Mitigation of bioterrorist threats in the 21st century.

There is a raising level of awareness and concern that agriculture and food supplies might serve as targets for bioterrorists. To minimize such threats a number of new initiates are urgently needed: 1. Greater levels of financial commitment from federal, state, and international organizations for research on highly infectious diseases and for emergency response infrastructure; 2.

Analysis of erythropoietin and erythropoietin receptor genes expression in cattle during acute infection with Trypanosoma congolense.

Acute Trypanosoma congolense infection induced moderate, transient anemia in N'Dama cattle (trypanotolerant) and severe anemia in Boran cattle (trypanosusceptible). Erythropoietin receptor (EpoR) was cloned and sequenced from the two breeds of cattle. A single position mutation of Tyr in the Boran to His in the N'Dama predicted amino acid sequence was revealed.

Bovine stem cell factor: production of a biologically active protein and mRNA analysis in cattle infected with Trypanosoma congolense.

The cDNA coding for the soluble form of bovine stem cell factor (boSCFAla165) was cloned and recombinant protein was produced in bacteria as a histidine tagged-protein. The protein was purified from the inclusion bodies in one step by metal chelation chromatography under denaturing conditions. Recombinant bovine SCF was shown to act synergistically with interleukin 3 (IL-3) and erythropoietin (EPO) in stimulating the growth of bone marrow progenitor cells such as colony forming units-granulocyte macrophage (CFU-GM) and burst forming units-erythroid (BFU-E).

Cloning of a cDNA encoding bovine erythropoietin and analysis of its transcription in selected tissues.

A bovine cDNA encoding erythropoietin (Epo) was isolated by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) amplification and screening of a bovine kidney cDNA library. The sequenced cDNA has a length of 1312 bp and an open reading frame that encodes a predicted 192-amino-acid (aa) protein, including a putative signal sequence of 25 aa. A mature protein of 167 aa (18.