BDV naturally infects horses and sheep, and causes sporadic neurological disease. Serological evidence suggests an association of BDV, or a related virus, with specific psychiatric diseases in humans. Here, by using a nested RT-PCR technique, we demonstrate that human BDV RNA is present in the PBMC of psychiatric patients. In an examination of a total of 60 patients from 5 wards of a hospital in Japan, the detection rate differed within each ward, ranging from 8% to > 50% (37% on the average). Of particular note was the finding that the human derived BDV sequences, which included deleted forms in about 23% of the positive samples, were slightly different from those derived from horse BDV. These results suggest urgent consideration of the measures to be taken to cope with the effects of blood transfusion. In addition, the detection of a high level of BDV in the PBMC of patients will help our understanding of the pathogenesis in the disease.

Composite electrodes containing active materials, carbon and binder are widely used in lithium-ion batteries. Since the electrode reaction occurs preferentially in regions with lower resistance, reaction distribution can be happened within composite electrodes. We investigate the relationship between the reaction distribution with depth direction and electronic/ionic conductivity in composite electrodes with changing electrode porosities. Two dimensional X-ray absorption spectroscopy shows that the reaction distribution is happened in lower porosity electrodes. Our developed 6-probe method can measure electronic/ionic conductivity in composite electrodes. The ionic conductivity is decreased for lower porosity electrodes, which governs the reaction distribution of composite electrodes and their performances.

No abstract

No abstract

SUMMARYHybridomas were formed between mouse myeloma ceils and spleen cells from mice immunized with Marek's disease virus (MDV) or with herpesvirus of turkeys (HVT). Three monoclonal antibodies were obtained, two (M26 and M34) from MDV clones and one (H9) from an HVT clone, all of which were specific for cross-reactive membrane antigen (MA) expressed on the surface of cells infected with MDV or HVT. All three antibodies also reacted with MDV-and HVT-specific glycoproteins in the molecular weight (mol. wt.) ranges 54K to 70K (MDV-gp54/70) and 50K to 64K (HVTgp50/64), respectively. These glycoproteins constitute the putative 'A' antigens which are found in the medium of cultures infected with MDV or HVT. These results suggest that the cross-reactive MA may correspond to 'A' antigen. Pulse-chase experiments using monoclonal antibodies revealed the presence in virus-infected cells of precursor and processed forms of MDV-gp54/70 and HVT-gp50/64 which differ in size. Moreover, by two-dimensional gel electrophoresis we found that MDV and HVT glycoproteins were separated to heterogeneous spots by electric charge as well as mol. wt. The several spots with higher mol. wt. and with more acidic isoelectric points among them were lost by treatment with neuraminidase, suggesting that the processing was, at least in part, due to the addition of sialic acid to the precursor forms. Tunicamycin blocked the surface expression of cross-reactive HVT-MA on HVTinfected cells. Phosphonoacetic acid inhibited both the appearance of HVT-MA on the cell surface and synthesis of HVT-gp50/64, indicating that the MA and secreted glycoprotein were late gene products of the HVT genome.