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Biomedical subjects

T F Smith

Publications and source records attributed to T F Smith.

At least 325 records · Page 18Linked to original sources

Replication and plaque assay of influenza virus in an established line of canine kidney cells.

A plaque assay system has been developed for types A and B influenza viruses in an established line of canine kidney cells (MDCK-USD). In addition to a homogeneous susceptible cell, consistent plaque production depends on the use of highly purified agar (Agarose). This quantitative system was used to determine the rate of adsorption, synthesis, and thermal inactivation of influenza viruses, as well as to determine a dose response curve. Plaque assays on the MDCK-USD line and the parent MDCK line showed that the latter was more sensitive to A/Swine and A(2)/Japan 305 viruses. Titration of standard virus pools in embryonated eggs and MDCK-USD indicated that the cell culture system was as sensitive as the in ovo assay.

Agar↗

Prediction of interaction partners for orphan nuclear receptors by prior-based protein sequence profiles.

We present a prior-based profile method for the prediction of protein-protein interaction partners that is here applied to the nuclear receptor superfamily. In this method, the diagnostic features are locally encoded in the physicochemical properties of residues in the interaction surface that are conserved in all proteins belonging to the defining set. The procedure models the positional variation based on that observed in the defining set and a prior-based substitution matrix derived from over 20,000 highly conserved positions in a set of 147 functional protein families. The method clusters sets of nuclear receptors known to interact with retinoid X receptor or corepressor proteins with predictive sets of receptors in C. elegans and higher metazoans. The method effectively reduces the search space of all possible interactions and yields experimentally testable predictions. Applications of this novel approach extend to interaction prediction problems in general, particularly to those that are not amenable to analysis by the rigid-body approximation.

Amino Acid Motifs↗

Correlation of urine pH with the detection of cytomegalovirus by the shell vial technique.

The influence of the pH of urine on the detection of cytomegalovirus (CMV) by the shell vial assay was evaluated. The pH values of 295 urine specimens ranged from 4.7 to 8.5 (mean 6.3) and were not significantly different in culture-positive versus culture-negative samples. None of the urine specimens appeared to be toxic for the cells used in the shell vial assay. We recommend inoculation of urine specimens into shell vials without adjustment of pH.

Cytomegalovirus↗