Human oocytes were washed twice with PBS containing 0.1 % BSA and then incubated with 1 :50 dilution of immune or pre-immune serum samples at RT for 30 min. Following washing with PBS (3 changes of 5 min each), the oocytes were treated with goat anti-rabbit Ig-FITC conjugate for 30 min at RT. After washing with PBS, the treated oocytes were mounted in Glyceroi:PBS (9: 1) and examined under fluorescent microscope.

Non-stringent washes were carried out in 2XSSC and 0.25-0.5% SDS in DEPC water.Stringent washing was done in 1XSSC and 0.5% SDS in DEPC water. Washing was carried out at 55-56oC for 20 minutes. After washing, the blot was covered in the saran-wrap and exposed to the phosphoimager film. After the desired time of exposure, the filmwas then scanned in phosphoimager and the picture saved.The densitometric analysis of the bands was carried out as described in the section 2.2.3.7.Normalization of the signal intensities in northern blotting experiments using probe against tRNA(U73)Arg5was done as follows. The intensity of the tRNA(U73)Arg5signalin the WT or the parent strain in the absence of IPTG was taken as 1 and the relative change in the other strain/growth condition calculated. The value thus obtained was corrected using the change in the corresponding 5S rRNA intensity relative to that in the WT/parent strain in the absence of IPTG