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There is an evident and growing medical need for an accurate determination of kidney function for a broad spectrum of indications. The glomerular filtration rate (GFR) is the most accepted indicator of renal function. Due to difficulties in performing the test, GFR is currently determined rarely in clinical practice. A procedure for such GFR determination has to be safe, accurate and easy to handle. By using the new compound fluorescein isothiocyanate-sinistrin (FS) these requirements are met. The pharmacological profile and tolerability of FS, selected from among various newly synthesized, labelled compounds intended for use as GFR markers, was characterized in male Sprague-Dawley rats following i.v. application. Using the newly described fluorometric method, FS can be determined much more easily in serum and urine than with the established enzymatic method. After i.v. dosing, FS concentrations in serum declined rapidly in various experimental groups to a comparable extent (t (1/2), mean+/-SD: 22.4+/-8.3 to 26.2+/-5.4 min). Its increase after unilateral nephrectomy reflects the loss of filtration capacity. Comparable concentration-time curves of FS in serum measured fluorometrically and enzymatically suggest no relevant alteration of pharmacokinetic behaviour by the labelling. This notion is supported by the high urinary excretion rate and absence of biliary excretion. The higher sensitivity of the fluorometric method suggests a dose of FS of 100 mg in humans compared with 5 g of sinistrin or inulin. FS was well tolerated after single and multiple applications. On the basis of these results, the kinetics of FS are comparable with the gold standard inulin or sinistrin, but FS is superior in handling. Providing the data can be transferred from rat to human, determination of GFR using the new method should result in an improvement of acceptance by both physicians and patients.

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As T helper cells play a crucial role in the defense of the mouse immune system against Yersinia enterocolitica, an effective subversion strategy for the pathogen would be the inhibition of T-cell activation. In this study, we investigated whether Y. enterocolitica impairs this process on the level of antigen presentation. For this purpose, we used T-cells to measure the antigen presentation capacity of dendritic cells after they had been incubated with different types of Yersinia mutants. We could show that Y. enterocolitica impairs the processing of antigens by dendritic cells, that this effect is dependent on factors translocated by the pathogenicity-plasmid-encoded type III secretion system and that the most important factor appears to be YopP. The YopP effect is partly mediated by the killing of APCs, but in addition to this there appears to be an alternative way of action that results in the inhibition of antigen processing. The YopP effect is not mediated by soluble factors. In contrast to antigen processing, antigen presentation was only weakly affected by pathogenicity plasmid encoded factors in dendritic cells, but obviously in A20.J B-cells.

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Yersinia enterocolitica employs a type III secretion system (TTSS) to target virulence factors (e.g. YopE) into the cytosol of the host cells. We utilized the TTSS to introduce a recombinant antigen directly into the cytosol of host cells and to investigate the potential of Y. enterocolitica and Y. pseudotuberculosis as live carrier for vaccines. The model antigen ovalbumin (Ova) was fused to defined secretion or translocation domains of the Yersinia effector protein YopE and introduced into attenuated mutant strains of Y. enterocolitica and Y. pseudotuberculosis. In vitro experiments showed secretion and translocation of YopE-Ova hybrid proteins into host cells. To investigate the resulting immune responses, mice expressing transgenic Ova-specific T cell receptors were used. Both Y. enterocolitica and Y. pseudotuberculosis mutants induced efficaciously Ova-specific CD8+ T cell responses. The translocation domain of YopE was required for induction of CD8+ T cell responses in vivo, but not for T cell responses induced in vitro. The in vivo frequency of Ova-specific splenic T cells was up to six-fold higher in mice immunized with YopE-Ova-translocating Y. enterocolitica/Y. pseudotuberculosis mutants than in control mice. The Ova-specific T cells were shown to produce high amounts of IFN-gamma. We did not observe significant Ova-specific CD4+ T cell or antibody responses upon vaccination with either of the strains. In conclusion, Yersinia live carrier vaccine strains are suitable to target antigens into the MHC class I pathway and stimulate CD8+ T cell responses and thus, might be useful in vaccine approaches against intracellular pathogens.

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Yersinia enterocolitica evades innate immunity by expression of a variety of pathogenicity factors. Therefore, adaptive immunity including CD4(+) T cells plays an important role in defense against Y. enterocolitica. We investigated whether Y. enterocolitica might target dendritic cells (DC) involved in adaptive T-cell responses. For this purpose, murine DC were infected with Y. enterocolitica wild-type and mutant strains prior to incubation with ovalbumin (OVA) as antigen and 5-(6)-carboxyfluorescein diacetate N-succinimidyl ester-labeled OVA-specific T cells from DO11.10 mice. While T-cell proliferation was partially affected by infection of DC with plasmid-cured and YopP-deficient Yersinia mutant strains, no T-cell proliferation occurred after infection of DC with wild-type Y. enterocolitica. Infection of DC with Y. enterocolitica wild type resulted in decreased up-regulation of major histocompatibility complex class II, CD54 (intercellular adhesion molecule 1), CD 80, and CD86 expression. Experiments with plasmid-cured Y. enterocolitica or a YopP-deficient mutant strain revealed that YopP accounts for inhibition of surface molecule expression. Wild-type Y. enterocolitica suppressed the release of KC, tumor necrosis factor alpha, interleukin-10 (IL-10), and IL-12 by DC, while infection of DC with plasmid-cured Y. enterocolitica or with the YopP-deficient mutant resulted in the production of these cytokines. Moreover, infection with wild-type Y. enterocolitica induced apoptosis in DC mediated by YopP. Apoptosis occurred despite translocation of NF-kappaB to the nucleus, as demonstrated by electromobility shift assays. Together, these data demonstrate that Y. enterocolitica targets functions of murine DC that are required for T-cell activation. This might contribute to evasion of adaptive immune responses by Y. enterocolitica.

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Crude extracts of Actinoplanes missouriensis and related strains catalyze the ATP-dependent phosphorylation of maltose to maltose 1-phosphate. The enzyme of A. missouriensis responsible for this reaction was purified and characterized. This protein has an estimated molecular mass of 57 kDa and it is most likely a monomer. The K(m) value was 2.6 mM for maltose and 0.54 mM for ATP. Only maltose acted effectively as phosphoryl-group acceptor, and ATP was not replaceable as phosphoryl-group donor. Tryptic peptides of the enzyme were sequenced, and the sequences of these peptides will allow construction of degenerate primers to identify the gene coding for this unique kinase.

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Yersinia enterocolitica mutant strains, including mutants deficient in the chaperone SycH resulting in a functional deficiency in tyrosine phosphatase (YopH), Mn-cofactored superoxide dismutase (SodA), iron-repressive protein 1 (IRP-1), and Yersinia adhesin A (YadA), were demonstrated to be highly attenuated in wild-type C57BL/6 mice. TNFRp55(-/-), IL-12p40(-/-), and IL-18(-/-) mutant mice, in which the Yersinia wild-type strain causes severe systemic infections, were used to investigate whether these Yersinia mutant strains would be attenuated in immunodeficient hosts. A plasmid-cured Yersinia mutant strain was unable to colonize any of the mutant mice tested. A SycH-deficient mutant strain colonized intestinal tissues of these mice but was attenuated for systemic infection in all of the mutant mice. Both YadA- and Irp-1-deficient Yersinia mutants were still attenuated in IL-12(-/-) and IL-18(-/-) mice but were pathogenic in TNFRp55(-/-) mice. By contrast, a Yersinia sodA mutant was highly pathogenic for TNFRp55(-/-) and IL-12p40(-/-) mice while interleukin-18 (IL-18) was dispensable. This finding demonstrates that certain virulence factors enable yersiniae to compete with distinct cytokine-dependent host defense mechanisms. Moreover, while gamma interferon mRNA expression did not reflect protective host responses in cytokine-deficient mice, IL-10 expression coincided with a heavy splenic bacterial load and was associated with progressive infection courses. We can thus segregate minor (SodA), intermediate (YadA and IRP-1), and major (YopH) virulence factors of Y. enterocolitica. Finally, we demonstrate that, even in immunocompromised hosts, Yersinia sycH and, with some restrictions, irp-1 mutants may be suitable for use as live carrier vaccines.

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To optimize antigen delivery by Salmonella vaccine strains, a system for surface display of antigenic determinants was established by using the autotransporter secretion pathway of gram-negative bacteria. A modular system for surface display allowed effective targeting of heterologous antigens or fragments thereof to the bacterial surface by the autotransporter domain of AIDA-I, the Escherichia coli adhesin involved in diffuse adherence. A major histocompatibility complex class II-restricted epitope, comprising amino acids 74 to 86 of the Yersinia enterocolitica heat shock protein Hsp60 (Hsp60(74-86)), was fused to the AIDA-I autotransporter domain, and the resulting fusion protein was expressed at high levels on the cell surface of E. coli and Salmonella enterica serovar Typhimurium. Colonization studies in mice vaccinated with Salmonella strains expressing AIDA-I fusion proteins demonstrated high genetic stability of the generated vaccine strain in vivo. Furthermore, a pronounced T-cell response against Yersinia Hsp60(74-86) was induced in mice vaccinated with a Salmonella vaccine strain expressing the Hsp60(74-86)-AIDA-I fusion protein. This was shown by monitoring Yersinia Hsp60-stimulated IFN-gamma secretion and proliferation of splenic T cells isolated from vaccinated mice. These results demonstrate that the surface display of antigenic determinants by the autotransporter pathway deserves special attention regarding the application in live attenuated Salmonella vaccine strains.

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