生物化学技术

Modern high-speed countercurrent chromatography (HSCC) has arisen only over the last 15 or so years and offers the natural product chemist a new separation tool with many unique advantages. It is inherently the mildest form of chromatography with no solid support and hence no chance of loss of su ...

The avian embryo has proven utility for studying ethanol's damaging effects upon the embryo. Chicken and quail are long-established models for developmental biology research; much of what we know regarding limb, craniofacial, neural crest, hindbrain, and cardiac morphogenesis was f ...

Evaluation of the functional responses of T cells is of importance in determining the mechanism(s) of immunodeficiency resulting from chronic alcohol abuse and other conditions that lead to immune dysfunction. Mice that are chronically exposed to 20% (w/v) ethanol in water develop immun ...

Natural killer (NK) cells part of innate immunity. NK cells have been assigned numerous functions, including the ability to serve as a bridge between innate and adaptive immunity. In evaluating NK cell function, two pathways need to be examined: their ability to kill certain tumors spontaneou ...

Most ingested ethanol is eliminated from the body through oxidative metabolism in the liver. Alcohol dehydrogenase is the enzyme that is most important in the oxidation of ethanol to acetaldehyde. However, it has also been demonstrated that cytochrome P4502E1 also can contribute to this p ...

Dendritic cells (DCs) play a key role in the initiation of effective immune responses against infectious agents because they are unique in their ability to provide antigen-specific activation of na�ve T cells. To do this, they must acquire antigen and migrate to spleen or lymph node to present the a ...

Chronic consumption of ethanol induces hepatic steatosis and inflammation, which can eventually lead to more severe liver injury, characterized by fibrosis and cirrhosis. Recruitment of neutrophils to the liver, as well as activation of Kupffer cells, mediates the inflammatory re ...

A significant body of evidence indicates that endotoxemia plays a crucial role in the pathogenesis of alcoholic liver disease. There are several possible factors that may be involved in inducing alcoholic endotoxemia, but increased intestinal permeability to enteric endotoxins a ...

CYP2E1, a member of the cytochrome P450 family, is induced by ethanol. CYP2E1 activates many hepatotoxins to their reactive toxic intermediate form, and generates reactive oxygen species (ROS) during its catalytic cycle. Induction of CYP2E1 plays an important role in ethanol-induced o ...

In vivo studies are ideal for identifying the phenomenology of ethanol toxicity and teratology. They are limited in being able to explore cellular and molecular mechanisms of action. Two types of culture models have proven to be very instructive: monolayer primary cultures of dissociated ...

Animal models of fetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD) have been instrumental in isolating alcohol as a teratogen and demonstrating behavioral and neural effects. There are a number of different models for rodents with various strengths and weaknesses. A three-trimester model of FASD ...

Prenatal alcohol exposure disrupts development, leading to a range of effects referred to as fetal alcohol spectrum disorders (FASD). FASDs include physical, central nervous system, and behavioral alterations. Animal model systems are used to study the relationship between alcoh ...

Chronic alcohol abuse leads to multiple defects in the immune system, leading to an increased risk of infectious disease and malignancy. Immune lesions encompass both the innate and adaptive arms and include deficiencies in the B-cell compartment. Long-term alcoholics exhibit loss of B c ...

Bone is an important target tissue for alcohol. Moderate alcohol consumption may slow bone loss during aging, but alcohol consumption inhibits bone growth during adolescence, and alcohol abuse in adults is an important risk factor for osteoporosis. Various techniques have been applied ...

Mice transgenic for human immunoglobulin genes offer the opportunity to investigators to derive fully human antibodies using well-established hybridoma technology. Several different strains of such mice are available, and can be obtained under certain conditions from vario ...

Antibodies, especially in the genetically engineered form, provide a powerful and diverse set of reagents for the recognition of biological structures. Of key importance to those in the antibody field are advances in genomics and proteomics, fostered by technology such as gene-expres ...

Large non-immune (na�ve) antibody gene diversity libraries displayed on filamentous phage have proven to be a reliable source of antibodies to any purified protein antigen (1–3). In some instances, it is possible to directly select peptides and antibody fragments that bind cell-surface r ...

One of the first steps in an antibody-engineering project is the isolation of the immunoglobulin heavy (VH)- and light (VL)-chain variable-region genes that encode the binding domains of an antibody. This is best accomplished using the polymerase chain reaction (PCR). Before PCR, cloning an ...

Recombinant bispecific antibodies have great potential as diagnostic and therapeutic reagents (1,2). Applications of recombinant bispecific antibodies include the recruitment of effector molecules (e.g., enzymes, complement components, immunoglobulins), effector ...

The goal of antibody humanization is to engineer a monoclonal antibody (MAb) raised in a nonhuman species into one that is less immunogenic when administered to humans. The development of this technology had transformed the stagnant state of antibody therapeutics in the 1980s, when the major ...