Neurophysiological effects of naturally occurring defensive compounds on the freshwater snail Planorbis corneus: comparison with effects in insects.

The essential oil constituents citral, geraniol, and eugenol have toxic or repellent properties that are utilized by a variety of organisms to deter natural enemies. Their mechanism of action is unknown, but some essential oils such as eugenol are claimed to act on insects by specific binding to octopamine receptors. We studied their effects on the isolated buccal ganglia of Planorbis corneus, having demonstrated that they caused cessation of feeding and death when added to the aquarium water (approximately 5 x 10(-4) mol l(-1)).

Comparison of effects of octopamine and insecticidal essential oils on activity in the nerve cord, foregut, and dorsal unpaired median neurons of cockroaches.

Essential oil constituents were tested for their neurophysiological effects in Periplaneta americana and Blaberus discoidalis. Eugenol depressed spontaneous and stimulus-evoked impulses recorded extracellularly in the abdominal nerve cord, with an almost complete block of spikes at 2 x 10(-3) M. Geraniol and citral had similar depressive effects but increased spontaneous firing at lower doses (threshold 2.

Safety characterization of HeLa-based cell substrates used in the manufacture of a recombinant adeno-associated virus-HIV vaccine.

The use of transformed cell substrates for prophylactic vaccine manufacturing is widely debated. Extensive characterization is required to address the suitability of neoplastic cell substrates for vaccine manufacture. The HeLa-based cell substrate used in the manufacture of a prophylactic rAAV-HIV vaccine, AAV2-gagPR delta RT (tgAAC09) was tested in vivo for its tumor-forming potential, the oncogenic potential of its high molecular weight DNA and the potential presence of occult oncogenic adventitious agents.