In the present study, we have investigated whether changes in vascular reactivity in congestive heart failure (CHF) patients can be detected in the cutaneous microvessels and whether these changes are due to endothelial dysfunction, are affected by increasing age and related to an ongoing inflammation. The responses to local warming and iontophoretically administered endothelium-dependent and -ind

Background: Different scales claim to measure the construct ‘‘Sense of Coherence’’. Results from these scales have been compared without knowing whether they measure the same construct. This article compares two versions of Antonovsky’s original scale (SOC-13 and SOC-29), translated into Swedish, and a three-item scale (SOC-3) that claims to measure Sense of Coherence. Methods: The data were anal

INTRODUCTION: The ADL Staircase is a hierarchical instrument for the assessment of dependence/independence in personal and instrumental activities of daily living (P-ADL and I-ADL). Previous results indicated that environmental factors might affect assessment results, and revisions for use in rural areas have been tested with a gerontological population sample. OBJECTIVE: To investigate further th

A novel type of approximation scheme to the maximum likelihood (ML) approach is presented and discussed in the context of phylogenetic tree reconstruction from aligned DNA sequences. It is based on a parameterized approximation to the conditional distribution of hidden variables (related, e.g., to the sequences of unobserved branch point ancestors) given the observed data. A modified likelihood, b

The receptor Tyro3 together with Axl and Mer form the Axl/Tyro3 family of receptor tyrosine kinases. Members of this family play essential roles in spermatogenesis, immunoregulation, and phagocytosis. Gas6, the product of growth arrest-specific gene, activates the kinase activity of all three receptors. Here, we report the first biochemical and structural characterization of a member of this famil

The calcium release channels (CRC)/ryanodine receptors of skeletal (Sk) and cardiac (C) muscle sarcoplasmic reticulum (SR) are hetero-oligomeric complexes with the structural formulas (ryanodine recepter (RyR)1 protomer)4(FKBP12)4 and (RyR2 protomer)4(FKBP12.6)4, respectively, where FKBP12 and FKBP12.6 are isoforms of the 12-kDa receptor for the immunosuppressant drug FK506. The sequence similarit

BACKGROUND. Hypoxia induces increased tumor growth by promoting angiogenic and glycolytic pathways. Tumors expressing hypoxia-inducible factor-la (HIF-1 alpha), an important transcriptional activator of oxygen-regulated genes, are resistant to chemotherapy and radiotherapy. The major challenge in prostate cancer therapy today is to gain a better understanding of the development of hormone-refracto

Starch and pullulan-modifying enzymes of the alpha-amylase family (glycoside hydrolase family 13) have several industrial applications. To date, most of these enzymes have been derived from isolated organisms. To increase the number of members of this enzyme family, in particular of the thermophilic representatives, we have applied a consensus primer-based approach using DNA from enrichments from

The hottest developments in the fields of cancer research, neuroscience, genomics and proteomics, anti-virals and more, with a pick of the key research papers in these areas.

A novel technique for two-dimensional measurements of soot volume fraction and particle size has been developed. It is based on a combined measurement of extinction and laser-induced incandescence using Nd:YAG laser wavelengths of 532 nm and 1064 nm. A low-energy laser pulse at 532 nm was used for extinction measurements and was followed by a more intense pulse at 1064 nm, delayed by 15 ns, for LI

Objectives. The purpose of this study was to determine the impact of iron status on cadmium dose among pregnant women. Methods. Iron status and cadmium concentration in blood, urine, and placenta were determined among women followed for 2 years from early pregnancy. Results. Blood cadmium and urinary cadmium were correlated with iron status throughout the study period. Urinary cadmium increased lo

New chemical probes were synthesized to label galectin-3. They are based on the high affinity thiodigalactoside ligand. The probes were synthesized with benzophenone or acetophenone moieties as the photolabel for covalent attachment to the protein. Besides labeling the protein, these aromatic photolabels also greatly enhance the affinity of the probes towards galectin-3, due to the interaction of

Background: Thrombomodulin (TM) is predominantly a vascular endothelial cell plasma membrane glycoprotein that, via distinct structural domains, interacts with multiple ligands, thereby modulating coagulation, fibrinolysis, complement activation, inflammation and cell proliferation. We previously reported that by mediating signals that interfere with mitogen-activated protein kinase and nuclear fa

Aberrations in the GI/S transition of the cell cycle have been observed in many malignancies and seem to be critical in the transformation process. Few studies have delineated the presence of GI/S regulatory defects and their clinical relevance in renal cell carcinoma (RCC). Therefore, we have examined the protein contents of cyclin D 1, D3, E, and p27 in 218 RCCs, using tissue microarray and immu

The SIOP nephroblastoma clinical trials have previously demonstrated that preoperative chemotherapy is advantageous for patients with nephroblastoma (Wilms' tumour). However, some primary tumours increase in size during preoperative chemotherapy, and to investigate the clinical relevance of this progression we studied the patient cohort with increasing tumours included in the SIOP 93-01 study (Jun