METHODS: One hundred

ninety-four unrelated Turkish ankylosing spondylitis patients and 113 healthy without apparent cardiovascular disease, hypertension or diabetes mellitus were included. All individuals were genotyped by PCR-RFLP for two single-nucleotide polymorphisms, namely 786T>C (rs2070744, promoter region) and 786 Glu298Asp (rs1799983, exon 7). Variable numbers of tandem repeat polymorphisms in intron 4 were also studied and investigated by direct electrophoresis on agarose gel following polymerase chain reaction analysis. The Bath ankylosing spondylitis metrology index of the patients SBI-0206965 was calculated, and human leukocyte antigen B27 was studied.

RESULTS: All studied polymorphisms satisfied Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium. Sex distributions were similar between the patient and control groups. No significant

differences were found in the distributions of allele Selleck MLN8237 and genotype frequencies of the studied endothelial nitric oxide synthase polymorphisms between patients and controls. There were no correlations between endothelial nitric oxide synthase polymorphisms, disease duration, Bath ankylosing spondylitis metrology index or human leukocyte antigen B27.

CONCLUSION: The results presented in this study do not support a major role of common endothelial nitric oxide synthase polymorphisms in Turkish ankylosing spondylitis

patients.”
“The aim of this study is to achieve high-level extracellular production of d-Psicose-3-epimerase (DPE) with recombinant Escherichia coli. High-level production of DPE is one of the AS1842856 ic50 key factors in d-Psicose production. In the present study, the gene AAL45544.1 from Agrobacterium tumefaciens str. C58 was modified by artificial synthesis for overexpression in E. coli. The total DPE activity reached 3.96 U mL(-1) after optimization of the media composition, induction temperature, and concentration of inducer. Furthermore, it was found that addition of glycine had a positive effect on the extracellular production of DPE, which reached 3.5 U mL(-1). Finally, a two-stage glycerol feeding strategy based on both the specific growth rate before induction and the amount of glycerol residues after induction was applied in a 3-L fermenter. After a series of optimal strategies in the 3-L fermenter, the total and extracellular DPE activity were 5.08- and 3.11-fold higher than that noted in the shake flask. The extracellular and intracellular DPE activity reached 10.9 and 13.2 U mL(-1), achieving 25.5 and 31.1 % conversion of d-fructose to d-psicose, respectively. The systemic strategies presented in this study provide valuable novel information for the industrial application of DPE.