Myocyte-specific overexpression of stromal cell-derived Factor 1 facilitates cardiac regeneration and improves myocardial function after infarction in mice.

Background: Interruption of cardiac stromal cell-derived factor 1 (SDF1)-CXCR4 axis by chronic AMD3100 administration increased myocardial injury after permanent coronary artery ligation, demonstrating the important role of this chemokine in cardiac regeneration. Hypothesis: Cardiomyocyte-specific conditional overexpression of SDF prevents heart failure after permanent coronary ligation and facilitates cardiac regeneration. Methods and Results: Tetracycline-controlled, a-myosine heavy chain promoter directed overexpression of cardiac SDF resulted in a significant increase of SDF expression (SDF: 8.1 ng / g protein) compared with littermate WT mice (0.02 ng / g protein) four weeks after doxycycline withdrawal. SDF overexpression increased AKT and casein kinase 1 levels in the heart. Although there was no difference in cardiac function and scar size one week after infarction, SDF overexpression improved left ventricular (LV) ejection fraction (47±5% vs. 29±4%, p \u3c 0.05) decreased end-diastolic volume (78±10 vs. 158±30, p \u3c 0.05) and reduced infarct size measured by trichrome staining (SDF): 13±3% vs. WT (n=15): 23±3% of LV wall, p \u3c 0.05) four weeks after permanent ligation. Bromodeoxyuridine (BrdU) staining revealed increased regeneration indicated by a 5-fold increase in BrdU+ / a-sarcomeric actin+-cells in the border zone of the infarct (22±3% cardiomyocyte (CM) nuclei vs. 5±1% CM nuclei, p \u3c 0.01). Increased proliferation in SDF mice was confirmed by a higher number of Ki67+ cells compared to WT mice. Cardiomyocyte cross sectional area in the border zone was significantly reduced in SDF mice (375±13 µm2 vs. 434±10 µm2, p \u3c 0.001) while capillary density remained unchanged (2348±151 / mm2 vs. 2498±153 / mm2) compared to WT mice. Conclusion: This study demonstrates that cardiac-specific overexpression of SDF increases myocardial regeneration and improves LV function after permanent coronary ligation

The Great War in Poland-Lithuania from A Jewish Perspective: Modernization and Orientalization

The article presents views of Eastern Judaism, especially in Lithuania, in the Jewish press around the Great War. It is based on a close research of journals, newspapers and book-publications written in the German language. It evidences the global implications of the Great War due, among others, to forced and voluntary migrations that involved cultural encounters, confrontations and challenges. The Other, signifying a collective excluded from the social whole, in those days perceived in the Eastern Jew, meant an embarrassment to the Western Jews (Albanis: 30) and served the function of constructing self-identity, involving them in conflicts or making them develop a dual allegiance (Moshe Gresser; Albanis). Should Jews, if they were to become proper Europeans, not decisively shed their Asian being and carriage and thus de-orientalize themselves? The paper also demonstrates that this historical phase of Jewish history, as it deeply involves the problem of secularization, is connected to intricate problems of identity. It can also illustrate a certain openness and fluidity of identitarian possibilities. The issues involved have a clear relevance for contemporary societies, centred around the question if modernity requires minorities to surrender their particularism, or if is there a suble dialectic between universalism and particularism. Implicitly the core issue also raises the question of a common history of Islam and Judaism and the current problem if antisemitism, as targeted at the Eastern Jews, is comparable to contemporary Islamophobia

One-Forms on Spaces of Embeddings : A Frame Work for Constitutive Laws in Elasticity

The contribution to this volume comes from non-linear functional analysis and is motivated by a traditional part of physics. More precisely, the motivation arises from elasticity theory : Given a body, thought of as a smooth compact manifold M', possibly with boundary, moving and deforming in IRn,the latter equipped with a fixed scalar product. The deformations shall be such that the diffeomorphism type does not change. Hence M' is the image under a smooth embedding of a smooth compact manifold M, possibly with boundary ∂M. Therefore the collection E(M,IRn) of all smooth embeddings of M into IRn is the collection of all the configuration under considerations. It is a Fréchet manifold if endowed with the C∞-topology

Der Handel um die Seele

1886 veröffentlicht der Czernowitzer Schriftsteller Ernst Rudolf Neubauer (18221890) ein Schauspiel in drei Acten mit dem Titel Der Handel um die Seele. Das Stück thematisiert freilich nicht in der Tradition des Faust-Stoffes das Ringen himmlischer Mächte um das jenseitige Schicksal eines Menschen. Vielmehr geht es darin höchst profan um einen skrupellosen Großhändler, der aus Geldgier seine Seele an einen anderen Handelsmann verkauft und dadurch unvorhergesehen in die unterschiedlichsten dramatischen Verwicklungen gerät. Das Schauspiel reflektiert damit auf der einen Seite Krisenphänomene eines entfesselten Kapitalismus und zugleich der wirtschaftlicher Depression nach dem Gründerkrach von 1873 wie auch die damals grassierende materialistisch-sozialdarwinistische Rechtfertigung riskanter Spekulationsgeschäfte. Andererseits literarisiert der Text die Czernowitzer Juden als größte Bevölkerungsgruppe in der Hauptstadt der Bukowina, des östlichsten Kronlandes der Habsburgermonarchie. Er führt insbesondere sehr anschaulich die immensen religiösen, ideologischen und materiellen Unterschiede zwischen den diversen jüdischen Gruppierungen und Milieus von assimilierten Handelsleuten über Vertreter der hochgebildeten Aufklärung (Haskala) bis hin zu ekstatisch-frommen Chassidim vor. Der Text dieses außergewöhnlichen literatur- und kulturgeschichtlichen Dokuments wird in der vorliegenden Ausgabe erstmals sorgfältig ediert und mit ausführlichen Sprach- und Sacherläuterungen kommentiert sowie in einem Nachwort historisch detailliert eingeordnet

Der Handel um die Seele

1886 veröffentlicht der Czernowitzer Schriftsteller Ernst Rudolf Neubauer (1822–1890) ein Schauspiel in drei Acten mit dem Titel Der Handel um die Seele. Das Stück thematisiert freilich nicht in der Tradition des Faust-Stoffes das Ringen himmlischer Mächte um das jenseitige Schicksal eines Menschen. Vielmehr geht es darin höchst profan um einen skrupellosen Großhändler, der aus Geldgier seine Seele an einen anderen Handelsmann verkauft und dadurch unvorhergesehen in die unterschiedlichsten dramatischen Verwicklungen gerät. Das Schauspiel reflektiert damit auf der einen Seite Krisenphänomene eines entfesselten Kapitalismus und zugleich der wirtschaftlicher Depression nach dem Gründerkrach von 1873 wie auch die damals grassierende materialistisch-sozialdarwinistische Rechtfertigung riskanter Spekulationsgeschäfte. Andererseits literarisiert der Text die Czernowitzer Juden als größte Bevölkerungsgruppe in der Hauptstadt der Bukowina, des östlichsten Kronlandes der Habsburgermonarchie. Er führt insbesondere sehr anschaulich die immensen religiösen, ideologischen und materiellen Unterschiede zwischen den diversen jüdischen Gruppierungen und Milieus von assimilierten Handelsleuten über Vertreter der hochgebildeten Aufklärung (Haskala) bis hin zu ekstatisch-frommen Chassidim vor. Der Text dieses außergewöhnlichen literatur- und kulturgeschichtlichen Dokuments wird in der vorliegenden Ausgabe erstmals sorgfältig ediert und mit ausführlichen Sprach- und Sacherläuterungen kommentiert sowie in einem Nachwort historisch detailliert eingeordnet

BioRegal

Das Forschungs- und Entwicklungsprojekt BioRegal sollte die Absatzsteigerung ökologischer Lebensmittel durch die Gewinnung neuer Kunden in weiteren Vertriebskanälen exemplarisch forcieren. So sollte die Ausweitung der landwirtschaftlichen Flächen, die ökologisch bewirtschaftet werden, vorangetrieben werden. Unter Einbeziehung des regionalen Lebensmittelhandwerks (Bäckereien) wurden dazu in der Testregion Unterfranken 23 BioRegale eingeführt, die als neue Vertriebsstellen ein Sortiment ökologischer regionaler Lebensmittel des täglichen Bedarfs in Ergänzung zu ihrem traditionellen Sortiment anboten. Das erforderliche Logistiksystem wurde aufgebaut und in einer Testphase auf Praxistauglichkeit erprobt. In dieser Phase wurden Kommunikationsmittel eingeführt, deren Wirksamkeit in wissenschaftlicher Begleitung ermittelt wurde. Es wurden auch die Verkaufsstandorte mit ihren Vor- und Nachteilen analysiert, die Verkaufszahlen ausgewertet sowie die Sonderverkaufsmaßnahme erprobt

Genotoxicity of nitroso compounds and sodium dichromate in a model combining organ cultures of human nasal epithelia and the comet assay

Genotoxic effects of xenobiotics are a possible step in tumor initiation in the mucosa of the upper aerodigestive tract. Using the comet assay, detecting genotoxicity in human tissue has been restricted to single incubations in vitro, but in vivo most xenobiotics harm their target in a repetitive or chronic manner. Therefore, we propose a model, which provides repetitive incubations in human upper aerodigestive tract mucosa cultures. Samples of human inferior nasal turbinate mucosa (n = 25) were cultured according to a modified version of a technique originally described by Steinsvag. On day 1 fresh samples and on days 7, 9 and 11 organ cultures were incubated with N-nitrosodiethylamine (NDEA), sodium dichromate (Na2Cr2O7) and N'-methyl-N-nitro-N-nitrosoguanidine(MNNG). Mucosa samples and organ cultures, respectively, underwent a modified comet assay on days 1, 7 and 11. Genotoxicity could be shown for NDEA, Na2Cr2O7 and MNNG on days 1, 7 and 11. Duration of tissue culture and repetitive incubations did not significantly influence the results for NDEA. Nevertheless, Na2Cr2O7 and MNNG caused higher genotoxic effects on cultures subjected to the comet assay on day 11. This model may help to assess genotoxic hazards posed by environ mental pollutants that have a cumulative character in repetitive or chronic exposure in vivo. Copyright (C) 2001 S. Karger AG, Basel

Perinatal circumstances in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania : studies on some physiological aspects in the tropics

The effect of mild to moderate maternal undernutrition on intrauterine and subsequent growth and development in man remains largely unknown. Little is known of the physiological and particularly the metabolic aspects of the maternal/fetal relationship under these circumstances. The great difficulty is to construct an experimental situation suitable for investigation in man. In animal the construction of an experiment is simpler and as a result much of our recent knowledge is mainly derived from animal studies. These have shown that maternal nutritional restriction during pregnancy may reduce the size of the offspring and may retard subsequent postnatal growth. Morphological and histochemical alterations of fetal organs have been documented while the rate of cell multiplication in brain is diminished

Strontium, a Tracer to Study the Transport of Calcium in Mineralizing Tissues by Electron Probe Microanalysis

In growth plate cartilage the mineralization starts extracellularly in the lower hypertrophic zone. The mineral formed is the calcium phosphate apatite. Enough calcium and phosphate must be available at the mineralization front as well as in regions with proceeding mineralization. There must be a transport of Ca (and phosphate) to these sites. Electron probe X-ray microanalysis is a well established method to analyze element concentrations in small volumes, but it cannot discriminate isotopes. Strontium is similar to Ca in its chemical and biological behaviour and is therefore a suitable tracer to investigate the transport of Ca. Small amounts of Sr (0.1 g per kg body weight) were administered intraperitoneally to young rats. After definite intervals of time ranging from 10 to 120 min, 2-4 rats were killed. On freeze dried cryosections the Sr/Ca ratio of the serum and of the intra- and extracellular space of the growth plate were measured. The Sr/Ca ratio reaches its maximum after about 10 min in the serum and after 20 min in the extracellular space of growth plate cartilage. The intracellular Sr/Ca ratio shows large variations because of the low intracellular Ca and Sr concentration, and is lower than the extracellular ratio for times shorter than 30 min. No significant differences were found between the different cell zones of the unmineralized growth plate cartilage. The results demonstrate that the transport of Ca to the growth plate cartilage is relatively fast and that in growth plate cartilage, Ca is transported extracellularly, not intracellularly