2,172 research outputs found
Phenotypes of pain behavior in phospholipase C-related but catalytically inactive protein type 1 knockout mice
Phospholipase C-related inactive protein (PRIP) plays important roles in trafficking to the plasma membrane of GABAA receptor, which is involved in the dominant inhibitory neurotransmission in the spinal cord and plays an important role in nociceptive transmission. However, the role of PRIP in pain sensation remains unknown. In this study, we investigated the phenotypes of pain behaviors in PRIP type 1 knockout (PRIP-1 -/- ) mice. The mutant mice showed hyperalgesic responses in the second phase of the formalin test and the von Frey test as compared with those in wild-type mice. In situ hybridization studies of GABAA receptors revealed significantly decreased expression of γ2 subunit mRNA in the dorsal and ventral horns of the spinal cord in PRIP-1 -/- mice, but no difference in α1 subunit mRNA expression. β2 subunit mRNA expression was significantly higher in PRIP-1 -/- mice than in wild-type mice in all areas of the spinal cord. On the other hand, the slow decay time constant for the spontaneous inhibitory current was significantly increased by treatment with diazepam in wild-type mice, but not in PRIP-1 -/- mice. These results suggest that PRIP-1 -/- mice exhibit the changes of the function and subunits expression of GABAA receptor in the spinal cord, which may be responsible for abnormal pain sensation in these mice
Advantageous grain boundaries in iron pnictide superconductors
High critical temperature superconductors have zero power consumption and
could be used to produce ideal electric power lines. The principal obstacle in
fabricating superconducting wires and tapes is grain boundaries-the
misalignment of crystalline orientations at grain boundaries, which is
unavoidable for polycrystals, largely deteriorates critical current density.
Here, we report that High critical temperature iron pnictide superconductors
have advantages over cuprates with respect to these grain boundary issues. The
transport properties through well-defined bicrystal grain boundary junctions
with various misorientation angles (thetaGB) were systematically investigated
for cobalt-doped BaFe2As2 (BaFe2As2:Co) epitaxial films fabricated on bicrystal
substrates. The critical current density through bicrystal grain boundary
(JcBGB) remained high (> 1 MA/cm2) and nearly constant up to a critical angle
thetac of ~9o, which is substantially larger than the thetac of ~5o for YBCO.
Even at thetaGB > thetac, the decay of JcBGB was much smaller than that of
YBCO.Comment: to appear in Nature Communication
General Gauge Mediation with Gauge Messengers
We generalize the General Gauge Mediation formalism to allow for the
possibility of gauge messengers. Gauge messengers occur when charged matter
fields of the susy-breaking sector have non-zero F-terms, which leads to
tree-level, susy-breaking mass splittings in the gauge fields. A classic
example is that SU(5) / SU(3) x SU(2) x U(1) gauge fields could be gauge
messengers. We give a completely general, model independent, current-algebra
based analysis of gauge messenger mediation of susy-breaking to the visible
sector. Characteristic aspects of gauge messengers include enhanced
contributions to gaugino masses, (tachyonic) sfermion mass-squareds generated
already at one loop, and also at two loops, and significant one-loop A-terms,
already at the messenger scale.Comment: 79 pages, 5 figure
Aging Logarithmic Conformal Field Theory : a holographic view
We consider logarithmic extensions of the correlation and response functions
of scalar operators for the systems with aging as well as Schr\"odinger
symmetry. Aging is known to be the simplest nonequilibrium phenomena, and its
physical significances can be understood by the two-time correlation and
response functions. Their logarithmic part is completely fixed by the bulk
geometry in terms of the conformal weight of the dual operator and the dual
particle number.
Motivated by recent experimental realizations of Kardar-Parisi-Zhang
universality class in growth phenomena and its subsequent theoretical extension
to aging, we investigate our two-time correlation functions out of equilibrium,
which show several qualitatively different behaviors depending on the
parameters in our theory. They exhibit either growing or aging, i.e. power-law
decaying, behaviors for the entire range of our scaling time. Surprisingly, for
some parameter ranges, they exhibit growing at early times as well as aging at
later times.Comment: 1+26 pages, 15 figure
Metabolic effects of diets differing in glycaemic index depend on age and endogenous GIP
Aims/hypothesis
High- vs low-glycaemic index (GI) diets unfavourably affect body fat mass and metabolic markers in rodents. Different effects of these diets could be age-dependent, as well as mediated, in part, by carbohydrate-induced stimulation of glucose-dependent insulinotrophic polypeptide (GIP) signalling.
Methods
Young-adult (16 weeks) and aged (44 weeks) male wild-type (C57BL/6J) and GIP-receptor knockout (Gipr −/− ) mice were exposed to otherwise identical high-carbohydrate diets differing only in GI (20–26 weeks of intervention, n = 8–10 per group). Diet-induced changes in body fat distribution, liver fat, locomotor activity, markers of insulin sensitivity and substrate oxidation were investigated, as well as changes in the gene expression of anorexigenic and orexigenic hypothalamic factors related to food intake.
Results
Body weight significantly increased in young-adult high- vs low-GI fed mice (two-way ANOVA, p < 0.001), regardless of the Gipr genotype. The high-GI diet in young-adult mice also led to significantly increased fat mass and changes in metabolic markers that indicate reduced insulin sensitivity. Even though body fat mass also slightly increased in high- vs low-GI fed aged wild-type mice (p < 0.05), there were no significant changes in body weight and estimated insulin sensitivity in these animals. However, aged Gipr −/− vs wild-type mice on high-GI diet showed significantly lower cumulative net energy intake, increased locomotor activity and improved markers of insulin sensitivity.
Conclusions/interpretation
The metabolic benefits of a low-GI diet appear to be more pronounced in younger animals, regardless of the Gipr genotype. Inactivation of GIP signalling in aged animals on a high-GI diet, however, could be beneficial
Non-inflammatory cerebral amyloid angiopathy as a cause of rapidly progressive dementia: A case study
Small-cell lung cancer with voltage-gated calcium channel antibody-positive paraneoplastic limbic encephalitis: a case report
Normal Mouse Intestinal Epithelial Cells as a Model for the in vitro Invasion of Trichinella spiralis Infective Larvae
It has been known for many years that Trichinella spiralis initiates infection by penetrating the columnar epithelium of the small intestine; however, the mechanisms used by the parasite in the establishment of its intramulticellular niche in the intestine are unknown. Although the previous observations indicated that invasion also occurs in vitro when the infective larvae are inoculated onto cultures of intestinal epithelial cells (e.g., human colonic carcinoma cell line Caco-2, HCT-8), a normal readily manipulated in vitro model has not been established because of difficulties in the culture of primary intestinal epithelial cells (IECs). In this study, we described a normal intestinal epithelial model in which T. spiralis infective larvae were shown to invade the monolayers of normal mouse IECs in vitro. The IECs derived from intestinal crypts of fetal mouse small intestine had the ability to proliferate continuously and express specific cytokeratins as well as intestinal functional cell markers. Furthermore, they were susceptible to invasion by T. spiralis. When inoculated onto the IEC monolayer, infective larvae penetrated cells and migrated through them, leaving trails of damaged cells heavily loaded with T. spiralis larval excretory-secretory (ES) antigens which were recognized by rabbit immune sera on immunofluorescence test. The normal intestinal epithelial model of invasion mimicking the natural environment in vivo will help us to further investigate the process as well as the mechanisms by which T. spiralis establishes its intestinal niche
New findings on the fungal species Tricholoma matsutake from Ukraine, and revision of its taxonomy and biogeography based on multilocus phylogenetic analyses
Publisher Copyright: © 2022 Elsevier B.V.. All rights reserved.Matsutake mushrooms are among the best-known edible wild mushroom taxa worldwide. The representative Tricholoma matsutake is from East Asia and the northern and central regions of Europe. Here, we report the existence of T. matsutake under fir trees in Eastern Europe (i.e., Ukraine), as confirmed by phylogenetic analysis of nine loci on the nuclear and mitochondrial genomes. All specimens from Japan, Bhutan, China, North Korea, South Korea, Sweden, Finland, and Ukraine formed a T. matsutake clade according to the phylogeny of the internal transcribed spacer region. The European population of T. matsutake was clustered based on the β2 tubulin gene, with a moderate bootstrap value. In contrast, based on analyses of three loci, i.e., rpb2, tef1, and the β2 tubulin gene, T. matsutake specimens sampled from Bhutan and China belonged to a clade independent of the other specimens of this species, implying a genetically isolated population. As biologically available type specimens of T. matsutake have not been designated since its description as a new species from Japan in 1925, we established an epitype of this fungus, sampled in a Pinus densiflora forest in Nagano, Japan.Peer reviewe
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