Location and Level of Etk Expression in Neurons Are Associated with Varied Severity of Traumatic Brain Injury

Much recent research effort in traumatic brain injury (TBI) has been devoted to the discovery of a reliable biomarker correlating with severity of injury. Currently, no consensus has been reached regarding a representative marker for traumatic brain injury. In this study, we explored the potential of epithelial/endothelial tyrosine kinase (Etk) as a novel marker for TBI.TBI was induced in Sprague Dawley (SD) rats by controlled cortical impact. Brain tissue samples were analyzed by Western blot, Q-PCR, and immunofluorescence staining using various markers including glial fibrillary acidic protein, and epithelial/endothelial tyrosine kinase (Etk). Results show increased Etk expression with increased number and severity of impacts. Expression increased 2.36 to 7-fold relative to trauma severity. Significant upregulation of Etk appeared at 1 hour after injury. The expression level of Etk was inversely correlated with distance from injury site. Etk and trauma/inflammation related markers increased post-TBI, while other tyrosine kinases did not.The observed correlation between Etk level and the number of impacts, the severity of impact, and the time course after impact, as well as its inverse correlation with distance away from injury site, support the potential of Etk as a possible indicator of trauma severity

Thermodynamics of freezing and melting

Although the freezing of liquids and melting of crystals are fundamental for many areas of the sciences, even simple properties like the temperature–pressure relation along the melting line cannot be predicted today. Here we present a theory in which properties of the coexisting crystal and liquid phases at a single thermodynamic state point provide the basis for calculating the pressure, density and entropy of fusion as functions of temperature along the melting line, as well as the variation along this line of the reduced crystalline vibrational mean-square displacement (the Lindemann ratio), and the liquid's diffusion constant and viscosity. The framework developed, which applies for the sizable class of systems characterized by hidden scale invariance, is validated by computer simulations of the standard 12-6 Lennard-Jones system