Catechol-o-methyltransferase from human placenta was purified 1400-fold by hydroxyapatite adsorption, ammonium sulfate precipitation, gel filtration, high performance anion- exchange and reversed-phase chromatography. The purified enzyme has an apparent molecular weight of 26.000, an isoelectric point of 5,3 and is activated ten-fold in the presence of 20mM cysteine. The enzyme shows primary struc

The coding sequence of rat liver catechol-O-methyl-transferase (COMT; EC 2.1.1.6) was determined from rat cDNA and genomic libraries were screened with DNA probes and specific antiserum. The open reading frame consisted of 663 nucleotides coding for a 221-amino acid (aa) polypeptide with a deduced Mr of 24747. No obvious hydrophobic signal sequence, membrane-spanning domains, or potential N-glycos

The rat liver soluble catechol-O-methyltransferase (EC 2.1.1.6.) has been purified utilizing a combination of conventional chromatography and HPLC. The purified enzyme has a molecular mass of 25 kDa, a pI of 5.1, and exists in two forms which differ in the nature of their intramolecular disulfide bonds. This difference causes these two protein forms to behave differently in reversed phase chromato

Two fusions of the Bacillus stearothermophilus α-amylase gene (amyS) with lacpoZ′ were constructed. The first, being a transcriptional fusion, placed amyS directly under lac promoter control eliminating interference by the endogenous promoter. IPTG induction of amyS transcription in this construction resulted in liberation of periplasmic proteins and eventually cell lysis. The other fusion replace

BACKGROUND: Cirrhosis represents a state of functional immune paresis with increased infection risk.AIMS: To investigate polymorphonuclear (PMN) leukocyte and monocyte function in ambulatory cirrhotics, and their potential relation with cirrhosis etiology or patient outcome.METHODS: Consecutive ambulatory cirrhotics without current or recent ( 0.05 for all). In Cox regression analysis, increased s

We addressed whether endothelin-1, a marker of endothelial dysfunction, predicts impaired glucose tolerance (IGT) and type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) in a population study in south-western Sweden. Follow-up after 9.7 years showed an association between circulating endothelin-1 levels at baseline and development of IGT/T2DM in women but not in men.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE: Severe idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis is associated with an increased risk of cardiovascular disease and gastro-oesophageal reflux, which may influence prognosis. We evaluated associations between cardiovascular and antacid medications, and mortality, in oxygen-dependent pulmonary fibrosis (PF) of unknown cause.METHODS: Prospective population-based study of adults starting

To explore the molecular mechanisms of Ipomoea cairica invasiveness insouth China, the de novo transcriptomes from I. cairica and two related species, I. digitata and I. nil,were sequenced and assembled.There were5 6551 all-unigenes obtained by assembling the reads, among them 56522 all-unigenes were annotated, including 7815, 15615, and 180201 all-unigenes in GO, COG and KEGG databases, respectiv

Objective: To identify possible suicide risk factors in a clinical sample and suicide risk in a general population, with primary focus on mental disorders, signs, symptoms and comorbidity. Methods: In the first two studies, subjects who had been admitted to a specialised psychiatric ward after a suicide attempt were investigated. Fifteen suicide completers were compared to matched survivors in te

The rat and human recombinant soluble and membrane-bound catechol O-methyltransferase (S- and MB-COMT, respectively) were expressed using mammalian and baculovirus vectors. Low levels of rat and human S-COMT polypeptides were detected by immunoprecipitation in K-562 cell lines transfected with the S-COMT vectors. From K-562 cells transfected with the rat MB-COMT construct, both S- and MB-COMT reco

Somatic mosaicism, the presence of genetically distinct cells within an organism, has been increasingly associated with human morbidity, ranging from being a cause of rare syndromes to a risk factor for common disorders such as malignancy and cardiovascular disease. Previous studies interrogating the normal prevalence of somatic mosaicism have focused on adults. We here present an estimate of the

In traditional diffusion MRI, short pulsed field gradients (PFG) are used for the diffusion encoding. The standard Stejskal-Tanner sequence uses one single pair of such gradients, known as single-PFG (sPFG). In this work we describe how trajectories in q-space can be used for diffusion encoding. We discuss how such encoding enables the extension of the well-known scalar b-value to a tensor-valued

In order to describe a novel approach for the clinical study of metastases, we provide here age-specific incidence and survival data for cancer of unknown primary (CUP). Metastases in various organs are found at CUP diagnosis, which have implications for prognosis, and we hypothesize similar prognostic implications for metastases found at diagnosis of primary cancers. We identified 33,224 CUP pati

Elsystemet står inför en stor förändring som kommer av omställningen till ett utsläppsfritt samhälle. Elsystemet är en central del av vår samhälleliga infrastruktur och dess utveckling har till stor del styrts av politiska beslut även om marknaden fått allt större utrymme sedan 1990-talet. Stora tekniska system utvecklas alltid i samklang med samhällets institutioner där samhällets ramar och regle

The cellular source for tubular regeneration following kidney injury is a matter of dispute, with reports suggesting a stem or progenitor cells as the regeneration source while linage tracing studies in mice seemingly favor the classical theory, where regeneration is performed by randomly surviving cells. We, and others have previously described a scattered cell population localized to the tubules

Ischemic stroke is often associated with loss of cortical neurons leading to various neurological deficits. A cell replacement based on stem cell transplantation to repair the damaged brain requires the generation of specific neuronal subtypes. Recently, induced pluripotent stem cells have been used to generate various subtypes of neurons in vitro for transplantation in stroke-damaged brains. Howe

The Thesis is based on 6 original articles