Reexamining the association between child access prevention gun laws and unintentional shooting deaths of children.

CONTEXT: A previous study estimated that child access prevention (CAP) laws, which hold adults criminally liable for unsafe firearm storage in the environment of children, were associated with a 23% decline in unintentional firearm mortality rates among children. OBJECTIVE: To reassess the effects of CAP laws and more fully examine the consistency of the estimated law effects across states. DESIGN: A pooled time-series study of unintentional firearm mortality among children from 1979 through 1997. Setting. The 50 states and the District of Columbia. PARTICIPANTS: All children <15 years. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Rates of unintentional deaths attributable to firearms. RESULTS: When the effects of all 15 state CAP laws enacted before 1998 were aggregated, the laws were associated with a 17% decline unintentional firearm death rates among children. The laws' effects were not equal across states. Florida's CAP law was associated with a 51% decline; however, there were no statistically significant aggregate or state-specific law effects in the other 14 states with CAP laws. CONCLUSIONS: Florida's CAP law-1 of only 3 such laws allowing felony prosecution of violators-appears to have significantly reduced unintentional firearm deaths to children. However, there is no evidence of effects in the other 14 states with CAP laws.

Effect of adrenergic and cholinergic agents on esophageal bicarbonate secretion in opossums.

The effects of cholinergic and adrenergic agonists and antagonists on esophageal bicarbonate secretion in the opossum were studied in vivo using a recirculated unbuffered saline solution and pH stat technique. The basal rate of secretion was 0.28 +/- 0.02 mumol.h-1.cm-2, and this increased in a dose-dependent manner by intravenous administration of carbachol (maximal increase 0.74 +/- 0.07 mumol.h-1.cm-2 at 6 micrograms/kg). Furthermore, like carbachol, the acetylcholinesterase inhibitor edrophonium also increased bicarbonate secretion, whereas atropine and pirenzepine, which had no effect on basal secretion, abolished the increase in secretion produced by carbachol. Intravenous administration of either adrenergic agonists or antagonists had no significant effect on secretion. These data indicate that basal bicarbonate secretion in the opossum esophagus is independent of intrinsic adrenergic or cholinergic activity, and so not under autonomic nervous system control, but that endogenous release of acetylcholine, presumably from parasympathetic nervous fibers, can stimulate bicarbonate secretion through activation of cholinergic M1 receptors.

Reovirus protein lambda 3 is a poly(C)-dependent poly(G) polymerase.

Reovirus protein lambda 3 has been isolated from cells infected with two recombinant vaccinia viruses into the TK gene of which the reovirus serotype3 strain Dearing L1 genome segment under the control of the bacteriophage T7 RNA polymerase promoter, or the T7 polymerase gene itself, had been cloned. Highly purified protein lambda 3 does not transcribe double-stranded reovirus RNA into single-stranded RNA, or plus-stranded reovirus RNA into minus-stranded RNA, but it does transcribe poly(C) into poly(G). It prefers Mn2+ to Mg2+. A polymer consisting of poly(C) linked linearly to poly(U) provided template activity only for its poly(C) moiety. Protein lambda 3 forms complexes with protein lambda 1, as well as with protein lambda 2, and with both lambda 1 and lambda 2, which are sufficiently stable to be precipitated by monospecific antisera. None of these complexes are capable of transcribing either ds- or ssRNA.

Incorporation of 3'-azido-3'-deoxythymidine into cellular DNA and its removal in a human leukemic cell line.

3'-Azido-3'-deoxythymidine (AZT) is currently used in the treatment of patients with the acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS); this often, however, results in hematological toxicity. Although the mechanism of toxicity is not clear, it is thought to result in part from incorporation of AZT into DNA, which causes chain termination. In order to investigate the mechanism of AZT toxicity, the relationship between the presence of AZT in DNA of K562 cells, a chronic myelogenous leukemia cell line, and growth inhibition was examined. No growth inhibition was evident at less than 50 microM AZT, although incorporation of AZT into DNA was detected at 10 and 20 microM. This suggested that the presence of AZT in DNA was not sufficient to inhibit cell growth. Removal of AZT from the medium resulted in the removal of AZT from DNA of the cells, indicative of a cellular repair mechanism. Cellular DNA polymerases alpha, beta, gamma, and delta from human leukemic cells were inhibited by AZT trisphosphate to different degrees, polymerase alpha being the least potently inhibited. Furthermore, an enzyme with exonucleolytic activity, capable of removing AZT and dideoxycytidine from the correspondingly terminated DNA (in vitro), was obtained from these cells. In summary, AZT was incorporated into DNA at levels that were not toxic, and it could be removed by an exonuclease, which might play a key role in the susceptibility of cells to AZT.

Inhibition of human immunodeficiency virus reverse transcriptase by 2',3'-dideoxynucleoside triphosphates: template dependence, and combination with phosphonoformate.

The 2',3'-dideoxynucleoside triphosphates (ddNTPs) are potent substrate analog inhibitors of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) reverse transcriptase and have clinical utility in the treatment of acquired immunodeficiency syndrome. Several issues regarding the interaction of these compounds with HIV reverse transcriptase were examined. The potency of unsubstituted ddNTPs and the 3'-azido analog of dTTP (AZTTP) was influenced by the choice of template. Both compounds were more potent with the complementary homopolymer templates than with gapped duplex DNA, although the Km for the competing dNTP was similar with different templates. The Ki for AZTTP was greater than for the unsubstituted ddNTPs with either a homopolymer or a gapped duplex DNA template. HIV reverse transcriptase incorporated ddCMP and AZTMP into primed phage m13 DNA at sites specified for insertion of dCMP and dTMP, respectively. ddCTP was more efficiently utilized as a substrate than was AZTTP. Primer elongation due to base misincorporation was observed in the absence of one dNTP. The combined effect of ddNTPs and the pyrophosphate analog phosphonoformate (PFA) on HIV reverse transcriptase was also examined, and inhibition by PFA in combination with ddTTP or AZTTP was mutually exclusive.

Human immunodeficiency virus reverse transcriptase-associated RNase H activity.

Biochemical characteristics of the RNase H activity associated with immunoaffinity purified human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) reverse transcriptase (RT) were examined. Glycerol gradient centrifugation of HIV RT resulted in a single peak of RNase H, associated with RT activity, with an apparent molecular weight of 110,000. HIV RNase H exhibited a marked substrate preference for poly(dC).[3H]poly(rG) compared to poly(dT).[3H]poly(rA). It did not hydrolyze single-stranded RNA or the DNA component of DNA.RNA hybrids. Products of the HIV RT-associated RNase H reaction consisted primarily of monomers, dimers, and trimers with 3' OH groups. This reaction was Mg2+ dependent, with greater than 90% of maximum activity at MgCl2 concentrations between 4 and 12 mM. The optimum KCl concentration for HIV RT catalyzed polymerization with a poly(rA).(dT)10 template. The optimum pH for HIV RNase H activity was between 8.0 and 8.5, in contrast to an optimum pH of 7.5 to 8.0 for HIV RT activity. The association of RNase H activity with the p66 component of HIV RT was demonstrated by activity gel analysis. These results indicate that HIV RT has an integral RNase H activity; however, some of its properties are different from those of RNase H associated with other retroviral RT's, and optimal assay conditions are different than those for HIV RT catalyzed DNA polymerization.

Enzyme activity gel analysis of human immunodeficiency virus reverse transcriptase.

An activity gel analysis was performed in order to examine the catalytically active component of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) reverse transcriptase in purified enzyme preparations and HIV-infected cell extracts. Immunoaffinity purified HIV reverse transcriptase contains two proteins with molecular weights 66,000 and 51,000 in approximately equal proportions. After denaturing polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis and removal of sodium dodecyl sulfate, the p66 component of reverse transcriptase was sufficient for both DNA- and RNA-directed DNA synthesis. No DNA synthetic activity of p51 was observed. Recovery of p66 catalytic activity was approximately 10% that of DNA polymerase beta, and the density of the autoradiographic band corresponding to p66 was linear with enzyme concentration. No additional HIV-specific DNA polymerases besides p66 were observed in HIV-infected H9 cell extracts.

Cellular metabolism of 2',3'-dideoxycytidine, a compound active against human immunodeficiency virus in vitro.

The nucleoside analog 2',3'-dideoxycytidine (ddCyd) has been shown to inhibit the infectivity and cytopathic effect of human immunodeficiency virus on human OKT4+ lymphocytes in vitro. Metabolism of ddCyd by human T-lymphoblastic cells (Molt 4) negative for human immunodeficiency virus and OKT4 was examined. Molt 4 cells accumulated ddCyd and its phosphorylated derivatives into acid-soluble and acid-insoluble material in a dose-dependent manner. For each concentration tested, 2',3'-dideoxycytidine triphosphate represented 40% of the total acid-soluble pool of ddCyd metabolites. Uptake of 5 microM ddCyd was linear for 4 h after addition of drug. Efflux of ddCyd metabolites from cells followed a biphasic course with an initial retention half-life of 2.6 h for 2',3'-dideoxycytidine triphosphate. DNA, but not RNA, of cells incubated with [3H]ddCyd became radiolabeled. Nuclease and phosphatase treatment of DNA followed by reverse-phase high pressure liquid chromatography showed that the nucleoside was incorporated into DNA in its original form. ddCyd was not susceptible to deamination by human Cyd-dCyd deaminase. It was a poor substrate for human cytoplasmic and mitochondrial dCyd kinases, with Km values of 180 +/- 30 and 120 +/- 20 microM, respectively. DNA polymerases alpha, beta, and gamma varied in their sensitivity to inhibition by ddCTP with Ki values of 110 +/- 40, 2.6 +/- 0.3, and 0.016 +/- 0.008 microM, respectively; however, inhibition was competitive with dCTP in each case.

Characterization of dihydrofolate reductase-related DNA and RNA from human KB cell subclones containing different amounts of enzyme.

The present study was aimed to characterize dihydrofolate reductase (DHFR)-related DNA and RNA in a series of human KB cell sublines and to further understand the mechanisms of DHFR regulation. We used two probes, one which could recognize the 5' flanking sequence (p5') of the human DHFR gene and one derived from mouse complementary DNA (pDHFR 26) which contains the coding sequence for DHFR, to identify the DHFR-related DNA and RNA. Our results revealed no major differences in DNA gene structure as the copy number increases. The recognizable fragments of DHFR gene were similar including the 5' flanking sequence upstream from the first exon. We observed that all DHFR mRNA species identified were present in the subclones. The content of cytoplasmic DHFR mRNA does not always correlate with the relative gene copy number in these cell lines. Furthermore, we were able to detect high-molecular-weight RNA related to DHFR which might be the precursors of the DHFR mRNAs. Finally, using different RNA extraction procedures, we observed that different patterns of cytoplasmic DHFR mRNA can be obtained, which is probably due to differential breakdown of RNA species during extraction procedures.

Activity of the new antifolate N10-propargyl-5,8-dideazafolate and its polyglutamates against human dihydrofolate reductase, human thymidylate synthetase, and KB cells containing different levels of dihydrofolate reductase.

The action of N10-propargyl-5,8-dideazafolate (PDDF) and its gamma-polyglutamyl analogues against human thymidylate synthetase and dihydrofolate reductase was examined. PDDF inhibited thymidylate synthetase in a noncompetitive fashion with respect to 5,10-methylenetetrahydrofolate and dihydrofolate reductase in a competitive fashion with respect to dihydrofolate. Ki values were estimated to be 20 and 250 nM, respectively. The addition of glutamyl moieties through gamma-linkage enhanced the inhibitory activity of PDDF against thymidylate synthetase without significant effect on dihydrofolate reductase. PDDF inhibited human KB cell growth, and its potency was found to be influenced less than that of methotrexate by the amount of cellular dihydrofolate reductase.