Modulation of brain polyphosphoinositide metabolism by acth and beta-endorphin:structure-activity studies

This study describes effects of ACTH1–24 and β-endorphin on brain polyphosphoinositide metabolism in vitro. The interconversion of these polyanionic phospholipids was studied by incubation of a lysed synaptosomal fraction with [γ-32P]ATP. Of the membrane phospholipids only PA, DPI and TPI became labeled. The reference peptide ACTH1–24 stimulated the formation of TPI and inhibited the production of PA. For effects on TPI formation both the sequences ACTH5–7 and ACTH10–16 were needed. Effects of PA formation required the sequences ACTH7–10 and ACTH10–16. The basic amino acids in ACTH10–16 seemed to be of crucial importance for the peptide effects. A stimulatory effect on DPI was visible when ACTH was shortened from the N-terminus, and the essential information was in ACTH7–10. β-endorphin inhibited PA formation and this effect was abolished by C-terminal shortening to γ-endorphin. Other fragments of the C-terminus of β-LPH, including the enkephalins, were ineffective. It is concluded that the structure-activity relationship obtTPI/PA formation correlates with a similar relationship obtained on excessive grooming behavior in vivo. A possible correlation between the effects on polyPI metabolism and opiate-like effects, and effects on extinction of active avoidance behavior in vivo is discussed

Estudos sobre a nutrição mineral do milho: II. efeito de doses crescentes de N, R e K no crescimento, produção e composição mineral da variedade Piranão em condições controladas

Maize plants, Piranão cultivar, were grown in nutrient solution with 5 levels each of N, R and K till harvest. Nitrate reductase activity and putrescine level were determined in leaves of plants in the N and K series, respectively, at silking stage. Upper and lower leaves were analysed for N, R and K in the corresponding treatments at the end of the life cycle. The main conclusions were the following : 5.1 There was a linear effect of level of N in the substrate on dry matter production. 5.2. High activities of nitrate reductase suggest that under natural conditions the variety should be very responsive to N fertilization. 5.3. An asymptotic response curve was found in the treatments with increasing levels of R in the medium, as well as in the case of the K treatments. 5.4. Curves of response of roots (dry matter) showed a tendency to level of as a function of increasing levels of element at lower concentrations than the components aeral part of the plant (leaves, stems, ears). 5.5. Determination of leaf putrescine did not of prove a better indicator of the K status leaf K. 5.6. The variety under study seems to be relatively more efficient in the utilization of N for yield components; the efficiency for utilization of K, is rather low and that for R is intermediate, findings that should have a bearing on the fertilization in field conditions.O milho, var. Piranão, foi cultivado em solução nutritiva com níveis crescentes de N, R e K. Houve resposta linear à adição de N e assintótica às doses de R e de K. A determinação da atividade da reductase de nitrato se correlacionou melhor com a produção da matéria seca que a do N total nas folhas. O teor de potássio total nas folhas, por sua vez refletiu melhor o estado nutricional que a determinação de putrescina nas folhas

Vascular Remodeling in Health and Disease

The term vascular remodeling is commonly used to define the structural changes in blood vessel geometry that occur in response to long-term physiologic alterations in blood flow or in response to vessel wall injury brought about by trauma or underlying cardiovascular diseases.1, 2, 3, 4 The process of remodeling, which begins as an adaptive response to long-term hemodynamic alterations such as elevated shear stress or increased intravascular pressure, may eventually become maladaptive, leading to impaired vascular function. The vascular endothelium, owing to its location lining the lumen of blood vessels, plays a pivotal role in regulation of all aspects of vascular function and homeostasis.5 Thus, not surprisingly, endothelial dysfunction has been recognized as the harbinger of all major cardiovascular diseases such as hypertension, atherosclerosis, and diabetes.6, 7, 8 The endothelium elaborates a variety of substances that influence vascular tone and protect the vessel wall against inflammatory cell adhesion, thrombus formation, and vascular cell proliferation.8, 9, 10 Among the primary biologic mediators emanating from the endothelium is nitric oxide (NO) and the arachidonic acid metabolite prostacyclin [prostaglandin I2 (PGI2)], which exert powerful vasodilatory, antiadhesive, and antiproliferative effects in the vessel wall

Selective stimulation of dendrite outgrowth from identified corticospinal neurons by homotopic astrocytes

Corticospinal neurons were identified in primary cultures of cortical neurons established from rats that had been injected with a fluorescent tracer to retrogradely label the corticospinal tract. We measured neurite outgrowth from corticospinal neurons after they had been co-cultured with astrocytes derived from either the cerebral cortex (homotopic region) or spinal cord (target region) of postnatal rats. The axon length of corticospinal neurons was increased when they were cultured on astroglial monolayers compared to a control monolayer (fibroblasts). However, no difference in axon length was noted on cortical versus spinal cord-derived astrocytes. On the other hand, total dendritic length was increased on cortical compared to spinal cord astrocytes. This increase in total dendrite length was not the result of differences in the length of primary dendrites, but primarily of a higher number of dendrites and increased branching on the cortical astroglia. If the corticospinal neurons were co-cultured without physical contact with the astrocytes, axonal and dendritic outgrowth were not stimulated when compared to the fibroblast control. The data indicate that dendritic growth from corticospinal neurons is preferentially promoted by astrocytes from the cerebral cortex, whereas axonal growth is not influenced by the anatomical origin of the astrocytes. The impact of these findings on our understanding of the role of astrocytes in the development and regeneration of the corticospinal tract is discussed

On the wake-up problem in radio networks

Abstract. Radio networks model wireless communication when processing units communicate using one wave frequency. This is captured by the property that multiple messages arriving simultaneously to a node interfere with one another and none of them can be read reliably. We present improved solutions to the problem of waking up such a network. This requires activating all nodes in a scenario when some nodes start to be active spontaneously, while every sleeping node needs to be awaken by receiving successfully a message from a neighbor. Our contributions concern the existence and efficient construction of universal radio synchronizers, which are combinatorial structures introduced in [6] as building blocks of efficient wake-up algorithms. First we show by counting that there are (n, g)-universal synchronizers for g(k) = O(k log k log n). Next we show an explicit construction of (n, g)-universal-synchronizers for g(k) = O(k 2 polylog n). By way of applications, we obtain an existential wake-up algorithm which works in time O(n log 2 n) and an explicitly instantiated algorithm that works in time O(n ∆ polylog n), where n is the number of nodes and ∆ is the maximum in-degree in the network. Algorithms for leader-election and synchronization can be developed on top of wake-up ones, as shown in [7], such that they work in time slower by a factor of O(log n) than the underlying wake-up ones.