Modern medicine has established three central antimicrobial therapeutic concepts: vaccination, antibiotics, and, recently, the use of active immunotherapy to enhance the immune response toward specific pathogens. The efficacy of vaccination and antibiotics is limited by the emergence of new pathogen strains and the increased incidence of antibiotic resistance. To date, immunotherapy development has focused mainly on cytokines. Here we report the successful therapeutic application of a complement component, a recombinant form of properdin (P n ), with significantly higher activity than native properdin, which promotes complement activation via the alternative pathway, affording protection against N. menigitidis and S. pneumoniae. In a mouse model of infection, we challenged C57BL/6 WT mice with N. menigitidis B-MC58 6 h after i.p. administration of P n (100 μg/mouse) or buffer alone. Twelve hours later, all control mice showed clear symptoms of infectious disease while the P n treated group looked healthy. After 16 hours, all control mice developed sepsis and had to be culled, while only 10% of P n treated mice presented with sepsis and recoverable levels of live Meningococci. In a parallel experiment, mice were challenged intranasally with a lethal dose of S. pneumoniae D39. Mice that received a single i.p. dose of P n at the time of infection showed no signs of bacteremia at 12 h postinfection and had prolonged survival times compared with the salinetreated control group (P < 0.0001). Our findings show a significant therapeutic benefit of P n administration and suggest that its antimicrobial activity could open new avenues for fighting infections caused by multidrug-resistant neisserial or streptococcal strains.

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Thermoactinomyces sacchariwas isolated from hot water springs.Then by utilizing the solid state fermentation techniques,amylasewas obtained, which was partially purified. The partially pu rified enzyme was then used to remove thestarchsize from cloth. Effective enzymaticdesizingrequires the strict control of pH, temperature, water hardness, electrolyte addition and choice of surfactant. It was observed that maximum removal 7.5 g was achieved by soaking the cloth in 100 ml of 0.1M HCl for 2 hours. A maximum of 98.4desizingwas obtained after 90 minutes at 55oC. A maximumdesizingof 98.9 was obtained after 60 minutes of incubation at 55oC.A maximumdesizingof100% was obtained at pH 6.0 at 55oC for 60 minutes. At lower and higher values desizing decreased. When cotton pieces were soaked for 60 minutes at pH 6.0, maximumdesizing(100%) was obtained at 60oC.

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