Development and basic performance verification of a rapid homogeneous bioassay for agonistic antibodies against the thyroid-stimulating hormone receptor.

Graves' disease is a type of autoimmune hyperthyroidism caused by thyroid-stimulating antibodies (TSAb). The combination of a porcine thyroid cell bioassay and cyclic adenosine monophosphate (cAMP) immunoassay (TSAb-enzyme immunoassay; EIA) is a clinically approved TSAb measurement method. Due to the requirement of multiple procedures and a long assay time of 6 h in the TSAb-EIA, a simplified and rapid assay is desired.

Regulatory Role of GgaR (YegW) for Glycogen Accumulation in K-12.

Glycogen, the stored form of glucose, accumulates upon growth arrest in the presence of an excess carbon source in and other bacteria. Chromatin immunoprecipitation screening for the binding site of a functionally unknown GntR family transcription factor, YegW, revealed that the operon was a single target of the genome. Although none of the genes in the operon have a clear function, a previous study suggested their involvement in the production of ADP-glucose (ADPG), a glycogen precursor.