Search

A study based on 84 electrically stunned lambs showed that those gash stuck (transverse incision of the extended neck which almost simultaneously severs the trachea, oesophagus, common carotid arteries and jugular veins and the spinal cord at the occipito-atlantal junction; Blackmore & Newhook, 1976) immediately after removal of the electrical applicator had a lower incidence of blood splash than lambs gash stuck 5-8 sec r stunning. Lambs whose throats were cut immediately before the application of the electrical current had the lowest incidence of blood splash. None of the splash observed was of commercial significance. Systolic blood pressure recordings were made on a further 12 lambs of a similar age, 10 of which were electrically stunned and two shot with a captive bolt pistol. Blood pressure changes observed were related to the blood splash results obtained in the first trial. Electrical stunning raised blood pressures to an average of 3·5 times normal in lambs allowed to recover from stunning. A further seven young unweaned lambs which were electrically or percussion stunned showed a similar pattern of blood pressure change to that reported for older lambs following stunning, except that lower maximum pressures were reached. The authors interpret the results of the present trials as indicating that the application of electrical current to the heads of lambs results in damage to small vessels prior to the elevation of blood pressure. This damage may become apparent in the dressed carcass and organs as small haemorrhages. The subsequent rise in blood pressure following stunning then exacerbates the leakage of blood into tissues and it becomes more apparent in the form of discrete haemorrhages or blood splash., (Copyright © 1978. Published by Elsevier Ltd.)

Structural studies have substantiated the concept that the glycoprotein hormones consist of a "common" alpha subunit and "hormone-specific" beta subunit. Despite this, consensus is still lacking concerning certain portions of the amino acid sequences, including alignment of residues 81--82 in the alpha subunit. We have carried out sequence analysis of the alpha subunit of human luteinizing hormone (hLH) to clarify the assignment of these residues and to examine further the nature of the amino-terminal heterogeneity found among the different alpha subunits. Our structure showed residues 80--84 to be -His-Cys-Ser-Thy-Cys-, consistent with findings of others for human follicle stimulating hormone (hFSH) and human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG). The extensive degree of heterogeneity found in the amino terminal region of hFSH and hCG is present to only a minor extent in hLH. The differences in the pattern of amino-terminal heterogeneity among the various hormones may result from differences in the nature of cleavage of subunit from a larger intracellular precursor peptide.

Two simplifying assumptions are frequently used in the biophysical chemistry of aqueous solutions: (i) a dielectric mediates the interactions of polar and ionic molecules in aqueous phases and (ii) the dielectric constant of this medium is high and uniform up to molecular surfaces. Because of their great utility in rationalizing simple electrostatic and dielectric effects in such polar systems, it is important to examine whether these assumptions also lead to deductions that are locally consistent with the solvent restructuring observed in hydrophobic phenomena. In this paper, using a model polar fluid system, these macroscopic assumptions are applied to the rigorous, microscopic nonlinear integral equation for Wki, the potential of mean force between two adjacent polar molecules. In systems of high dielectric constant, linearization of Boltzmann exponentials and approximation of three-molecule potentials of mean force by superposition of two-molecule potentials permit reduction to a linear integral equation for Wki. It is shown that the strictly local electrostatic contributions to Wki exert an effect that is qualitatively similar to the global screening effect of a dielectric medium. Through the relation between Wki and configurational probabilities, it is further found that reducing the polarity of a molecule in a polar fluid shifts local pair probability density from energetically unfavorable to energetically favorable two-molecule configurations. This general effect, which clearly promotes local structure, would augment more specific hydrophobic mechanisms in aqueous systems. Thus, the assumptions upon which the highly successful Debye-Hückel and Onsager models are supported lead also to deductions about local structure that are consistent with hydrophobic structure enhancement.

Three-hundred-and-three lambs were divided into three equal groups. Half the lambs in each group were not weaned before slaughter and the weaned half were slaughtered a week later. Lambs in one group were head stunned electrically before slaughter; in the second group lambs were stunned with a captive bolt pistol and in the third group they were percussion stunned before slaughter. Carcasses, gall-bladders, hearts and duodenums were inspected for blood splash after slaughter. A few small haemorrhages were detected in 57% of the electrically stunned lambs, in 30% of the captive bolt stunned lambs and in only 16% of the percussion stunned animals. Although no splash of commercial significance was found in any carcass, 25% of the electrically stunned lambs had detectably splashed carcasses, whilst only 1% of percussion-stunned lambs had splashed carcasses with captive bolt stunned lambs being intermediate in carcass splash incidence. These results show that stunning method affects the incidence of blood splash., (Copyright © 1981. Published by Elsevier Ltd.)

At high detergent concentrations, approximately the equivalent of 2 micelles of TX-100 reversibly bind to acetylcholinesterase and fully inhibit the enzyme. This result suggests that the appropriate lipid environment might regulate this neuronal enzyme's function.

Ultraviolet irradiation of 11S acetylcholinesterase (acetylcholine acetylhydrolase, EC 3.1.1.7) produces a loss of tryptophan fluorescence which is best described as the sum of two separable first-order processes, one much more rapid than the other. In addition, the enzyme undergoes an all-or-none inactivation that is monotonically first order. Simultaneous with activity loss, photoscission takes place and results in a molecular weight drop of 1 x 10(5); this decrease is first order with a rate constant identical to that for enzymatic inactivation. These processes are accompanied by apparent conformational changes, as shown by circular dichroic and difference absorption spectra. The relative photochemical inactivation efficiency of incident light is unity when corrected for the wavelength dependence of fluorescence excitation, which is consistent with an efficient Förster resonance transfer of energy among the aromatic chromophores. The extreme sensitivity of acetylcholinesterase to photodestruction upon photon absorption and the several events that follow it not only suggest that these findings might be a basis for a useful molecular probe of the structure of this enzyme, but also indicate that additional care should be taken when conducting spectroscopic studies in the UV region.

The formation of a cavity in water is a conceptual preliminary to the dissolution of a nonpolar solute. The process is of biophysical importance because of its assumed primitive relation to hydrophobic factors affecting biological structure and function. In this paper, cavity formation by the isochoric deformation of a fluid specimen is investigated. Using both molecular and macroscopic descriptions of this process, the volume occupied by the fluid is held constant while the spherical specimen is reversibly deformed in differential steps until it surrounds a spherical cavity. The work of cavity formation results from the integration of energy changes generated directly from the forced, differential deformations of the equilibrium fluid structure; the heat of cavity formation is the integrated result of energy changes that accompany the nonforced, differential adjustments in the distribution of matter which modulate the average fluid structure during the process. This reversible isochoric deformation procedure for introducing the nonpolar system into the polar fluid is compared with the more familiar method that uses a reversible coupling parameter. Simple calculations based on the isochoric deformation method provide estimates of the free energy, internal energy, heat and entropy of cavity formation that agree with values from the scaled particle method.