата. Рассмотрены случаи изменения клинического ответа на прием β-блокаторов (метопролол), антидепрессантов (венфлаксин) и опиоидов (кодеин). Данные изменения происходили при наличии определенных аллелей CYP2D6, которые ускоряют или замедляют метаболизм. Также представлена информация о межлекарственном взаимодействиях, при которых происходит ингибирование изофермента цитохрома Р450 CYP2D6. Для определения потенциальной активности изофермента CYP2D6 используются методы генотипирования. На основании полученных результатов, проводится корректировка дозы. Текущий статус изофермента определяется методами фенотипирования. Определение соотношения субстрата и его метаболита методом высокоэффективной жидкостной хроматографии позволяют произвести оценку активности изофермента. Эндогенным субстратом для определения активности изофермента CYP2D6 является пинолин, метаболитом которого является 6-гидрокси-1,2,3,4-тетрагидро-β-карболин

NESTOR: A neutrino particle astrophysics underwater laboratory for the Mediterranean

Abstract An underwater neutrino astrophysics laboratory, to be located in the international waters off the Southwest of Greece, near the town of Pylos is now under construction. In the last two years a group of physicists from Greece and Russia have carried out two demonstration experiments in 4km deep water, counting muons and verifying the adequacy of the deep sea site. Plans are presented for a 100, 000 m 2 high energy neutrino detector composed of a hexagon of hexagonal towers, with 1176 optical detector units. A progress report is given and the physics potential of a siggle tower with 168 phototubes (currently under construction) is described

Order through Disorder: Hyper-Mobile C-Terminal Residues Stabilize the Folded State of a Helical Peptide. A Molecular Dynamics Study

Conventional wisdom has it that the presence of disordered regions in the three-dimensional structures of polypeptides not only does not contribute significantly to the thermodynamic stability of their folded state, but, on the contrary, that the presence of disorder leads to a decrease of the corresponding proteins' stability. We have performed extensive 3.4 µs long folding simulations (in explicit solvent and with full electrostatics) of an undecamer peptide of experimentally known helical structure, both with and without its disordered (four residue long) C-terminal tail. Our simulations clearly indicate that the presence of the apparently disordered (in structural terms) C-terminal tail, increases the thermodynamic stability of the peptide's folded (helical) state. These results show that at least for the case of relatively short peptides, the interplay between thermodynamic stability and the apparent structural stability can be rather subtle, with even disordered regions contributing significantly to the stability of the folded state. Our results have clear implications for the understanding of peptide energetics and the design of foldable peptides

Analyzing and Mapping Sweat Metabolomics by High-Resolution NMR Spectroscopy

The content of human sweat is studied by high-resolution NMR, and the majority of organic components most often found in sweat of conditionally healthy people are identified. Original and simple tools are designed for sweat sampling from different areas of human body. The minimal surface area needed for sampling is in the range of 50–100 cm2. On all the surface parts of the human body examined in this work, the main constituents forming a sweat metabolic profile are lactate, glycerol, pyruvate, and serine. The only exception is the sole of the foot (planta pedis), where trace amounts of glycerol are found. An attempt is made to explain the presence of specified metabolites and their possible origin

Improving the Alignment Quality of Consistency Based Aligners with an Evaluation Function Using Synonymous Protein Words

Most sequence alignment tools can successfully align protein sequences with higher levels of sequence identity. The accuracy of corresponding structure alignment, however, decreases rapidly when considering distantly related sequences (<20% identity). In this range of identity, alignments optimized so as to maximize sequence similarity are often inaccurate from a structural point of view. Over the last two decades, most multiple protein aligners have been optimized for their capacity to reproduce structure-based alignments while using sequence information. Methods currently available differ essentially in the similarity measurement between aligned residues using substitution matrices, Fourier transform, sophisticated profile-profile functions, or consistency-based approaches, more recently

Inherent Structural Disorder and Dimerisation of Murine Norovirus NS1-2 Protein

Human noroviruses are highly infectious viruses that cause the majority of acute, non-bacterial epidemic gastroenteritis cases worldwide. The first open reading frame of the norovirus RNA genome encodes for a polyprotein that is cleaved by the viral protease into six non-structural proteins. The first non-structural protein, NS1-2, lacks any significant sequence similarity to other viral or cellular proteins and limited information is available about the function and biophysical characteristics of this protein. Bioinformatic analyses identified an inherently disordered region (residues 1–142) in the highly divergent N-terminal region of the norovirus NS1-2 protein. Expression and purification of the NS1-2 protein of Murine norovirus confirmed these predictions by identifying several features typical of an inherently disordered protein. These were a biased amino acid composition with enrichment in the disorder promoting residues serine and proline, a lack of predicted secondary structure, a hydrophilic nature, an aberrant electrophoretic migration, an increased Stokes radius similar to that predicted for a protein from the pre-molten globule family, a high sensitivity to thermolysin proteolysis and a circular dichroism spectrum typical of an inherently disordered protein. The purification of the NS1-2 protein also identified the presence of an NS1-2 dimer in Escherichia coli and transfected HEK293T cells. Inherent disorder provides significant advantages including structural flexibility and the ability to bind to numerous targets allowing a single protein to have multiple functions. These advantages combined with the potential functional advantages of multimerisation suggest a multi-functional role for the NS1-2 protein

Predicting Peptide Binding Affinities to MHC Molecules Using a Modified Semi-Empirical Scoring Function

The Major Histocompatibility Complex (MHC) plays an important role in the human immune system. The MHC is involved in the antigen presentation system assisting T cells to identify foreign or pathogenic proteins. However, an MHC molecule binding a self-peptide may incorrectly trigger an immune response and cause an autoimmune disease, such as multiple sclerosis. Understanding the molecular mechanism of this process will greatly assist in determining the aetiology of various diseases and in the design of effective drugs. In the present study, we have used the Fresno semi-empirical scoring function and modify the approach to the prediction of peptide-MHC binding by using open-source and public domain software. We apply the method to HLA class II alleles DR15, DR1, and DR4, and the HLA class I allele HLA A2. Our analysis shows that using a large set of binding data and multiple crystal structures improves the predictive capability of the method. The performance of the method is also shown to be correlated to the structural similarity of the crystal structures used. We have exposed some of the obstacles faced by structure-based prediction methods and proposed possible solutions to those obstacles. It is envisaged that these obstacles need to be addressed before the performance of structure-based methods can be on par with the sequence-based methods