Medical and Biomedical Researches

Genome-wide compensatory changes accompany drug- selected mutations in the Plasmodium falciparum crt

June 27th, 2008
Genome-wide compensatory changes accompany drug- selected mutations in the Plasmodium falciparum crt gene. Mutations in PfCRT (Plasmodium falciparum chloroquine-resistant transporter), particularly the substitution at amino acid position 76, confer chloroquine (CQ) resistance in P. falciparum. Point mutations in the homolog of the mammalian multidrug resistance gene ...

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Germline mutation in RNASEL predicts increased risk of head and neck, uterine cervix and breast canc

June 27th, 2008
Germline mutation in RNASEL predicts increased risk of head and neck, uterine cervix and breast cancer. THE BACKGROUND: Ribonuclease L (RNASEL), encoding the 2\'-5\'-oligoadenylate (2-5A)-dependent RNase L, is a key enzyme in the interferon induced antiviral and anti-proliferate pathway. Mutations in RNASEL segregate with the disease ...

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Silencing of keratinocyte growth factor receptor restores 5-fluorouracil and tamoxifen efficacy on r

June 27th, 2008
Silencing of keratinocyte growth factor receptor restores 5-fluorouracil and tamoxifen efficacy on responsive cancer cells. BACKGROUND: Keratinocyte growth factor receptor (KGFR) is a splice variant of the FGFR2 gene expressed in epithelial cells. Activation of KGFR is a key factor in the regulation of physiological processes ...

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Microbial translocation is associated with increased monocyte activation and dementia in AIDS patien

June 27th, 2008
Microbial translocation is associated with increased monocyte activation and dementia in AIDS patients. Elevated plasma lipopolysaccharide (LPS), an indicator of microbial translocation from the gut, is a likely cause of systemic immune activation in chronic HIV infection. LPS induces monocyte activation and trafficking into brain, which ...

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Nitric oxide mediates stretch-induced Ca2+ release via activation of phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase-A

June 27th, 2008
Nitric oxide mediates stretch-induced Ca2+ release via activation of phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase-Akt pathway in smooth muscle. BACKGROUND: Hollow smooth muscle organs such as the bladder undergo significant changes in wall tension associated with filling and distension, with attendant changes in muscle tone. Our previous study indicated that ...

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Immunological responses elicited by different infection regimes with Strongyloides ratti.

June 27th, 2008
Immunological responses elicited by different infection regimes with Strongyloides ratti. Nematode infections are a ubiquitous feature of vertebrate life. In nature, such nematode infections are acquired by continued exposure to infective stages over a prolonged period of time. By contrast, experimental laboratory infections are typically induced ...

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Density of common complex ocular traits in the aging eye: analysis of secondary traits in genome-wid

June 27th, 2008
Density of common complex ocular traits in the aging eye: analysis of secondary traits in genome-wide association studies. Genetic association studies are identifying genetic risks for common complex ocular traits such as age-related macular degeneration (AMD). The subjects used for discovery of these loci have been ...

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Cortical layer 1 and layer 2/3 astrocytes exhibit distinct calcium dynamics in vivo.

June 27th, 2008
Cortical layer 1 and layer 2/3 astrocytes exhibit distinct calcium dynamics in vivo. Cumulative evidence supports bidirectional interactions between astrocytes and neurons, suggesting glial involvement of neuronal information processing in the brain. Cytosolic calcium (Ca(2+)) concentration is important for astrocytes as Ca(2+) surges co-occur with gliotransmission ...

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The target selective neural response–similarity, ambiguity, and learning effects.

June 27th, 2008
The target selective neural response--similarity, ambiguity, and learning effects. A network of frontal and parietal brain regions is commonly recruited during tasks that require the deliberate \'top-down\' control of thought and action. Previously, using simple target detection, we have demonstrated that within this frontoparietal network, the ...

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Simultaneous assessment of soil microbial community structure and function through analysis of the m

June 27th, 2008
Simultaneous assessment of soil microbial community structure and function through analysis of the meta-transcriptome. BACKGROUND: Soil ecosystems harbor the most complex prokaryotic and eukaryotic microbial communities on Earth. Experimental approaches studying these systems usually focus on either the soil community\'s taxonomic structure or its functional characteristics. ...

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Cortical plasticity induced by transcranial magnetic stimulation during wakefulness affects electroe

June 27th, 2008
Cortical plasticity induced by transcranial magnetic stimulation during wakefulness affects electroencephalogram activity during sleep. BACKGROUND: Sleep electroencephalogram (EEG) brain oscillations in the low-frequency range show local signs of homeostatic regulation after learning. Such increases and decreases of slow wave activity are limited to the cortical regions ...

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B-MYB is essential for normal cell cycle progression and chromosomal stability of embryonic stem cel

June 27th, 2008
B-MYB is essential for normal cell cycle progression and chromosomal stability of embryonic stem cells. BACKGROUND: The transcription factor B-Myb is present in all proliferating cells, and in mice engineered to remove this gene, embryos die in utero just after implantation due to inner cell mass ...

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Derivation of chondrogenically-committed cells from human embryonic cells for cartilage tissue regen

June 27th, 2008
Derivation of chondrogenically-committed cells from human embryonic cells for cartilage tissue regeneration. BACKGROUND: Heterogeneous and uncontrolled differentiation of human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) in embryoid bodies (EBs) limits the potential use of hESCs for cell-based therapies. More efficient strategies are needed for the commitment and differentiation ...

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A regulatory role for NBS1 in strand-specific mutagenesis during somatic hypermutation.

June 27th, 2008
A regulatory role for NBS1 in strand-specific mutagenesis during somatic hypermutation. Activation-induced cytidine deaminase (AID) is believed to initiate somatic hypermutation (SHM) by deamination of deoxycytidines to deoxyuridines within the immunoglobulin variable regions genes. The deaminated bases can subsequently be replicated over, processed by base excision ...

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Dopamine agonist increases risk taking but blunts reward-related brain activity.

June 27th, 2008
Dopamine agonist increases risk taking but blunts reward-related brain activity. The use of D2/D3 dopaminergic agonists in Parkinson\'s disease (PD) may lead to pathological gambling. In a placebo-controlled double-blind study in healthy volunteers, we observed riskier choices in a lottery task after administration of the D3 ...

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Generation of small 32P-labeled peptides as a potential approach to colorectal cancer therapy.

June 27th, 2008
Generation of small 32P-labeled peptides as a potential approach to colorectal cancer therapy. Cancers have been revealed to be extremely heterogenous in terms of the frequency and types of mutations present in cells from different malignant tumors. Thus, it is likely that uniform clinical treatment is ...

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The WSB1 gene is involved in pancreatic cancer progression.

June 27th, 2008
The WSB1 gene is involved in pancreatic cancer progression. BACKGROUND: Pancreatic cancer cells generate metastases because they can survive the stress imposed by the new environment of the host tissue. To mimic this process, pancreatic cancer cells which are not stressed in standard culture conditions are ...

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Repression of RNA polymerase II transcription by a Drosophila oligopeptide.

June 27th, 2008
Repression of RNA polymerase II transcription by a Drosophila oligopeptide. BACKGROUND: Germline progenitors resist signals that promote differentiation into somatic cells. This occurs through the transient repression in primordial germ cells of RNA polymerase II, specifically by disrupting Ser2 phosphorylation on its C-terminal domain. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: ...

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Effects of ferumoxides-protamine sulfate labeling on immunomodulatory characteristics of macrophage-

June 27th, 2008
Effects of ferumoxides-protamine sulfate labeling on immunomodulatory characteristics of macrophage-like THP-1 cells. Superparamagnetic Iron Oxide (SPIO) complexed with cationic transfection agent is used to label various mammalian cells. Labeled cells can then be utilized as an in vivo magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) probes. However, certain number ...

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Butyrate transcriptionally enhances peptide transporter PepT1 expression and activity.

June 27th, 2008
Butyrate transcriptionally enhances peptide transporter PepT1 expression and activity. BACKGROUND: PepT1, an intestinal epithelial apical di/tripeptide transporter, is normally expressed in the small intestine and induced in colon during chronic inflammation. This study aimed at investigating PepT1 regulation by butyrate, a short-chain fatty acid produced by ...

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Cyclic Disulfides as Functional Mimics of the Histone Deacetylase Inhibitor FK-228.

June 27th, 2008
Cyclic Disulfides as Functional Mimics of the Histone Deacetylase Inhibitor FK-228. FK-228 is a potent histone deacetylase (HDAC) inhibitor with tremendous therapeutic potential against a wide array of human cancers. We describe the development of analogs that share FK-228\'s novel mechanism of activation and HDAC inhibition. Mays ...

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Total Synthesis of Amphidinolide E and Amphidinolide E Stereoisomers.

June 27th, 2008
Total Synthesis of Amphidinolide E and Amphidinolide E Stereoisomers. Four amphidinolide E stereoisomers, amphidinolide E (1), 2-epi-amphidinolide E (2), 19-epi-amphidinolide E (3), and 2-epi-19-epi-amphidinolide E (4), have been synthesized via the judicious union of aldehyde 5, allylsilanes 7 or 8, acids 9 or 10, and vinylstannane ...

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Studies toward the synthesis of phomactin A. An approach to the macrocyclic core.

June 27th, 2008
Studies toward the synthesis of phomactin A. An approach to the macrocyclic core. An approach to the macrocyclic core of phomactin A is described. Central to this strategy is the use of a cis-fused oxadecalin intermediate, prepared using the dihydropyrone Diels-Alder reaction. The conformational bias inherent ...

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Miniaturized probe for femtosecond laser microsurgery and two-photon imaging.

June 27th, 2008
Miniaturized probe for femtosecond laser microsurgery and two-photon imaging. Combined two-photon fluorescence microscopy and femtosecond laser microsurgery has many potential biomedical applications as a powerful \"seek-and-treat\" tool. Towards developing such a tool, we demonstrate a miniaturized probe which combines these techniques in a compact housing. The ...

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Low-loss polarization-maintaining fusion splicing of single-mode fibers and hollow-core photonic cry

June 27th, 2008
Low-loss polarization-maintaining fusion splicing of single-mode fibers and hollow-core photonic crystal fibers, relevant for monolithic fiber laser pulse compression. We report on highly reproducible low-loss fusion splicing of polarization-maintaining single-mode fibers (PM-SMFs) and hollow-core photonic crystal fibers (HC-PCFs). The PM-SMF-to-HC-PCF splices are characterized by the loss ...

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