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Obtaining Hemocytes from the Hawaiian Bobtail Squid Euprymna scolopes and Observing their Adherence to Symbiotic and Non-Symbiotic Bacteria
Published on: February 11, 2010
Humoral opsonins of the tunicate, Pyura stolonifera
S Pearce1, R A Newton, S V Nair
1Department of Biological Sciences, Macquarie University, NSW, 2109, North Ryde, Australia.
Abstract:
This study characterizes humoral opsonins from the tunicate, Pyura stolonifera. The predominant opsonic components in P. stolonifera hemolymph were found to be calcium-dependent lectins with broad carbohydrate specificities. The opsonic lectins were purified by carbohydrate affinity chromatography which eluted a complex pattern of proteins ranging in molecular mass from 80 to >200kDa. Reducing and two dimensional SDS-PAGE indicated that the diversity of mature lectins evident under non-reducing conditions resulted from the differential oligomerization of two polypeptide sub-units (35 and 22kDa). In addition to lectin-mediated opsonic activity, hemolymph was also found to contain proteolytically activated opsonins. These data suggest that multiple, possibly interactive opsonic systems co-exist in P. stolonifera.
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