Stable and functional expression of the CIC-3 chloride channel in somatic cell lines

AbstractThe CIC family is the superfamily of voltage-gated Cl− channels. Although the CIC channels expressed in Xenopus oocytes have been characterized, their channel properties are still poorly understood. We recently cloned a unique member of the CIC family, CIC-3, that is expressed abundantly in neurons. Its channel activity was regulated by phorbol esters. Now, we have established a stably transfected somatic cell line expressing functional CIC-3 channels and examined the CIC-3 single-channel current by patch-clamp techniques. In inside-out patches from the stably transfected cells, a rise of bath Ca2+ concentration in the physiological range of intracellular Ca2+ concentrations inhibited the CIC-3 single-channel currents. This inhibition by Ca2+ was independent of phosphorylation and ATP. Thus, the CIC-3 channel is a Ca2+-sensitive CI− channel localized in neuronal cells, and its Ca2+ sensitivity implies a physiological role in neuronal functions

String-like occluding region extraction for background restoration

In this paper, we propose a method for extracting string-like objects in a still image for background restoration. We assume that the object regions occluding the background are long and narrow, and contrasted in intensity with background. First the method introduces a circle contrast, the intensity difference between a pixel and those on a circle around, to find the occluding string-like regions. Then the signs of the circle contrast are decided so that the occluding regions and backgrounds are well separated, and further enhanced by an optimization process. Extracted regions are removed with interpolation (inpainting) for background restoration. Experimental results on real images show the validity of the proposed method

Extraction and elimination of parallel obstacles for image restoration

10th Korea-Japan Joint Workshop on Frontiers of Computer Vision (FCV2004), Slides ; Place : Fukuoka, Japan ; Date : February 3-4, 200

String-like occluding region extraction for background restoration

The 18th International Conference on Pattern Recognition : ICPR 2006, slides ; Place : Hong Kong, China ; Date : August 20-24, 200