Members of the transforming growth factor (TGF)-beta family play pivotal roles in the control of differentiation, proliferation and tolerance in peripheral T cells. Recently, they have been implicated in thymic selection, but their role is so far not well characterized. In the present study, we demonstrate that specific thymocyte populations are under the influence of either the TGF-beta and/or Ac

Thawing permafrost in the sub-Arctic has implications for the physical stability and biological dynamics of peatland ecosystems. This study provides an analysis of how permafrost thawing and subsequent vegetation changes in a sub-Arctic Swedish mire have changed the net exchange of greenhouse gases, carbon dioxide (CO2) and CH4 over the past three decades. Images of the mire (ca. 17 ha) and surrou

The vascular effects of endothelins (ET) are in mammals mediated via two receptor subtypes, endothelin A (ETA, mainly constrictive) and endothelin B (ETB, mainly dilating) receptors. We have examined the presence of ETA and ETB receptor mRNA using the reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) in both normal human cerebral arteries and cerebral arteries from patients with cerebrovasc

Sphingomyelin (SM) has emerged as an important source of lipid messengers affecting cell proliferation, differentiation and apoptosis. SM is present in mammalian cell membranes as a lipid constituent and also found as a component of dietary products such as milk, egg and meat. Digestion of SM has been found to have important implications in colon cancer development, gut maturation, and cholesterol

Huntington's disease (HD) is caused by an expanded CAG repeat in exon 1 of the gene coding for the huntingtin protein. The cellular pathway by which this mutation induces HD remains unknown, although alterations in protein degradation are involved, To study intrinsic cellular mechanisms involved, To study Intrinsic to the mutation, we examined dissociated postnatally derived cultures of striatal n

A polymorphic microsatellite in intron 6 of the human proteasome core particle PSMA6 gene (HSMS006), and four other microsatellites localized upstream on human chromosome 14q13.2 (HSMS801, HSMS702, HSMS701, HSMS602), were genotyped in 104 type 2 diabetic patients and 129 age-matched control subjects from Latvia and replicated in 91 type 2 diabetic patients and 88 age-matched healthy control subjec

The chuck has, for a long time, been considered the weakest link of a lathe. This is mainly due to its two-fold connection, to the machine spindle on the one hand and to the workpiece on the other. An additional limitation of the chuck lies in the incomplete knowledge one has of the load it is exposed to during operation, which usually leads to a less than optimal machining process. Unless our und

In 31 anesthetized rabbits, after removal of superficial tissues, glass micropipettes filled with 0.5 M NaCl solution and connected to an electrohydraulic servo-null system were used to measure extraperitoneal interstitial fluid pressure (Pi,per) and peritoneal liquid pressure (Pliq,per) at various heights. Linear regressions relating pressure to recording height (H) were Pi,per = 1.07 - 0.27H and

We use Monte Carlo methods to study the properties of the bootstrap Breusch-Godfrey test for autocorrelated errors in two versions a) by bootstrapping under the null hypothesis, restricted and b) by bootstrapping under the alternative hypothesis, unrestricted. We use the residual bootstrap for the bootstrap-BG test. Our analysis regarding the size of the test reveals that both bootstrap tests have

The cellular distribution of PP and PYY in mammals is reviewed. Expression of PP is restricted to endocrine cells mainly present in the pancreas predominantly in the duodenal portion (head) but also found in small numbers in the gastro-intestinal tract. PYY has a dual expression in both endocrine cells and neurons. PYY expressing endocrine cells occur all along the gastrointestinal tract and are f

Stroke is a neurodegenerative disorder and the leading cause of disability in adult humans. Treatments to support efficient recovery in stroke patients are lacking. Several studies have demonstrated the ability of grafted neural stem cells (NSCs) to partly improve impaired neurological functions in stroke-subjected animals. Recently, we reported that NSCs from human fetal striatum and cortex exhib

Objective: The present study investigates the activity changes of sphingomyelinase (SMase), ceramidase and caspase-3 in colonic mucosa of rats induced by high fat and red meat diets. Method. For a period of 3 weeks, rats were fed protein without fat (control), high fat only, high fat with beef, and high fat with fiber (cellulose) diets. The fat content (22.4%) was constant in the three high fat di

Biological production of hydrogen sulfide (H2S) using sulfate-reducing bacteria (SRB) has important potential within environmental biotechnology. The aim of this work was to study the possibility of using SRB for the treatment of an acid mine drainage (AMD) at bench-scale. This process involved three stages: the optimization of H2S production through the utilization of total volatile fatty acids (

In regions where studded tyres and traction material are used during winter, e.g. the Nordic countries, northern part of USA, Canada, and Japan, mechanically generated particles from traffic are the main reason for high particle mass concentrations in busy street and road environments. In many Nordic municipalities the European environmental quality standard for inhalable particles (PM(10)) is exc

Immortalization is an early and essential step of human carcinogenesis. Amplification of chromosome 20q has been shown to be a common event in immortalized cells and cancers. We have previously reported that gain and amplification of chromosome 20q is a non-random and common event in immortalized human ovarian surface epithelial (HOSE) cells. The chromosome 20q harbors genes including TGIF2 (20q11

Fractional Laplace motion is obtained by subordinating fractional Brownian motion to a gamma process. Used recently to model hydraulic conductivity fields in geophysics, it may also prove useful in modeling financial time series. Its one dimensional distributions are scale mixtures of normal laws, where the stochastic variance has the generalized gamma distribution. These one dimensional distribut

Transplantation of embryonic ventral mesencephalon is a potential therapy for patients with Parkinson's disease. As only around 5-10% of embryonic dopaminergic neurons survive grafting into the adult striatum, it is considered necessary to use multiple donor embryos. To increase the survival of the grafted dopaminergic neurons, the clinical transplantation program in Lund currently employs the lip

During the last 10 years, an increasing number of genes have been identified whose abnormalities account for primary immunodeficiencies, with defects in development and/or function of the immune system. Among them is the JAK3,gene, encoding for a tyrosine kinase that is functionally coupled to cytokine receptors which share the common gamma chain. Defects of this gene cause an autosomal recessive

Identifiable risk factors for the development of breast cancer include age, diet, family history, and lifetime estrogen exposure. An infectious agent (mouse mammary tumor virus; MMTV) is known to cause murine breast tumors and may be involved in the pathogenesis of human disease. Multiple studies have detected MMTV-like sequences in 30 to 60% of breast cancer samples and up to 1.8% of samples from