Use of reporter transposons for tagging and detection of Mycobacterium sp. strain 1B in PAH-contaminated soil.

An environmental Mycobacterium able to degrade phenanthrene, pyrene and fluoranthene was transformed with an IS1096-based transposon marker system. Electroporation and subsequent delivery of the transposon enabled formation of constitutive lacZ transformants, with similar growth rates on pyrene and R2A media to the parental strain. A semi-selective medium was developed to recover and detect colonies of the transformed strain after inoculation into polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon-contaminated soil.

Projections from rabbit caudal medulla to C1 and A5 sympathetic premotor neurons, demonstrated with phaseolus leucoagglutinin and herpes simplex virus.

We combined Phaseolus vulgaris leucoagglutinin anterograde tracing and Herpes simplex virus transneuronal retrograde tracing to determine whether neurons in the vasodepressor region of the rabbit caudal ventrolateral medulla project to brainstem neurons containing the virus after its transneuronal transport from the adrenal medulla. Five days after adrenal injection of virus, 764 +/- 159 virus-positive neurons were found bilaterally in the brainstem: 61% in the C1 sympathoexcitatory region of the rostral ventrolateral medulla, 30% in the A5 region, 5% in the parapyramidal region, and 3% in the paraventricular nucleus of the hypothalamus. Many of the virus-positive neurons in the C1 and A5 areas also contained tyrosine hydroxylase and, in the parapyramidal area, many contained 5-hydroxytryptamine.