Generation of carbohydrate-deficient transferrin by enzymatic deglycosylation of human transferrin

Carbohydrate-deficient transferrin (CDT) molecules are transferrin isoforms that lack one or both of the carbohydrate groups attached to a normal human transferrin molecule. CDT has been reported to be a sensitive and specific marker for diagnosing alcoholism. This report demonstrates the in vitro generation of CDT molecules that can potentially be used as the standard in measuring CDT concentrations. This was achieved by deglycosylation of human transferrin with the enzyme Endo-β-N-acetylglucosaminidase F₂ (Endo-F₂). The enzyme was immobilized on sepharose beads, which were packed into a column. The immobilization of the enzyme not only eliminated the Endo-F₂ contamination of CDT, but also rendered the enzyme suitable for repetitive use. In this manner, it was possible to obtain at least 200 mg of CDT over a period of more than 3 mo, without any noticeable decrease of enzyme activity, using only 3.0 μg of enzyme. This proved to be an efficient method for generating CDT.     

Dimroth-type rearrangement of 1-benzyl- and 1-glycosyl-5-aminoimidazoles to 4-(N-substituted amino)imidazoles

An efficient route is described to an unusual exocyclic 4-β-d-ribofuranosyl-aminoimidazole nucleoside, related 4-N-benzylaminoimidazoles and imidazole analogues of precursors in the de novo biosynthesis of purines, via a regiospecific and stereoselective base-catalysed Dimroth-type rearrangement of 1-ribofuranosyl and 1-benzyl-5-aminoimidazoles. Use of a ¹⁵N labelled precursor showed the unequivocal endo- to exocyclic translocation of the nitrogen atom during the rearrangement.     

Pricing public health care services using DEA: Methodology versus politics

The New Zealand public health sector has used DEA since 1997 to identify efficient expenditure levels to set prices for hospital services at the DRG level. Given the size of the expenditure (NZ$ 2.6 billion), considerable robustness was required for the results and sophistication of the models/process. While the model development and application appeared to be successful, politics overturned the results in the short run. In the longer term, the results have been shown to be reasonably robust and have become a base-line reference for future developments. As such, this paper reports a relatively successful transfer of theory into practice.     

The mixed alkali effect: Theoretical considerations

A cooperative theory for the composition dependence of activated processes in binary ionic oxide glasses (the mixed alkali effect) is proposed. It employs the regular solution model and introduces a molecular model, both of which are used in conjunction with appropriate spectroscopic data for obtaining an estimate of the magnitude of the theory's parameters. The nonlinear composition dependences of certain physical properties of mixed alkali systems, as well as their separation into exponential and pre-exponential factors, are shown to follow from these theoretical considerations.     

On spaces of modular forms spanned by eta-quotients

An eta-quotient of level N   is a modular form of the shape f(z)=_∏δ|Nη(δz)^_rδ$f(z)={\prod }_{\delta |N}\eta {(\delta z)}^{r_{\delta }}$. We study the problem of determining levels N   for which the graded ring of holomorphic modular forms for _Γ0(N)${\Gamma }_0(N)$ is generated by (holomorphic, respectively weakly holomorphic) eta-quotients of level N  . In addition, we prove that if f(z)$f(z)$ is a holomorphic modular form that is non-vanishing on the upper half plane and has integer Fourier coefficients at infinity, then f(z)$f(z)$ is an integer multiple of an eta-quotient. Finally, we use our results to determine the structure of the cuspidal subgroup of _J0(2^k)(Q)$J_0(2^k)(\mathbb{Q})$.     

Hypergeometric functions and elliptic curves

We provide uniform formulas for the real period and the trace of Frobenius associated to an elliptic curve in Legendre normal form. These are expressed in terms of classical and Gaussian hypergeometric functions, respectively. 2000 Mathematics Subject Classification Primary—11G05, 33C05 This research was supported by K. Ono’s NSF grant