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AbstractThe outcome of 338 pregnancies complicated by serologically confirmed rubella after the 12th week of gestation is reported. Therapeutic abortions were performed on 93 women, 1 pregnancy resulted in a spontaneous abortion and 5 in stillbirths. Cord blood or a sample collected at an age of 0–2 months from 209 liveborn infants were tested for rubella IgM antibodies after sucrose density gradient ultracentrifugation. Such antibodies were detected in samples from approximately 33 of infants born after maternal rubella in the 4th and 5th month of gestation, but only in 11 of infants born after maternal rubella later in pregnancy. The classical symptoms of congenital rubella were not observed with the possible exception of a suspected unilateral hearing loss in 1 infant born after maternal rubella in the 5th month of pregnancy.

The K88 antigen was carried by episomal transfer to D282, a nonmotile Escherichia colistrain without K antigen. D520, obtained by this episomal transfer, was used for the extraction of K88 antigen. It was shown by the agar gel precipitation technique that some K88 antigen was released from D520 into suspending aqueous medium. The amount of liberated material was increased by gentle heating (60 C) or treatment in a Waring Blendor. The antigen was obtained from the extracts in a purified form by making use of its insolubility between pH 3.5 and 5.5 and of its high sedimentation rate (S020,w= 36.7S). The homogeneity of the material was demonstrated by agar gel precipitation with D520 antiserum, by analytical ultracentrifugation, and by moving-boundary electrophoresis. Chemical analysis revealed that K88 is a pure protein containing all the common amino acids with the exception of cysteine-cystine. Purified K88 selectively precipitated the K88 antibodies from D520 antiserum and was shown to be immunogenic in rabbits.

Lipopolysaccharide (LPS, endotoxin) was extracted from biofilm and planktonically grown monoagglutinable (1118) and polyagglutinable (258 and 15703) strains of Pseudomonas aeruginosa isolated from cystic fibrosis patients with chronic pulmonary infections. Analysis by polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (PAGE) followed by immune-detection of LPS fractions showed an S-form appearance of strain 1118 and 258 with three distinct clusters of high molecular weight bands, whereas 15703 appeared semi-rough. LPS of semi-rough cells grown planktonically and as biofilm showed a very similar PAGE pattern; however, the core/lipid A R-LPS fraction was more prominent in biofilm-LPS than in planktonic-LPS extracted from the S-form bacteria (1118 and 258). The apparent change in LPS sub-unit components of the bacteria when grown as biofilm may reflect changes in the outer membrane structure that contribute to the altered physico-chemical properties of biofilm bacteria in foreign-device associated infections and chronic P. aeruginosa lung infection in cystic fibrosis patients.