Cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) cryptococcal colony-forming unit counts and CSF cryptococcal antigen titers serve as alternative measures of organism load in cryptococcal meningitis. For these measures, we ...correlated baseline values and rates of decline during the first 2 weeks of therapy in 68 human immunodeficiency virus–seropositive patients with cryptococcal meningitis. At baseline, there was a strong correlation between CSF cryptococcal colony-forming unit counts and CSF cryptococcal antigen titers. During the first 2 weeks of therapy, CSF cryptococcal colony-forming unit counts decreased by >5 logs, and CSF cryptococcal antigen titers decreased by 1.5 dilutions. In individual patients, there was no correlation between the rate of decline in CSF cryptococcal colony-forming unit counts and that in CSF cryptococcal antigen titers
We present a hybrid chip of polymer and stainless steel designed for high-throughput continuous electroporation of cells in suspension. The chip is constructed with two parallel stainless steel mesh ...electrodes oriented perpendicular to the liquid flow. The relatively high hydrodynamic resistance of the micrometer sized holes in the meshes compared to the main channel enforces an almost homogeneous flow velocity between the meshes. Thereby, very uniform electroporation of the cells can be accomplished. Successful electroporation of 20 million human dendritic cells with mRNA is demonstrated. The performance of the chip is similar to that of the traditional electroporation cuvette, but without an upper limit on the number of cells to be electroporated. The device is constructed with two female Luer parts and can easily be integrated with other microfluidic components. Furthermore it is fabricated from injection molded polymer parts and commercially available stainless steel mesh, making it suitable for inexpensive mass production.
The Utah Fly's Eye detector has revealed a change in the cosmic ray composition which is correlated with structure in the all-particle energy spectrum. The data can be fitted by a simple model of a ...steep power law spectrum of heavy nuclei which is overtaken at high energies by a flatter spectrum of protons. The transition occurs near 10sup 18.5 eV. Anisotropy is not detected, so the high-rigidity particles above the transition energy do not originate in the disk of the Galaxy. An outstanding event of 3times10sup 20 eV implies that the highest energy particles originate in the contemporary era of the Universe.
We have used a hidden Markov model (HMM) to identify the consensus sequence of the RpoD promoters in the genome of Campylobacter jejuni. The identified promoter consensus sequence is unusual compared ...to other bacteria, in that the region upstream of the TATA-box does not contain a conserved −35 region, but shows a very strong periodic variation in the AT-content and semi-conserved T-stretches, with a period of 10–11 nucleotides. The TATA-box is in some, but not all cases, preceded by a TGx, similar to an extended −10 promoter.
We predicted a total of 764 presumed RpoD promoters in the C.jejuni genome, of which 654 were located upstream of annotated genes. A similar promoter was identified in Helicobacter pylori, a close phylogenetic relative of Campylobacter, but not in Escherichia coli, Vibrio cholerae, or six other Proteobacterial genomes, or in Staphylococcus aureus. We used upstream regions of high confidence genes as training data (n=529, for the C.jejuni genome). We found it necessary to limit the training set to genes that are preceded by an intergenic region of >100bp or by a gene oriented in the opposite direction to be able to identify a conserved sequence motif, and ended up with a training set of 175 genes. This leads to the conclusion that the remaining genes (354) are more rarely preceded by a (RpoD) promoter, and consequently that operon structure may be more widespread in C.jejuni than has been assumed by others.
Structural predictions of the regions upstream of the TATA-box indicates a region of highly curved DNA, and we assume that this facilitates the wrapping of the DNA around the RNA polymerase holoenzyme, and offsets the absence of a conserved −35 binding motif.
Bacillus licheniformis is a Gram-positive, spore-forming soil bacterium that is used in the biotechnology industry to manufacture enzymes, antibiotics, biochemicals and consumer products. This ...species is closely related to the well studied model organism Bacillus subtilis, and produces an assortment of extracellular enzymes that may contribute to nutrient cycling in nature.
We determined the complete nucleotide sequence of the B. licheniformis ATCC 14580 genome which comprises a circular chromosome of 4,222,336 base-pairs (bp) containing 4,208 predicted protein-coding genes with an average size of 873 bp, seven rRNA operons, and 72 tRNA genes. The B. licheniformis chromosome contains large regions that are colinear with the genomes of B. subtilis and Bacillus halodurans, and approximately 80% of the predicted B. licheniformis coding sequences have B. subtilis orthologs.
Despite the unmistakable organizational similarities between the B. licheniformis and B. subtilis genomes, there are notable differences in the numbers and locations of prophages, transposable elements and a number of extracellular enzymes and secondary metabolic pathway operons that distinguish these species. Differences include a region of more than 80 kilobases (kb) that comprises a cluster of polyketide synthase genes and a second operon of 38 kb encoding plipastatin synthase enzymes that are absent in the B. licheniformis genome. The availability of a completed genome sequence for B. licheniformis should facilitate the design and construction of improved industrial strains and allow for comparative genomics and evolutionary studies within this group of Bacillaceae.
According to the court, "(the fact remains, however, that the calls are alleged to have been robo-calls, which do implicate the TCPA... ...Caudill has sufficiently demonstrated that his alleged harm ...is fairly traceable to the challenged conduct and, thus, he has established standing.
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