Developmental and reproductive toxicity studies on artemisone.

Background: In order to justify clinical studies in women of child-bearing age with artemisone, a new artimisinin derivative, studies to assess fertility and early embryonic development in rats, developmental toxicity in rats and rabbits, and peri-post natal development in rats were performed.

Methods And Results: In the study on fertility and early embryonic development (dose levels 0-5-20-80 mg/kg bw/day), doses inducing clinical and organ toxicity were used. Only in severe toxicity conditions, a reduction of the number of estruses, a prolonged time to insemination, decreased numbers of corpora lutea, implantation sites, and viable fetuses were found.

Organization and activation of the late promoters of phiCTX, a cytotoxin-converting phage from Pseudomonas aeruginosa.

The late genes of the temperate phage of Pseudomonas aeruginosa are organized in an analogous fashion to the corresponding transcription units of the Escherichia coli P2 and P2-like phages. Sequence analysis of four putative late promoter regions, PP(phiCTX), PO(phiCTX), PV(phiCTX) and PF(phiCTX), reveals no similarity to sigma(70)-type promoters or promoter consensus sequences found in Pseudomonas, indicating the apparent need for a phage-encoded protein to control the expression of phiCTX late genes. To elucidate the mode of expression of the late genes, we fused the putative late promoter regions to the promoterless lacZalpha gene, which encodes the N-terminal part of beta-galactosidase as a reporter enzyme, in the promoter-probe vector pME4510.