Urine Antigen Detection as an Aid to Diagnose Invasive Aspergillosis.

Background: Establishing rapid diagnoses of invasive aspergillosis (IA) is a priority tests that detect galactomannan and β-d-glucan are available, but are technically cumbersome and rely on invasive sampling (blood or bronchoalveolar lavage).

Methods: We optimized a lateral flow dipstick assay using the galactofuranose-specific monoclonal antibody (mAb476), which recognizes urine antigens after Aspergillus fumigatus pulmonary infection in animals. Urine samples were obtained from a cohort of 78 subjects undergoing evaluation for suspected invasive fungal infections, and stored frozen until testing.

Phosphorylation of Saccharomyces cerevisiae choline kinase on Ser30 and Ser85 by protein kinase A regulates phosphatidylcholine synthesis by the CDP-choline pathway.

The Saccharomyces cerevisiae CKI-encoded choline kinase is phosphorylated on a serine residue and stimulated by protein kinase A. We examined the hypothesis that amino acids Ser(30) and Ser(85) contained in a protein kinase A sequence motif in choline kinase are target sites for protein kinase A. The synthetic peptides SQRRHSLTRQ (V(max)/K(m) = 10.