In today's technologically advanced business environments, Information Technology (IT) has

We report a method for the simultaneous quantification of the essential metabolic cofactor coenzyme A (CoA) and its thiol-bearing precursors-including 4 0 -phosphopantetheine, which was recently shown to play a potentially important role as nexus metabolite in CoA biology-with pmol sensitivity. This sensitivity is gained by making use of an established thiol-derivatisation agent that produces a fluorophore upon labeling, which is subsequently separated by HPLC and quantified by fluorescence detection. While previous reports have made use of a similar strategy to quantify CoA, very few have extended the method to the CoA biosynthetic intermediates (some of which occur at levels much lower than CoA) or have critically evaluated its analytical performance. In this study we addressed these shortcomings, and also overcame the difficulty associated with the independent confirmation of the concentrations of the analytical standards used for quantification. The method's utility is showcased through time-course analyses of in vitro reconstituted enzyme reactions and by analysis of extracts from Escherichia coli and Staphylococcus aureus, demonstrating its potential in advancing studies of CoA biosynthesis and CoA-dependent biology in a wide range of systems.

In today’s technologically advanced business environments, Information Technology (IT) has become the center of most businesses’ strategic activities. It is for this reason that the King III report has dedicated a chapter to addressing IT governance principles, holding the board of directors (senior management) responsible for addressing such principles. The King III report does provide broad level guidance, however lack sufficient detail on its interpretation. Although various guidelines in the form of IT control frameworks -models and -standards exist, it remains theoretical in nature and companies tend to implement these guidelines in an ad hoc manner. This ad hoc implementation of controls leads to unnecessary controls being implemented, resulting in an ineffective IT governance system that does not address each key strategic risk area. The objective of this research is to develop an integrated best practices framework, which will provide guidance to senior management in how to effectively and efficiently address King III’s IT governance principles by taking a business’ unique strategic objectives into account. A detailed literature review was performed of different control frameworks,-models and standards. These were analysed to identify a list of similar and overlapping control areas. These control areas were thereafter mapped to a list of strategic objectives applicable to most businesses. In doing so, effective and efficient IT governance principles which are understood by senior management, are able to be implemented.

No abstract