13,748 research outputs found
The Expression and Regulation of Chemokines (CXCL9, CXCL10, CXCL11) in Urinary Bladder Inflammation of the Mouse
Interstitial cystitis is a serious chronic condition that causes bladder pain and increased voiding frequency in millions of adults in the US, most of them women. A possible biomarker that may be linked to bladder inflammation is the CXCL chemokine family, specifically CXCL9, CXCL10, and CXCL11. The goal of this project is to investigate the expression and regulation of these CXCL chemokines during acute and chronic inflammation of the urinary bladder. Wild-type C57BL/6J mice were injected with cyclophosphamide (CYP) to induce bladder inflammation. RT-PCR and ELISAs were used to determine mRNA and protein expression of CXCL9, CXCL10, and CXCL11 chemokines. During CYP-induced cystitis, the detrusor muscle exhibited more CXCL mRNA regulation in both males and females compared to the urothelium. CYP-induced cystitis significantly (p ≤ 0.05) upregulated CXCL10, while CXCL9 and CXCL11 were significantly (p ≤ 0.05) downregulated. CXCL chemokines were also more regulated during acute and intermediate inflammation versus chronic inflammation. Females had significantly (p ≤ 0.05) decreased CXCL9 and CXCL11 protein levels after chronic inflammation. There were no statistical differences between CXCL chemokine protein levels in males. Future research such as immunohistochemistry to focus on tissue distribution of chemokines and use of chemokine receptor antagonist should be performed to further explore the functional role of these chemokines in male and female urinary bladders
Rapamycin attenuates acute seizure-induced astrocyte injury in mice in vivo
AbstractAstrocytes have been implicated in epileptogenesis and seizure-induced brain injury. Pathological studies reveal a variety of structural abnormalities in astrocytes, such as vacuolization and astrogliosis. While in vivo imaging methods have demonstrated rapid changes in astrocytes under a variety of physiological and pathological conditions, the acute effects of seizures on astrocyte morphology in vivo and corresponding mechanisms of seizure-induced astrocytic injury have not been documented. In this study, we utilized in vivo two-photon imaging to directly monitor the acute structural effects of kainate-induced seizures on cortical astrocytes. Kainate seizures cause an immediate, but transient, vacuolization of astrocytes, followed over several days by astrogliosis. These effects are prevented by pre- or post-treatment with rapamycin, indicating the mTOR pathway is involved in mediating seizure-induced astrocyte injury. These finding have clinical implications for mechanisms of seizure-induced astrocyte injury and potential therapeutic applications with mTOR inhibitors.</jats:p
The heavy-quark potential in an anisotropic plasma
We determine the hard-loop resummed propagator in an anisotropic QCD plasma
in general covariant gauges and define a potential between heavy quarks from
the Fourier transform of its static limit. We find that there is stronger
attraction on distance scales on the order of the inverse Debye mass for quark
pairs aligned along the direction of anisotropy than for transverse alignment.Comment: 8 pages, 2 figures, final version to appear in PLB, 1 reference
added, numerical constant in Eq.(10) correcte
The static hard-loop gluon propagator to all orders in anisotropy
We calculate the (semi-)static hard-loop self-energy and propagator using the
Keldysh formalism in a momentum-space anisotropic quark-gluon plasma. The
static retarded, advanced, and Feynman (symmetric) self-energies and
propagators are calculated to all orders in the momentum-space anisotropy
parameter . For the retarded and advanced self-energies/propagators, we
present a concise derivation and comparison with previously-obtained results
and extend the calculation of the self-energies to next-to-leading order in the
gluon energy, . For the Feynman self-energy/propagator, we present new
results which are accurate to all orders in . We compare our exact results
with prior expressions for the Feynman self-energy/propagator which were
obtained using Taylor-expansions around an isotropic state. We show that,
unlike the Taylor-expanded results, the all-orders expression for the Feynman
propagator is free from infrared singularities. Finally, we discuss the
application of our results to the calculation of the imaginary-part of the
heavy-quark potential in an anisotropic quark-gluon plasma.Comment: 22 page
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