Patent Application: US-56296995-A

Abstract:
there is disclosed an assay method of screening and identification of anti - amebic drugs which utilizes the ability to inhibit anaerobic growth of a novel bacterial mutant that expresses the ehadh2 gene and which bypasses the conventional need for a parasitic culture . the novel mutant , designated e . coli / ehadh2 , is cultured under anaerobic conditions , a predetermined or known quantity of the agent to be tested or target compound is combined with the cell culture , and the combination is then monitored to determine the inhibitory effect upon the anaerobic growth of the e . coli / ehadh2 cell mutant .

Description:
while the specification concludes with claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter regarded as forming the present invention , it is believed that the invention will be better understood from the following detailed description of preferred embodiments of the invention taken in conjunction with the appended drawings in which : fig1 a and 1b show expression of ehadh2 by e . coli . fig1 a shows coomassie blue staining of sds - page separated lysates from : a band at 96 kda ( arrow ) is seen in lysates from strains expressing ehadh2 ( lanes 3 , 5 , 7 ) and not from control strains . fig1 b shows immunoblotting of lysates with anti - ehadh2 serum . lane assignments are identical to fig1 a ; lane 8 is lysates from e . histolytica hm1 : imss . a species at 96 kda is detected in e . coli lysates expressing ehadh2 ( lanes 3 , 5 , 7 ) and in e . histolytica ( lane 8 ). molecular weight standards ( in kda ) are indicated at the right of each of fig1 a and 1b . fig2 shows purification of recombinant ehadh2 . coomassie blue staining is shown for sds - page separated samples of : lane 2 , 35 % ammonium sulfate precipitate fraction of lysates from lane 1 ; lane 3 , fraction containing ehadh2 obtained from the gel filtration of ammonium sulfate precipitated lysates ( lane 2 ) on a column of sepharose cl - 6b gel filtration media . fig3 shows complementation of e . coli δadhe strain shh31 by expression of ehadh2 . under anaerobic conditions ( culture b ), shh31 expressing ehadh2 ( shh31 / pmon / ehadh2 ) can grow ( colonies indicated by &# 34 ; x &# 34 ;), but shh31 transformed with the pmon2670 vector alone ( colonies marked by &# 34 ; y &# 34 ;), or untransformed shh31 ( colonies marked &# 34 ; z &# 34 ;), show no growth . fig4 is a graphical representation which shows inhibition on the anaerobic growth of δadhe mutant e . coli complemented with ehadh2 by pyrazole . shh31 / pmon / ehadh2 was inoculated on the m9 minimal liquid media containing pyrazole at the indicated concentrations ( mm ), and incubated aerobically ( dotted lines ) or anaerobically ( solid lines ) for two days . optical densities ( o . d .) at 600 nm were read at 1 and 2 days post - inoculation to assess the growth of the bacteria . fig5 is a graphical representation which shows pyrazole inhibits e . histolytica growth . culture tubes containing e . histolytica hm1 : imss trophozoites with an inoculation dose of 4 × 10 3 / tube were incubated for four days with pyrazole in concentrations ranging from 5 to 40 mm . the number of viable amebic trophozoites ( e . histolytica trophozoites / ml ) at 2 and 4 days post - inoculation is indicated . the ehadh2 molecule is a bifunctional and + / fe 2 + - dependent enzyme with both adh and aldh activities ( 10 , 11 ). it appears to be a critical enzyme in the amebic glucose to ethanol pathway , catalyzing two reactions ( acetyl - coa to acetaldehyde and acetaldehyde to ethanol ) in fermentation ( 8 , 9 ). the ehadh2 molecule is homologous to certain enzymes present in facultatively or obligate anaerobic bacteria ( 12 - 14 ). the prototype of these enzymes is the e . coli adhe molecule , an and + - dependent enzyme which also uses fe 2 + as a cofactor , and possesses adh , aldh , and pyruvate - formate - lyase deactivase activities ( 12 - 21 ). the adhe enzyme is required for anaerobic growth of e . coli , and expression of this gene is induced by anaerobic conditions ( 24 ). in addition to its critical role in the amebic fermentation pathway , the ehadh2 molecule may serve other functions in e . histolytica as well . the ehadh2 protein was originally isolated because of its ability to bind extracellular matrix proteins such as laminin and fibronectin ( 10 ), and it has been recently shown that the ehadh2 molecule , or an isoform , is shed or secreted by amebic trophozoites ( 25 ). the assay method of the invention is based on the successful expression of a functional ehadh2 molecule in e . coli . the initial approach was to express ehadh2 as either a gst - or 6his - fusion protein . however , in both cases while a fusion protein was successfully expressed , it had no enzymatic activity . this contrasts with the findings for the nadp + - dependent adh of e . histolytica ( ehadh1 ), which retained adh activity as a gst - fusion protein ( 26 ). this difference may reflect a requirement for multimer formation for ehadh2 activity which could not be achieved by fusion proteins . both the native ehadh2 enzyme and the homologous e . coli adhe enzyme form multimers that array into helical structures of up to 100 nm ( when viewed by electron microscopy ) called spirosomes ( 11 , 21 ). the functional recombinant ehadh2 enzyme that was produced in e . coli had a molecular mass of greater than 200 kda by gel filtration , consistent with multimer formation . the purified recombinant enzyme was used to look at the substrate specificity of ehadh2 . the k m values for ethanol , and + , nadh , and acetyl - co - a were comparable to those obtained for the native enzyme ( 11 ), while values for acetaldehyde were somewhat higher than those seen with the native enzyme . it was demonstrated that in addition to ethanol , the primary alcohols butanol and propanol are substrates for ehadh2 , but methanol , retinol , isopropanol and sec - butanol are not . the substrate specificity of the adh portion of ehadh2 clearly differs from the nadp + - dependent ehadh1 which preferentially utilizes branch - chained alcohols ( 26 ). no structural homologue to the full length ehadh2 has yet been found among eukaryotic adh or aldh enzymes , although there are eukaryotic aldh enzymes with some homology to the n - terminal ( aldh ) domains of ehadh2 and related prokaryotic molecules ( 13 ). the unique structure of the ehadh2 molecule among eukaryotic adh molecules and its critical role in the amebic fermentation pathway make it an ideal target for anti - amebic chemotherapy . however , the cost of growing e . histolytica in culture , and the cumbersome methods for measuring growth inhibition ( counting viable trophozoites ), make large - scale screening of compounds for anti - amebic activity difficult . to solve this problem , a screening system was developed for compounds with anti - ehadh2 activity which utilizes inhibition of anaerobic bacterial growth ( easily quantitated by measuring the o . d . of liquid bacterial cultures ) to identify effective compounds . an e . coli strain was produced that requires ehadh2 activity to grow under anaerobic conditions by using the ehadh2 gene to complement a mutant strain of e . coli containing an engineered deletion in the adhe gene . compounds capable of inhibiting anaerobic , but not aerobic growth of this strain , are potential specific inhibitors of ehadh2 activity . the feasibility of this approach was tested using the compound pyrazole , which is known to inhibit and + - dependent adh enzymes . pyrazole inhibited anaerobic but not aerobic growth of the e . coli shh31 / pmon / ehadh2 strain , and consistent with this finding , pyrazole was shown to inhibit both e . histolytica trophozoite growth and the purified recombinant ehadh2 enzyme at similar concentrations , indicating the effects of pyrazole on e . coli anaerobic growth and e . histolytica growth were based on inhibition of ehadh2 . in this regard , while the nadp + - dependent ehadh1 molecule is also inhibited by pyrazole ( 26 ), the k i for pyrazole and ehadh1 is 1 . 4 μm , a concentration range where pyrazole had no effect on e . histolytica growth . thus , while pyrazole does not represent an ideal candidate for a specific ehadh2 inhibitor , its use in this screening assay demonstrates that this approach can identify compounds with anti - ehadh2 activity . the growth requirements and complex life cycles of a number of parasites can make the identification of new anti - parasitic drugs and susceptibility testing of existing compounds difficult and costly endeavors . in addition , genetic systems which allow targeted mutations are poorly developed or non - existent for a number of protozoan and helminthic parasites . the assay method of the invention for rapidly identifying specific inhibitors of the parasitic enzyme takes advantage of the presence of homologous genes in e . coli and the parasite e . histolytica which encode an enzyme required for a selectable function ( the ability to grow anaerobically ): the ability to generate bacteria with mutations of that gene , and the use of bacteria to bypass the need for parasite culture in the initial screening process for anti - parasitic agents can greatly simplify and reduce the cost of identifying new therapeutic agents effective against parasitic diseases . in order to illustrate the invention in further detail , the following specific laboratory examples were carried out with the results indicated . although specific examples are thus illustrated , it will be understood that the invention is not limited to these specific examples or the details therein . e . coli and e . histolytica strains and culture conditions . conventional e . coli strains , dh5α , bl21 ( de3 ), and shh31 ( δadh zch :: tn10 fadr met tyrt ) ( 15 ) were used for transformation and the expression of recombinant ehadh2 . aerobic cultures were grown in lb medium with agitation at 37 ° c . for anaerobic growth , bacteria were incubated in anaerobic jars , bbl ® gaspak ® system under an h 2 - co 2 atmosphere generated by bbl gas pak anaerobic system envelopes ( becton dickinson , cockeysville , md .). anaerobic indicator strips were used to ensure anaerobic conditions . m9 minimal medium used for anaerobic growth was supplemented with glucose at 0 . 25 %, thiamine ( 1 mm ), cacl 2 ( 0 . 1 mm ), mgso 4 ( 1 . 2 mm ), and the following trace minerals : fe ( 50 μm ), se ( 5 μm ), mo ( 5 μm ), mn ( 5 μm ) ( 16 ). anaerobic liquid cultures were grown without agitation in tubes inside the anaerobic jars at 37 ° c . solid media contained 1 . 5 % bacto agar ( difco , detroit , mich .). trophozoites of e . histolytica hm1 : imss were cultured axenically in byi - s - 33 medium by conventional procedure as previously described ( 17 ). two expression vectors were employed for prokaryotic expression of ehadh2 , the t7 promoter - based vector pet3a ( novagen , madison , wis .) ( 18 ), and the reca promoter - based vector pmon2670 ( 19 ). as used herein , pet refers to pet3a , and pmon refers to pmon2670 . the sequences flanking the ehadh2 coding region were modified by the incorporation of a bamhi site next to the termination codon taa at the 3 &# 39 ; end of ehadh2 , and a ncoi site at the initiating atg codon using pcr with the ehadh2 cdna as the template ( 10 ). the ehadh2 sequence was then ligated in frame into ncoi and bamhi digested pet3a as two fragments , ncoi / psti and psti / bamhi to construct the expression vector pet / ehadh2 . to construct pmon / ehadh2 , the coding sequences were ligated in frame into ncoi / saci digested pmon2670 as two fragments , ncoi / psti and psti / saci . ehadh2 was first expressed in e . coli shh31 using the pmon / ehadh2 vector . subsequently , the shh31 strain was lysogenized by λde3 using a lysogenization kit ( novagen ) according to the manufacturers product protocol . ehadh2 was then expressed in shh31 ( de3 ) using the pet / ehadh2 vector . sds - page analysis of bacterial lysates for expression of recombinant ehadh2 was performed by conventional methods as previously described ( 20 ). western blotting was performed using a 1 : 500 dilution of rabbit antiserum raised to a recombinant 6his - ehadh2 fusion protein using previously described conventional methods ( 20 ). complementation of the δadhe mutation by ehadh2 was tested by measuring the anaerobic growth of e . coli shh31 transformed with pmon / ehadh2 on minimal glucose media compared with that of e . coli shh31 transformed with pmon2670 . assay of alcohol dehydrogenase ( adh ) and acetaldehyde dehydrogenase ( aldh ) activity of bacterial lysates and purified recombinant ehadh2 . adh activity of the supernatant fraction from bacterial lysates , or of the purified recombinant enzyme was assayed spectrophotometrically by measuring the decrease in absorbance at 340 nm following the oxidation of nadh to and ( 21 ). the cuvette contained 6 mm dtt , 5 mm mgso 4 , 0 . 1 mm fe ( nh 4 ) 2 ( so 4 ) 2 , 0 . 4 mm nadh , 10 mm acetaldehyde , and 0 . 1 m mops - koh buffer ( ph 7 . 5 ) to give a final volume of 1 . 0 ml . mops = 3 - n - morpholino ! propanesulfonic acid ; dtt = dithiothreitol . aldh activity was assayed using the same method , with the substitution of 0 . 1 mm acetyl - coa for acetaldehyde in the reaction buffer . a unit of enzyme activity is defined as the micromoles of product formed per min of incubation at room temperature . to study the substrate specificity and kinetics of the purified recombinant ehadh2 molecule , the spectrophotometric assay of adh activity was again utilized , with 5 μg of the purified enzyme in the presence of 50 mm glycine / naoh buffer ( ph 9 . 5 ) containing 6 mm dtt , 5 mm mgso 4 , 0 . 1 mm fe ( nh 4 ) 2 ( so 4 ) 2 , 1 mm and + , and varying concentrations of the substrate alcohol to be tested ( 11 ). the k m and k cat values expressed were determined using non - linear regression to fit the values for initial velocity and substrate concentration to the michaelis - menten equation . a one - liter culture of e . coli shh31 ( de3 ) carrying pet / ehadh2 was grown overnight under aerobic conditions . the bacteria were collected by low speed centrifugation , resuspended in 20 mm mops - koh buffer ( ph 7 . 5 ), disrupted by sonication , and sedimented by centrifugation at 150 , 000 g for 1 h at 4 ° c . the supernatant was brought to 35 % saturation with solid ammonium sulfate and stirred for 1 hr at 4 ° c . the suspension was centrifuged at 15 , 000 g for 20 min at 4 ° c . the supernatant was dialyzed extensively against 20 mm mops - koh ( ph 7 . 5 ), and chromatographed over a 1 . 6 cm × 90 cm sepharose ® cl - 6b ( sigma , st . louis , mo .) gel filtration column equilibrated with 20 mm mops - koh buffer . using a flow rate of 0 . 4 ml / min , fractions were collected and screened for and + dependent adh activity . e . coli shh31 transformed with pmon / ehadh2 were inoculated into m9 minimal liquid medium and grown under anaerobic or aerobic conditions in the presence or absence of pyrazole ( sigma chemical co ., st . louis , mo .) at concentrations of 5 to 20 mm . growth was monitored by determining the optical density ( o . d .) at 600 nm at 24 and 48 hrs post - inoculation . to study inhibition of e . histolytica growth , standard culture tubes containing an initial inoculation of 4 × 10 3 / tube e . histolytica hm1 : imss trophozoites were incubated for four days in the presence or absence of pyrazole at concentrations of 5 to 40 mm . viable trophozoites were counted using a hemacytometer at days 2 and 4 , and the number of trophozoites / ml recorded . nucleotides 3 through 2 , 620 , representing the entire coding region of the ehadh2 cdna clone , were first expressed as glutathione - s - transferase ( gst ) and 6his - ehadh2 fusion proteins , using the pgex - kg ( 22 ), and pqe ( qiagen , chatsworth , calif .) vectors , respectively . however , neither recombinant fusion protein possessed detectable adh or aldh activity . the 6his - ehadh2 recombinant protein was purified and used to generate a specific anti - ehadh2 antiserum . the ehadh2 protein was expressed without a fusion partner using the pet / ehadh2 construct as described in &# 34 ; materials and methods &# 34 ;. as shown in fig1 a , e . coli bl21 ( de3 ) containing the pet / ehadh2 plasmid produced a protein at 96 kda ( the predicted size of the ehadh2 protein ) ( lane 3 ), while e . coli bl21 ( de3 ) transformed with the pet3a vector alone did not show a species at 96 kda ( lane 1 ). to confirm that the species at 96 kda was ehadh2 , western blotting of the sds - page separated bacterial lysates with antiserum to the 6his - ehadh2 recombinant protein was performed . anti - ehadh2 antiserum bound to the species at 96 kda in lysates from bl21 ( de3 ) expressing pet / ehadh2 ( fig1 b , lane 3 ), but not in control lysates of bl21 ( de3 ) transformed with the pet vector alone ( fig1 b , lane 1 ). the adh and aldh activity of the recombinant ehadh2 protein was first assessed by measuring the enzymatic activity of lysates obtained from aerobically grown e . coli expressing the pet / ehadh2 plasmid , and e . coli bl21 ( de3 ) containing the pet vector alone . as shown in table 1 below , lysates from pet / ehadh2 - transformed bacteria expressing the 96 kda ehadh2 enzyme , had high levels of adh and aldh activity when compared to lysates from control e . coli bl21 ( de3 ) containing the pet vector alone . in order to determine whether the ehadh2 gene product would complement the e . coli adhe gene , ehadh2 was expressed in e . coli shh31 ( δadhe ) ( 15 ). this strain produces no adhe enzyme , and is unable to grow in m9 / glucose minimal media under anaerobic conditions ( 15 ). as shown in fig3 e . coli shh31 transformed with pmon / ehadh2 was able to grow on m9 minimal medium agar under both aerobic and anaerobic conditions , while e . coli shh31 transformed with pmon alone could only grow under aerobic conditions . thus , the product of the amebic ehadh2 gene can complement the e . coli ( δadhe ) mutation . it was confirmed that shh31 was producing the ehadh2 protein by examining bacterial lysates from both shh31 transformed with pmon / ehadh2 and lysogenized shh31 ( de3 ) expressing the pet / ehadh2 vector . as shown in fig1 a , expression of ehadh2 was detected in shh31 / pmon / ehadh2 ( lane 7 ), and shh31 ( de3 )/ pet / ehadh2 vector ( lane 5 ). the identity of the 96 kda species as ehadh2 was confirmed by western blotting using anti - ehadh2 antiserum ( fig1 b , lanes 5 and 7 ). lysates obtained from both shh31 ( de3 ) transformed with pet / ehadh2 and shh31 transformed with pmon / ehadh2 contained detectable adh and aldh activity ( table 1 ) while lysates from the parent strains showed no detectable adh or aldh activity . by expressing ehadh2 in e . coli shh31 , a source of recombinant ehadh2 was obtained without any possible contamination by the bacterial adhe enzyme . because greater adh and aldh activity was detected in lysates from shh31 ( de3 )/ pet / ehadh2 ( table 1 ), this system was utilized for purification of recombinant ehadh2 . purification of recombinant ehadh2 from lysates of pet / ehadh2 transformed e . coli shh31 ( de3 ) was accomplished using ammonium sulfate precipitation and gel filtration on sepharose ® cl - 6b ( fig2 ). purity was assessed using coomassie staining of sds - page separated fractions ( fig2 ) and measuring adh activity . the purified recombinant ehadh2 retained both adh and aldh activity ( table 2 ). based on gel filtration , the molecular mass for the recombinant ehadh2 enzyme was greater than 200 kda ; a similar pattern was seen with the purification of the native e . histolytica enzyme ( 11 ), and suggests the recombinant enzyme forms multimers similar to those seen with the e . coli adhe protein and native ehadh2 ( 11 ). the purified recombinant enzyme was used to study the substrate specificity of ehadh2 . it was found that only the primary alcohols ethanol , 1 - propanol , and butanol , were substrates for the enzyme ( table 2 ). no reactivity with isopropanol or sec - butanol was detected , and neither retinol nor methanol were substrates for the enzyme . these results are similar to those seen with the e . coli adhe enzyme which uses ethanol , 1 - propanol , and 1 - butanol as a substrate , but does not used methanol or secondary or branched chain alcohols . the k m value obtained for the recombinant ehadh2 enzyme for ethanol ( 85 mm ) is essentially identical to that reported for the native ehadh2 enzyme ( 80 mm ) ( 11 ), as were the k m values for and + and nadh , while the k m value for acetaldehyde was somewhat higher than that reported for native enzyme ( 0 . 15 mm ) ( 11 ). the k m for the e . coli adhe enzyme for ethanol is 30 mm . measurements of aldh activity confirmed the identity in substrate specificity between the recombinant and native ehadh2 enzymes , as k m values for acetyl - co - a and nadh were essentially identical between the recombinant and native enzymes ( 11 ). screening for compounds with anti - ehadh2 activity using e . coli shh31 transformed with pmon / ehadh2 the successful complementation of the δadhe e . coli strain shh31 by ehadh2 , and the demonstration that the recombinant ehadh2 enzymes substrate specificity appears identical to the native ehadh2 enzyme , provided a useful system for the rapid screening of compounds to identify those capable of inhibiting ehadh2 . in this protocol compounds can first be administered to e . coli shh31 expressing ehadh2 , and the effect of the compound on both aerobic and anaerobic growth of the bacteria measured . compounds which specifically inhibit ehadh2 should inhibit anaerobic growth of shh31 / pmon / ehadh2 , but should not significantly alter aerobic growth of this strain . compounds with inhibitory activity on anaerobic bacterial growth can then be screened for their effects on amebic growth , and for their ability to inhibit the recombinant ehadh2 enzyme . to determine whether such a screening system was feasible , an illustrative study was performed by using the compound pyrazole , which is known to be a potent inhibitor of and + - dependent alcohol dehydrogenases ( 23 ). as shown in fig4 pyrazole in a dose - dependent manner significantly inhibited the anaerobic growth of shh31 / pmon / ehadh2 , but had a much reduced effect on shh31 / pmon growing under aerobic conditions . it was then examined whether pyrazole could inhibit the growth of e . histolytica trophozoites . as shown in fig5 pyrazole , at a concentration of 20 to 40 mm significantly inhibited amebic growth . finally , the k i of pyrazole for the recombinant ehadh2 molecule was measured and found to be 7 . 24 mm . table 1______________________________________comparison of the nad . sup .+ dependent adh and aldhactivities in the crude lysates of e . coli expressing ehadh2 andcontrol strains . e . coli strains adh aldh______________________________________bl21 ( de3 ) with pet / ehadh2 524 90shh31 ( de3 ) with pet / ehadh2 417 72shh31 with pmon / ehadh2 82 14bl21 ( de3 ) ( control ) nd ndshh31 ( control ) nd nd______________________________________ values are represented as milliunit ( mu )/ mg . a unit ( u ) of enzyme activity is defined as a micromole of product formed per minute of incubation . table 2______________________________________enzyme activities and k . sub . m values of the purified recombinant ehadh2 . k . sub . cat ( mol substrate / reactions mol of enzyme / min k . sub . m ( mm ) ______________________________________acetaldehyde + nadh 854 acetaldehyde 2 . 9 nadh 0 . 28acetyl - coa + nadh 154 acetyl - coa 0 . 04 nadh 0 . 17ethanol + nad . sup .+ 461 ethanol 85 nad . sup .+ 0 . 551 - propanol + nad . sup .+ 326 1 - propanol 40 nad . sup .+ 0 . 25______________________________________ various other examples will be apparent to the person skilled in the art after reading the present disclosure without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention . it is intended that all such other examples be included within the scope of the claims appended hereto . 1 . stanley , s . l ., jr . 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