[A family-caregiver partnership for the provision of leisure activities for patients].

In the part-time medicopsychological/therapy centre (CMP / CATTP), the creation of the association Living with Psychological Handicap invites families and volunteers to lead recreational activities. Beyond the care provided by the health care team, the patient finds a place suited to rehabilitation.

Conformational changes induced by hapten in pig antibodies to the dinitrophenyl group. Analysis by temperature-perturbation and solvent-perturbation spectroscopy.

Pig antibodies to the dinitrophenyl group and fragments derived from them by limited proteolysis were studied by temperature-perturbation and solvent-perturbation spectroscopy with particular attention to differences between the number of perturbed chromophores in free antibodies and in antibody-hapten complexes. The position of the maxima in the difference spectra show that solvent-perturbed chromophores are exposed to water, but thermally perturbed chromophores are located in a microenvironment the polarity of which corresponds to 25-50% ethylene glycol. A significant fraction of tyrosine residues (65-90%) and tryptophan residues (20-45%) is perturbed by temperature.

Effect of salt concentration on immunoglobulin G structure.

An effect of salt concentration on the human myeloma immunoglobulin G structure was studied by means of circular dichroism, thermal perturbation difference spectroscopy and isoelectric focusing in a pH gradient created by a concentration gradient of glucose in borate buffer solution. Immunoglobulin G (K) Iva showed a significant shift of isoelectric point to the alkaline region as a result of the increase in salt concentration. The difference spectra indicated a change in the exposure of tyrosine residues as a result of increase in salt concentration.

Conformational transitions of antibodies induced by hapten binding.

The conformational changes of antibody structure induced by hapten molecule binding were investigated by means of thermal perturbation difference spectroscopy. The studies of the free rabit anti-dinitrophenyl antibodies show the conformational transition at temperatures between 25 and 35 degrees C. The changes occurring at the higher temperature are accompanied by the screening of the significant part of exposed tyrosine residues.

Thermally induced conformational transitions of Bence-Jones protein IVA and its proteolytic fragments.

The thermally induced conformational transitions of the kappa-type Bence-Jones protein IVA and its proteolytic fragments (variable and constant halves) were studied by differential adiabatic scanning microcalorimetry, circular dichroism and thermal differential spectroscopy. The striking feature of the results is the good agreement between the experimental heat of thermal denaturation of intact Bence-Jones protein and the heat calculated from the individual variable and constant halves. The results suggested that the variable and constant halves have independent secondary and tertiary structures.