The aim of this study was to define the histologic features of acute rejection of myofibers, particularly in the context of therapeutic myogenic cell transplantation. Myoblasts expressing or not expressing β-galactosidase were transplanted into 13 macaques that were divided into 3 protocols: withdrawal of immunosuppression, low immunosuppression, and progressive reduction ...

Background. The warm und humid environment, friction and occlusion within shoes make the feet to a favorable body site to acquire allergic contact dermatitis. Objectives. To evaluate and compare patch test results in patients with suspected contact allergy of the feet with the results in those with concomitant involvement of ...

Medical futility is a timely topic and one fraught with ethical implications. Medical futility is a term used to describe medical interventions that are expected to result in little or no benefit to a patient. This Editorial examines some considerations and applications of medical futility to a specific patient or ...

BACKGROUND: The e-Healthy Endothelial Accelerated Lining Inhibits Neointimal Growth (e-HEALING) registry was designed to capture clinical data on the use of the endothelial progenitor cell capture stent (ECS) in routine clinical practice. In this analysis, we investigated the 12-month clinical outcomes in patients treated with an ECS for a bifurcation ...

ABSTRACT: The status of radiation protection and safety of diagnostic medical x-ray facilities in the Greater Accra region in Ghana have been evaluated. In all, 62 medical facilities with 86 diagnostic x-ray units were considered for the survey. Out of the 86 diagnostic units, there were 56 general radiograph, 13 ...

To determine the prevalence of peri-implant diseases in private practice patients enrolled in a periodontal maintenance programme. A cross-sectional study was carried out in patients with dental implants attending the dental clinic to comply with a periodontal maintenance programme between January and June 2010. Implants with at least 1 year of ...

ABSTRACT: A routinely used thyroid uptake counter in Nuclear Medicine is evaluated to determine if its sensitivity is sufficient to perform routine thyroid bioassays on Nuclear Medicine personnel involved in handling and administering radioactive iodine. The BiodexAtomlab 950 (PC) Medical Spectrometer thyroid uptake counter system is found to be sensitive ...

Background. Two preparations are currently in use for the diagnosis of allergic contact dermatitis caused by Asteraceae: (i) Sesquiterpene lactone (SL) mix [three pure sesquiterpene lactones (STLs)], whose use has been questioned, owing to an insufficient rate of true-positive results; and (ii) Compositae mix, consisting of five Asteraceae extracts, which ...

PURPOSE OF THE STUDY:: Pneumonia hospitalization and subsequent readmission among the elderly are frequent and costly both to patient and to the Medicare trust fund. In this study, we explored the factors that are associated with states having pneumonia readmission rates that are higher than the U.S. national rate. PRIMARY ...

Optical coherence tomography captures a major role in clinical assessment in eye care. Innovative hardware and software improvements in the technology would further enhance its usefulness. In this review, we present several promising initiatives currently in development or early phase of assessment that we expect to have a future impact ...

Cocaine addiction is a major problem affecting all societal and economic classes for which there is no effective therapy. We hypothesized an effective anti-cocaine vaccine could be developed by using an adeno-associated virus (AAV) gene transfer vector as the delivery vehicle to persistently express an anti-cocaine monoclonal antibody in vivo, ...

ABSTRACT: The production reactors at the U.S. Department of Energy Hanford Site used large graphite piles as the moderator. As part of long-term decommissioning plans, the potential need for C radiobioassay of workers was identified. Technical issues associated with C bioassay and worker monitoring were investigated, including anticipated graphite characterization, ...

Tendon and ligament injuries continue to be one of the most frequent causes of orthopaedic injury and early retirement in the Thoroughbred racehorse. In the UK, the Horserace Betting Levy Board has invested considerable research funding in the last decade in order to investigate aspects of tendon epidemiology, biology and ...

Transarterial chemoembolization (TACE) is indicated for primary hepatic tumours when resection or local ablation are not feasible. Patients undergoing TACE have a better survival than best supportive therapy. However, there is paucity of prospective studies on the quality of life (QOL) after TACE for primary hepatic malignancies, especially in the ...

The purposes of this study were to identify differences in patterns of developmental abnormalities between the brains of individuals with autism of unknown etiology and those of individuals with duplications of chromosome 15q11.2-q13 (dup[15]) and autism and to identify alterations that may contribute to seizures and sudden death in the ...

To develop a clinical planning module (CPM) to improve the efficiency of imaging subjects with a steerable wide-field adaptive optics scanning laser ophthalmoscope (AOSLO) and to evaluate the performance of this module by imaging the retina in healthy and diseased eyes. We developed a software-based CPM with two submodules: a ...

In the current review, we summarize recent progress on vasculature-specific function and regulation of integrins and integrin-associated proteins, including advances in our understanding of inside-out integrin activation. The studies on regulation of integrin activation received new impulse in 2009 with the identification of kindlin protein family members as crucial mediators ...

We report X-ray crystallographic structures of three inhibitors bound to dehydrosqualene synthase from Staphylococcus aureus: 1 (BPH-651), 2 (WC-9), and 3 (SQ-109). Compound 2 binds to the S2 site with its -SCN group surrounded by four hydrogen bond donors. With 1, we report two structures: in both, the quinuclidine headgroup ...

Factors associated with progression from cervical intraepithelial neoplasia (CIN) grades 2 and 3 to invasive cancer are not well understood; most CIN2 and CIN3 do not progress to cancer. Among carcinogenic human papillomavirus (HPV) types, infections with HPV16 have the highest risk of progressing to cancer. We evaluated the heterogeneity ...

Alexander disease (AxD) is a usually fatal astrogliopathy primarily caused by mutations in the gene encoding glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP), an intermediate filament protein expressed in astrocytes. We describe three patients with unique characteristics, and whose mutations have implications for AxD diagnosis and studies of intermediate filaments. Patient 1 ...

Structures of G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) have a proven utility in the discovery of new antagonists and inverse agonists modulating signaling of this important family of clinical targets. Applicability of active-state GPCR structures to virtual screening and rational optimization of agonists, however, remains to be assessed. In this study of ...

Activity-dependent bulk endocytosis (ADBE) is the dominant SV endocytosis mode during intense neuronal activity. The dephosphorylation of Ser774 on dynamin I is essential for triggering of ADBE, as is its subsequent rephosphorylation by glycogen synthase kinase 3 (GSK3). We show that in primary cultures of cerebellar granule neurons the protein ...

BACKGROUND.: We previously reported that transduction of the human interleukin (IL)-10 gene into the total fetal liver stem cells (hIL-10-TFLs) of mice protects against their rejection in an allogeneic host. In this study, we explored the effects of these cells in two different models of organ transplantation. METHODS.: Balb/c mice ...

Conflicting reports exist regarding the contribution of SNP309 in MDM2 to cancer risk. Recently, SNP285 was shown to act as an antagonist to SNP309 by overriding the effect of SNP309 on SP1-mediated transcription. Moreover, SNP285 modified the relationship between SNP309 and risk of breast, ovarian and endometrial cancer. We assessed ...

Estrogen receptor-beta (ERβ) has been suggested to exert anti-inflammatory and anti-tumorigenic effects in the colon, providing a translational potential to prevent and/or treat inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) and its progression to colitis-associated colorectal cancer (CAC). However, the specific direct role of ERβ in CAC has not yet been tested. We ...

The evasion of apoptosis is a key characteristic of cancer, and thus strategies to selectively induce apoptosis in cancer cells hold considerable promise in personalized anticancer therapy. Structurally similar procaspase activating compounds PAC-1 and S-PAC-1 restore procaspase-3 activity through the chelation of inhibitory zinc ions in vitro, induce apoptotic death ...

Bulk flow constitutes a substantial part of the slow transport of soluble proteins in axons. Though the underlying mechanism is unclear, evidences indicate that intermittent, kinesin-based movement of large protein-aggregates aids this process. Choline acetyltransferase (ChAT), a soluble enzyme catalyzing acetylcholine synthesis, propagates toward the synapse at an intermediate, slow ...

High-risk (HR) human papillomavirus (HPV) prevalence has been shown to correlate well with cervical cancer incidence rates. Our study aimed to estimate the prevalence of HR-HPV and cervical intraepithelial neoplasia (CIN) in China and indirectly informs on the cervical cancer burden in the country. A total of 30,207 women from ...

Nanomaterials possess distinctive physicochemical properties (e.g., small sizes and high surface area-to-volume ratios) and promise a wide variety of applications, ranging from the design of high quality consumer products to effective disease diagnosis and therapy. These properties can lead to toxic effects, potentially hindering advances in nanotechnology. In this study, ...

Multicolor imaging based on genetically encoded fluorescent proteins (FPs) is a powerful approach to study several dynamic processes in a live cell. We report a monomeric orange FP with a large Stokes shift (LSS), called LSSmOrange (excitation/emission at 437/572 nm), which fills up an existing spectral gap between the green-yellow ...

Mapping the functionality of GTPases through small molecule inhibitors represents an underexplored area in large part due to the lack of suitable compounds. Here we report on the small chemical molecule 2-(benzoylcarbamothioylamino)-5,5-dimethyl-4,7-dihydrothieno[2,3-c]pyran-3-carboxylic acid (PubChem CID 1067700) as an inhibitor of nucleotide binding by Ras-related GTPases. The mechanism of action of ...

The hydrolysis of N-methyl O-phenyl sulfamate (1) has been studied as a model for steroid sulfatase inhibitors such as Coumate, 667 Coumate, and EMATE. At neutral pH, simulating physiological conditions, hydrolysis of 1 involves an intramolecular proton transfer from nitrogen to the bridging oxygen atom of the leaving group. Remarkably, ...

Electronic structure calculations based on density functional theory have uncovered a novel mechanism for inducing ferroelectric polarizations in cation ordered perovskites. We outline a materials selection strategy for designing this behavior. The guidelines are based on the octahedral rotations found in the two constituent oxides and the way the perovskite ...

A new technology is invented, described on page 1947 by X. Zhao and coworkers, for the use of electrical voltages to dynamically generate various patterns on curved surfaces and over large areas, such as the surfaces of gloves. As a result, the texture and smoothness of these surfaces can be ...

We use a host-guest approach to evaluate the effect of Trp guest residues relative to Ala on the kinetics and thermodynamics of formation of His-heme loops in the denatured state of iso-1-cytochrome c at 1.5, 3.0, and 6.0 M guanidine hydrochloride (GdnHCl). Trp guest residues are inserted into an alanine-rich ...

Human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) have great potentials for future cell-based therapeutics. However, their mechanosensitivity to biophysical signals from the cellular microenvironment is not well characterized. Here we introduced an effective microfabrication strategy for accurate control and patterning of nanoroughness on glass surfaces. Our results demonstrated that nanotopography could provide ...

The discovery that the single p53 gene encodes several different p53 protein isoforms has initiated a flurry of research into the function and regulation of these novel p53 proteins. Full-length p53 protein level is primarily regulated by the E3-ligase Mdm2, which promotes p53 ubiquitination and degradation. Here, we report that ...

Melanoma tumor cells shift between proliferative and invasive states based on their plasticity and microenvironmental conditions. Our team has shown that melanoma cells, grown as spheroids in a neural cell crest medium, polarize toward an invasive phenotype, characterized by a higher motility, a poor proliferation rate and a gain of ...

Anti-EGFR therapy is among the most promising molecular targeted therapies against cancer developed in the past decade. However, drug resistance eventually arises in most, if not all, treated patients. Emerging evidence has linked epigenetic changes, such as DNA methylation at CpG islands, to the development of resistance to multiple anticancer ...

Comment on: Mallette FA, et al. EMBO J 2012; In press; PMID:22373579; http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/emboj.2012.47.

Comment on: Vicente-Dueñas C, et al. Oncotarget 2012; Epub ahead of print; PMID:22408137.

Comment on: Kachaner D, et al. Mol Cell 2012; 45:553-66; PMID:22365832.

To study meiosis, synchronous cultures are often indispensable, especially for physical analyses of DNA and proteins. A temperature-sensitive allele of the Pat1 protein kinase (pat1-114) has been widely used to induce synchronous meiosis in the fission yeast Schizosaccharomyces pombe, but pat1-114-induced meiosis differs from wild-type meiosis, and some of these ...

While nanoparticles maximize the amount of chemotherapeutic drug in tumors relative to normal tissues, nanoparticle-based drugs are not accessible to the majority of cancer cells because nanoparticles display patchy, near-perivascular accumulation in tumors. To overcome the limitations of current drugs in their molecular or nanoparticle form, we developed a nanoparticle ...

A Ru-catalyzed direct thermal trifluoromethylation and perfluoroalkylation of N-acyloxazolidinones has been developed. The reaction is experimentally simple and requires inexpensive reagents while providing good yields of products with good levels of stereocontrol. Preliminary studies have shown notable compatibility with functional groups, aromatics, and certain heteroaromatic substituents. The described method provides ...

The biomonitors Hypnum cupressiforme and Xanthoria parietina were used to assess the deposition of trace elements and their possible origin in the Prades Mountains, a protected Mediterranean forest area of NE Spain with several pollution sources nearby. Al, As, Cd, Co, Cu, Cr, Ni, Pb, Sb, Ti, V, and Zn ...

Twenty-four acid- and bile-tolerant lactobacilli isolates from dairy products were identified and further in vitro characterized for the presence of functional traits potentially useful for probiotic applications, which included desirable and undesirable traits, such as biofilm formation, ability to inhibit intestinal pathogens, antibiotic susceptibility, and enzyme activity. The majority of ...

This study was carried out to investigate possible seawater intrusion into groundwater along the coastal lines of the Bafra Plain and salinity-alkalinity problems over land areas irrigated with water exposed to seawater intrusion were evaluated. For this purpose, 32 groundwater wells were selected over the plain, water samples were taken ...

AIMS/HYPOTHESIS: The aim of this study was to understand the role of CXC chemokine receptor 3 (CXCR3), a T-helper 1(Th1) type chemokine receptor, in the pathogenesis of type 1 diabetes. METHODS: We observed the incidence of diabetes in Cxcr3 homozygous knockout mice. We compared the expression pattern of various cytokines ...

The B7 family of genes is essential in the regulation of the adaptive immune system. Most B7 family members contain both variable (V)- and constant (C)-type domains of the immunoglobulin superfamily (IgSF). Through in silico screening of the Xenopus genome and subsequent phylogenetic analysis, we found novel genes belonging to ...