Canada's health promotion survey as a milestone in public health research.

This commentary describes the contribution of the 1985 Canadian National Health Promotion Survey to the development of public health research and policy-making in Canada and argues that on the basis of that contribution, it should be considered to be a public health research milestone. In terms of research, among its contributions which subsequently have been adopted in other survey studies were: going beyond risk factors to operationalize concepts implicit in the Ottawa Charter for Health Promotion; empowering users to participate in knowledge translation, sharing and transfer; ensuring sufficient sample sizes for each jurisdiction to be able to confidently generalize to its population; establishing a model as well as questions for subsequent health surveys; encouraging widespread use of data through making them available early; and developing and using an explicit social marketing strategy to reach target audiences, including the general public. With regard to policy-making, among its contributions which have been adopted were: using survey data to develop and enhance healthy public policy initiatives; encouraging researchers to work with policy-makers in developing policies; using survey data to contribute to the evaluation of public health initiatives; engaging policy-makers in the development of surveys; and encouraging the use of survey data for advocacy.

Antibiotic activity and characterization of BB-3497, a novel peptide deformylase inhibitor.

Peptide deformylase (PDF) is an essential bacterial metalloenzyme which deformylates the N-formylmethionine of newly synthesized polypeptides and as such represents a novel target for antibacterial chemotherapy. To identify novel PDF inhibitors, we screened a metalloenzyme inhibitor library and identified an N-formyl-hydroxylamine derivative, BB-3497, and a related natural hydroxamic acid antibiotic, actinonin, as potent and selective inhibitors of PDF. To elucidate the interactions that contribute to the binding affinity of these inhibitors, we determined the crystal structures of BB-3497 and actinonin bound to Escherichia coli PDF at resolutions of 2.

The National Population Health Survey--its longitudinal nature.

Objectives: This article discusses some of the benefits and challenges of data from a longitudinal panel as exemplified by the National Population Health Survey (NPHS).

Data Source: The NPHS collects both cross-sectional and longitudinal data from a sample of randomly selected individuals. The longitudinal sample will be reinterviewed every 2 years for up to 20 years.

Quantitation of matrix metalloproteinases in cultured rat astrocytes using the polymerase chain reaction with a multi-competitor cDNA standard.

Matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs) are a family of Zn2+ endopeptidases that are expressed in many inflammatory conditions and that contribute to connective tissue breakdown and the release of the pro-inflammatory cytokine tumour necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-alpha). There is emerging evidence that MMPs have a role in inflammatory disorders of the central nervous system (CNS) such as multiple sclerosis. However, little is known about the expression of MMPs by inflamed tissue within the CNS or by the glia, neurones, and leucocytes which participate in the inflammatory response.

Identification of MMP-18, a putative novel human matrix metalloproteinase.

A partial cDNA encoding the 3' end of a putative novel human matrix metalloproteinase (MMP) was identified by sequence similarity searching of databases containing expressed sequence tags. The remaining 5' end of the MMP cDNA was amplified by PCR from human mammary gland cDNA. The predicted protein product displays all the structural features characteristic of the MMP family and has closest identity with MMP-1, -3, -10, and 11.