Explicating industrial brand equity: Integrating brand trust, brand performance and industrial brand image

Purpose (mandatory) The research explores brand equity from multiple perspectives (tangible and intangible) and their joint consequences, namely, on industrial buyers’ brand loyalty and their long-term commitment. The aim is to provide a more comprehensive framework of the buyer’s behavioral response in the business to business context by integrating both trust elements and industrial brand attributes (brand performance and industrial brand image). In addition, the study explores the mediation effects of trust and brand attributes on industrial buyers’ responses such as loyalty and long-term commitment. Design/methodology/approach (mandatory) Using a survey approach, the study includes respondents working in the HVAC industry in Malaysia, and data are collected in the industrial air conditioning segment. The research model was tested with SEM. Findings (mandatory) Findings show that brand performance and industrial brand image directly affect brand trust but with different effects on buyers’ commitment and loyalty. Interestingly, industrial brand image only mediates the responses via brand trust, while brand performance has a direct effect. Thus, both brand performance and industrial brand image build buyer trust. But in this context, it is brand performance rather than industrial brand image that influences long-term commitment and loyalty. The study concludes that in the HVAC industry, brand performance, industrial brand image, buyer trust, industrial loyalty, and commitment build brand equity. Originality/value (mandatory) Significant research reveals that, in business-to-business contexts, brand equity depends on the supplier’s brand trust and attributes of the brand such as brand image and brand performance. While useful in guiding a supplier’s or industry’s brand strategy, the study of both brand trust and brand attributes has led to only a partial explanation of the supplier’s or industry’s brand equity. The present research explores industrial brand equity, focusing on tangible assets (performance) and intangible assets (brand image), and their joint consequences

Regulation of Adipose Tissue Stromal Cells Behaviors by Endogenic Oct4 Expression Control

BACKGROUND: To clarify the role of the POU domain transcription factor Oct4 in Adipose Tissue Stromal Cells (ATSCs), we investigated the regulation of Oct4 expression and other embryonic genes in fully differentiated cells, in addition to identifying expression at the gene and protein levels. The ATSCs and several immature cells were routinely expressing Oct4 protein before and after differentiating into specific lineages. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS AND CONCLUSIONS: Here, we demonstrated the role of Oct4 in ATSCs on cell proliferation and differentiation. Exogenous Oct4 improves adult ATSCs cell proliferation and differentiation potencies through epigenetic reprogramming of stemness genes such as Oct4, Nanog, Sox2, and Rex1. Oct4 directly or indirectly induces ATSCs reprogramming along with the activation of JAK/STAT3 and ERK1/2. Exogenic Oct4 introduced a transdifferentiation priority into the neural lineage than mesodermal lineage. Global gene expression analysis results showed that Oct4 regulated target genes which could be characterized as differentially regulated genes such as pluripotency markers NANOG, SOX2, and KLF4 and markers of undifferentiated stem cells FOXD1, CDC2, and EPHB1. The negatively regulated genes included FAS, TNFR, COL6A1, JAM2, FOXQ1, FOXO1, NESTIN, SMAD3, SLIT3, DKK1, WNT5A, BMP1, and GLIS3 which are implicated in differentiation processes as well as a number of novel genes. Finally we have demonstrated the therapeutic utility of Oct4/ATSCs were introduced into the mouse traumatic brain, engrafted cells was more effectively induces regeneration activity with high therapeutic modality than that of control ATSCs. Engrafted Oct4/ATSCs efficiently migrated and transdifferentiated into action potential carrying, functionally neurons in the hippocampus and promoting the amelioration of lesion cavities

Modulation of CP2 Family Transcriptional Activity by CRTR-1 and Sumoylation

CRTR-1 is a member of the CP2 family of transcription factors. Unlike other members of the family which are widely expressed, CRTR-1 expression shows specific spatio-temporal regulation. Gene targeting demonstrates that CRTR-1 plays a central role in the maturation and function of the salivary glands and the kidney. CRTR-1 has also recently been identified as a component of the complex transcriptional network that maintains pluripotency in embryonic stem (ES) cells. CRTR-1 was previously shown to be a repressor of transcription. We examine the activity of CRTR-1 in ES and other cells and show that CRTR-1 is generally an activator of transcription and that it modulates the activity of other family members, CP2, NF2d9 and altNF2d9, in a cell specific manner. We also demonstrate that CRTR-1 activity is regulated by sumoylation at a single major site, residue K30. These findings imply that functional redundancy with other family members may mask important roles for CRTR-1 in other tissues, including the blastocyst stage embryo and embryonic stem cells

Large intergenic non-coding RNA-RoR modulates reprogramming of human induced pluripotent stem cells

February 17, 2011The conversion of lineage-committed cells to induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) by reprogramming is accompanied by a global remodeling of the epigenome[superscript 1, 2, 3, 4, 5], resulting in altered patterns of gene expression[superscript 2, 6, 7, 8, 9]. Here we characterize the transcriptional reorganization of large intergenic non-coding RNAs (lincRNAs)[superscript 10, 11] that occurs upon derivation of human iPSCs and identify numerous lincRNAs whose expression is linked to pluripotency. Among these, we defined ten lincRNAs whose expression was elevated in iPSCs compared with embryonic stem cells, suggesting that their activation may promote the emergence of iPSCs. Supporting this, our results indicate that these lincRNAs are direct targets of key pluripotency transcription factors. Using loss-of-function and gain-of-function approaches, we found that one such lincRNA (lincRNA-RoR) modulates reprogramming, thus providing a first demonstration for critical functions of lincRNAs in the derivation of pluripotent stem cells

A segmental genomic duplication generates a functional intron

An intron is an extended genomic feature whose function requires multiple constrained positions—donor and acceptor splice sites, a branch point, a polypyrimidine tract and suitable splicing enhancers—that may be distributed over hundreds or thousands of nucleotides. New introns are therefore unlikely to emerge by incremental accumulation of functional sub-elements. Here we demonstrate that a functional intron can be created de novo in a single step by a segmental genomic duplication. This experiment recapitulates in vivo the birth of an intron that arose in the ancestral jawed vertebrate lineage nearly half-a-billion years ago

Mapping Dynamic Histone Acetylation Patterns to Gene Expression in Nanog-depleted Murine Embryonic Stem Cells

Embryonic stem cells (ESC) have the potential to self-renew indefinitely and to differentiate into any of the three germ layers. The molecular mechanisms for self-renewal, maintenance of pluripotency and lineage specification are poorly understood, but recent results point to a key role for epigenetic mechanisms. In this study, we focus on quantifying the impact of histone 3 acetylation (H3K9,14ac) on gene expression in murine embryonic stem cells. We analyze genome-wide histone acetylation patterns and gene expression profiles measured over the first five days of cell differentiation triggered by silencing Nanog, a key transcription factor in ESC regulation. We explore the temporal and spatial dynamics of histone acetylation data and its correlation with gene expression using supervised and unsupervised statistical models. On a genome-wide scale, changes in acetylation are significantly correlated to changes in mRNA expression and, surprisingly, this coherence increases over time. We quantify the predictive power of histone acetylation for gene expression changes in a balanced cross-validation procedure. In an in-depth study we focus on genes central to the regulatory network of Mouse ESC, including those identified in a recent genome-wide RNAi screen and in the PluriNet, a computationally derived stem cell signature. We find that compared to the rest of the genome, ESC-specific genes show significantly more acetylation signal and a much stronger decrease in acetylation over time, which is often not reflected in an concordant expression change. These results shed light on the complexity of the relationship between histone acetylation and gene expression and are a step forward to dissect the multilayer regulatory mechanisms that determine stem cell fate.Comment: accepted at PLoS Computational Biolog

5-Azacytidine Is Insufficient For Cardiogenesis In Human Adipose-Derived Stem Cells

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Adipose tissue is a source of multipotent adult stem cells and it has the ability to differentiate into several types of cell lineages such as neuron cells, osteogenic cells and adipogenic cells. Several reports have shown adipose-derived stem cells (ASCs) have the ability to undergo cardiomyogenesis. Studies have shown 5-azacytidine can successfully drive stem cells such as bone marrow derived stem cells to differentiate into cardiomyogenic cells. Therefore, in this study, we investigated the effect 5-azacytidine on the cardiogenic ability of ASCs.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>The cardiogenic potential of ASCs was analysed by studying the morphological changes after induction, the changes in the cardiogenic genes expression i.e. GATA4, MLC-2v, MLC-2a, NKX2.5, β-MHC, α-MHC, Atrial natriuretic peptide (ANP), Connexin 43, Cardiac Troponin C, Cardiac Troponin I and myocyte enhancer factor (MEF2C) and the changes of embryonic stem cells genes expression at P5 and P10 using quantitative PCR.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Our results showed that the induced ASCs did not show significant morphological difference compared to the non-induced ASCs. While quantitative PCR data indicated that most cardiogenic genes and stemness genes expression level decreased after induction at P5 and P10.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>5-azacytidine is insufficient for the cardiogenic induction of the ASCs.</p

Structure of hadron resonances with a nearby zero of the amplitude

We discuss the relation between the analytic structure of the scattering amplitude and the origin of an eigenstate represented by a pole of the amplitude.If the eigenstate is not dynamically generated by the interaction in the channel of interest, the residue of the pole vanishes in the zero coupling limit. Based on the topological nature of the phase of the scattering amplitude, we show that the pole must encounter with the Castillejo-Dalitz-Dyson (CDD) zero in this limit. It is concluded that the dynamical component of the eigenstate is small if a CDD zero exists near the eigenstate pole. We show that the line shape of the resonance is distorted from the Breit-Wigner form as an observable consequence of the nearby CDD zero. Finally, studying the positions of poles and CDD zeros of the KbarN-piSigma amplitude, we discuss the origin of the eigenstates in the Lambda(1405) region.Comment: 7 pages, 3 figures, v2: published versio

DNp73 improves generation efficiency of human induced pluripotent stem cells

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Recent studies have found that p53 and its' associated cell cycle pathways are major inhibitors of human induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cell generation. In the same family as p53 is p73, which shares sequence similarities with p53. However, p73 also has distinct properties of its own, such as two alternative promoters to express transactivation of p73 (TAp73) and N terminal deleted p73 (DNp73). Functionally, TAp73 acts similarly to p53 in tumor suppression. However, DNp73, on the other hand acts as an oncogene to suppress p53 and p73 induced apoptosis. Therefore, how can p73 have opposing roles in human iPS cell generation?</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Transcription factors, Oct4, Sox2, Klf4 and cMyc (4TF, Yamanaka factors) are used as basal conditions to generate iPS cells. In addition, the factor of DNp73(actually alpha splicing DNp73, DNp73α) is used to generate iPS cells. The experiment found that the addition of DNp73 gene increases human iPS cell generation efficiency by 12.6 folds in comparison to human fibroblast cells transduced with only the basal conditions. Also, iPS cells generated with DNp73 expression are more resistant to <it>in vitro </it>and <it>in vivo </it>differentiation.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>This study found DNp73, a family member of p53, is also involved in the human iPS cell generation. Specifically, that the involvement of DNp73 generates iPS cells that are more resistant to <it>in vitro </it>and <it>in vivo </it>differentiation. Therefore, this data may prove to be useful in future developmental studies and cancer researches.</p

Evolutionary Emergence of microRNAs in Human Embryonic Stem Cells

Human embryonic stem (hES) cells have unique abilities to divide indefinitely without differentiating and potential to differentiate into more than 200 cell types. These properties make hES cells an ideal model system for understanding early human development and for regenerative medicine. Molecular mechanisms including cellular signaling and transcriptional regulation play important roles in hES cell differentiation. However, very little information is available on posttranscriptional regulation of hES cell pluripotency, self-renewal, and early decisions about cell fate. microRNAs (miRNAs), 22-nt long non-coding small RNAs found in plants and animals, regulate gene expression by targeting mRNAs for cleavage or translation repression. In hES cells we found that 276 miRNAs were expressed; of these, a set of 30 miRNAs had significantly changed expression during differentiation. Using a representative example, miR-302b, we show that miRNAs in human ES cells assemble into a bona fide RISC that contains Ago2 and can specifically cleave perfectly matched target RNA. Our results demonstrate that human ES cell differentiation is accompanied by changes in the expression of a unique set of miRNAs, providing a glimpse of a new molecular circuitry that may regulate early development in humans. Chromosomes 19 and X contained 98 and 40 miRNA genes, respectively, indicating that majority of miRNA genes in hES cells were expressed from these two chromosomes. Strikingly, distribution analysis of miRNA gene loci across six species including dog, rat, mouse, rhesus, chimpanzee, and human showed that miRNA genes encoded in chromosome 19 were drastically increased in chimpanzees and humans while miRNA gene loci on other chrosmomes were decreased as compared with dog, rat, and mouse. Comparative genomic studies showed 99% conservation of chromosome 19 miRNA genes between chimpanzees and humans. Together, these findings reveal the evolutionary emergence, ∼5 million years ago, of miRNAs involved in regulating early human development. One could imagine that this burst of miRNA gene clusters at specific chromosomes was part of an evolutionary event during species divergence