64 research outputs found
Enhanced expression of complement regulatory proteins on thyroid epithelial cells of Graves' disease.
Cytotoxic anti-thyroid microsomal autoantibodies are highly prevalent in sera of patients with Graves' disease, but in Graves' disease thyroid tissues rarely show destructive changes. We postulated that this might be due to membrane-associated complement regulatory proteins which protect target cells from injury by complement activation. We, therefore, investigated the expression of membrane attack complex inhibitory factor (MACIF) and decay accelerating factor (DAF) in the thyroid tissues from patients with Graves' disease, Hashimoto's thyroiditis, thyroid adenocarcinoma and normal human thyroid tissues. We found a high level of expression of MACIF and DAF in Graves' thyroid tissues. Using the membrane immunofluorescence and cell-ELISA techniques, we also investigated the factors which enhanced the MACIF and DAF expression in cultured thyroid cells. Thyroid stimulating hormone, phorbol 12, 13-dibutyrate and thyroid stimulating autoantibody enhanced the MACIF and DAF expression. These findings suggest that the membrane complement regulatory proteins increase in response to the thyroid stimulating factors such as thyroid stimulating autoantibody in Graves' disease and that this increase then protects the cells from damage due to complement activation by thyroid autoantibodies.</p
Elementary vortex pinning potential in a chiral p-wave superconductor
The elementary vortex pinning potential is studied in a chiral p-wave
superconductor with a pairing d=z(k_x + i k_y) on the basis of the
quasiclassical theory of superconductivity. An analytical investigation and
numerical results are presented to show that the vortex pinning potential is
dependent on whether the vorticity and chirality are parallel or antiparallel.
Mutual cancellation of the vorticity and chirality around a vortex is
physically crucial to the effect of the pinning center inside the vortex core.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures include
Nuclear magnetic relaxation and superfluid density in Fe-pnictide superconductors: An anisotropic \pm s-wave scenario
We discuss the nuclear magnetic relaxation rate and the superfluid density
with the use of the effective five-band model by Kuroki et al. [Phys. Rev.
Lett. 101, 087004 (2008)] in Fe-based superconductors. We show that a
fully-gapped anisotropic \pm s-wave superconductivity consistently explains
experimental observations. In our phenomenological model, the gaps are assumed
to be anisotropic on the electron-like \beta Fermi surfaces around the M point,
where the maximum of the anisotropic gap is about four times larger than the
minimum.Comment: 10 pages, 8 figures; Submitted versio
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