Latest archaeological results on the origin of the Hungarian people in the Eurasian context

Early Hungarian history is a research area with scarce written sources. Archaeology, as a scientific discipline boasting a rapidly increasing number of sources, may acquire significant importance in this area. Nevertheless, thorough knowledge about the contemporary, significant archaeological differences between the Eastern European grassy and forest steppes, forest regions, and the microregions of the former makes it possible to research migration with traditional archaeological methods. For archaeology, the fundamental question about early Hungarian history has been the same to this day: from the archaeological finds of the territory stretching from the Urals to the Carpathian Basin. One of them proceeds from the Urals towards the Carpathians, referred to as the linear method, while the other takes the 10th-century heritage of the Carpathian Basin as a point of departure and looks for the Eastern European antecedents – this is the retrospective method

Visualization of Calcium Dynamics in Kidney Proximal Tubules

Intrarenal changes in cytoplasmic calcium levels have a key role in determining pathologic and pharmacologic responses in major kidney diseases. However, cell-specific delivery of calcium-sensitive probes in vivo remains problematic. We generated a transgenic rat stably expressing the green fluorescent protein-calmodulin-based genetically encoded calcium indicator (GCaMP2) predominantly in the kidney proximal tubules. The transposon-based method used allowed the generation of homozygous transgenic rats containing one copy of the transgene per allele with a defined insertion pattern, without genetic or phenotypic alterations. We applied in vitro confocal and in vivo two-photon microscopy to examine basal calcium levels and ligand- and drug-induced alterations in these levels in proximal tubular epithelial cells. Notably, renal ischemia induced a transient increase in cellular calcium, and reperfusion resulted in a secondary calcium load, which was significantly decreased by systemic administration of specific blockers of the angiotensin receptor and the Na-Ca exchanger. The parallel examination of in vivo cellular calcium dynamics and renal circulation by fluorescent probes opens new possibilities for physiologic and pharmacologic investigations