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In the present work, we report, for the first time, on the purification of the Salmonella Typhimurium OmpD porin. We assessed the integrity and purity of the protein and evaluated the immunogenicity of the protein and its ability to induce antibody without exogenous adjuvant. We observed that 10 μg OmpD induced high antibody levels of IgM and IgG, which were maintained for more than 260 days after immunization. Immunization with OmpD induced multiple IgG antibody isotypes including IgG1, IgG2a, IgG2b, and IgG3 subclasses. Furthermore, these antibodies were able to recognize and bind to the bacterial surface. Our results demonstrate the high immunogenicity of S. Typhimurium OmpD porin, which induces long-lasting antibodies which may be and important target of the immune response against Salmonella infection. In conclusion, we propose the OmpD porin could be used within novel subunit vaccine formulations that do not need additional adjuvant and that confer long lasting humoral immunity against Salmonella infections.

Aim: The accurate mapping of forest carbon stocks is essential for understanding the global carbon cycle, for assessing emissions from deforestation, and for rational land-use planning. Remote sensing (RS) is currently the key tool for this purpose, but RS does not estimate vegetation biomass directly, and thus may miss significant spatial variations in forest structure. We test the stated accuracy of pantropical carbon maps using a large independent field dataset., Location: Tropical forests of the Amazon basin. The permanent archive of the field plot data can be accessed at: http://dx.doi.org/10.5521/FORESTPLOTS.NET/2014&#95;1., Methods: Two recent pantropical RS maps of vegetation carbon are compared to a unique ground-plot dataset, involving tree measurements in 413 large inventory plots located in nine countries. The RS maps were compared directly to field plots, and kriging of the field data was used to allow area-based comparisons., Results: The two RS carbon maps fail to capture the main gradient in Amazon forest carbon detected using 413 ground plots, from the densely wooded tall forests of the north-east, to the light-wooded, shorter forests of the south-west. The differences between plots and RS maps far exceed the uncertainties given in these studies, with whole regions over- or under-estimated by > 25%, whereas regional uncertainties for the maps were reported to be < 5%., Main Conclusions: Pantropical biomass maps are widely used by governments and by projects aiming to reduce deforestation using carbon offsets, but may have significant regional biases. Carbon-mapping techniques must be revised to account for the known ecological variation in tree wood density and allometry to create maps suitable for carbon accounting. The use of single relationships between tree canopy height and above-ground biomass inevitably yields large, spatially correlated errors. This presents a significant challenge to both the forest conservation and remote sensing communities, because neither wood density nor species assemblages can be reliably mapped from space.