Gene/Protein Disease Symptom Drug Enzyme Compound
Pivot Concepts:   Target Concepts:
Query: EC:3.4.21.1 (chymotrypsin)
 10,938 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

Inflammatory cells in lymph nodes of eighteen patients suffering from culture-proven tuberculous lymphadenitis were examined by histological and immunohistochemical techniques. Ten patients suffered from symptomatic HIV-infection and eight patients were immunocompetent individuals without HIV-1 serology. Characteristic granulomas with or without caseation were observed in eight immunocompetent and four HIV-1-infected patients with less marked lymphopenia of CD4 positive peripheral blood lymphocytes. No epitheloid cell formation was present in lymph nodes of HIV1-infected patients with more severe depression of CD4 positive peripheral blood lymphocyte count. Foamy macrophages were found instead of these cells. While many cells--predominantly lymphocytes--express CD25 (IL-2 receptor) in cases with typical epitheloid granulomas there is no such CD25 expression in cases without any epitheloid cell formation. This result suggest that T cell function is necessary for epitheloid granuloma formation in human tuberculosis. The phenotype of macrophages underwent progressive changes parallel to decreasing numbers of CD4 positive peripheral blood lymphocytes. Foamy macrophages in Mycobacterium avium-intracellulare infection represented an end-stage phenotype. They were positive for S100 protein and they did not express lysozyme, alpha-1-anti-chymotrypsin, L1 antigen (Mac387) and CD4, whereas positivity for HLA-DR, CD68 and Ki-M8 was preserved. In situ immunohistochemical demonstration of IFN-alpha, IFN-beta, TNF-alpha, IL-1 and IL-6 revealed that foamy cells in M. tuberculosis infection were highly active effector cells. They contained higher concentrations of the examined cytokines than epitheloid cells in the lesions of HIV+ and HIV-patients. Corresponding to these findings the histological proof of acid-fast bacilli was generally not successful in typical HIV-associated tuberculosis. The foamy appearance may result from the lipid-rich cell membranes of destroyed acid-fast bacilli. In contrast acid-fast bacilli-packed foamy macrophages in AIDS patients with M. avium-intracellulare (MAI) infection did not produce any of the examined cytokines.
 ...
PMID:Immunohistochemical analysis of cell composition and in situ cytokine expression in HIV- and non-HIV-associated tuberculous lymphadenitis. 771 49

The DNA binding domain of the interferon regulatory factor-2 protein (IRF-2) has been produced and characterized. alpha-chymotrypsin digestion of the purified IRF-2 protein bound to a synthetic binding site yields a peptide fragment of 14 K in molecular weight. N-terminal analysis of this peptide fragment showed that its sequence is the same as that of the intact IRF-2. A peptide fragment of approximately 14 K, IRF-2(113), which corresponds to the N-terminal 113 amino acids of the intact IRF-2 protein, has been expressed in a functional form in Escherichia coli. The first methionine was processed during the expression and the purified IRF-2(113) thus contains 112 amino acids. DNase I footprinting and gel retardation assaying showed that IRF-2(113) binds to a synthetic DNA having the consensus binding site and to the upstream regulatory sequence of the IFN-beta gene as intact IRF-2 does. These results showed that this peptide fragment, IRF-2(113), may be a good material for investigation of the DNA binding domain of IRF-2 and of the DNA-protein interaction.
 ...
PMID:Characterization of the DNA binding domain of the mouse IRF-2 protein. 847 44