(C) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.”
“We report a combined dynamic light scattering (DLS) and neutron spin-echo (NSE) study on the local bilayer selleck chemical undulation dynamics of phospholipid vesicles composed of 1,2-dimyristoyl-glycero-3-phosphatidylcholine (DMPC) under the influence of temperature and the additives cholesterol and trehalose. The additives
affect vesicle size and self-diffusion. Mechanical properties of the membrane and corresponding bilayer undulations are tuned by changing lipid headgroup or acyl chain properties through temperature or composition. On the local length scale, changes at the lipid headgroup influence the bilayer bending rigidity is less than changes at the lipid acyl chain: We observe selleck screening library a bilayer softening around the main phase transition temperature T. of the single lipid system, and stiffening when more cholesterol is added, in concordance with literature. Surprisingly, no effect on the mechanical properties of the vesicles is observed upon the addition of trehalose. (C) 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.”
“Objective. To clarify the clinical significance of antiphospholipid antibody (aPL) profile
in patients with obstetric antiphospholipid syndrome (APS). Methods. Clinical records of 13 pregnant patients (15 pregnancies) with obstetrical APS were reviewed over 10 years. Patients who met the Sapporo Criteria fully were studied, whereas those with only early pregnancy loss were excluded. In addition to classical aPL: lupus
anticoagulant (LA), anticardiolipin antibody (aCL), and anti-beta(2)-glycoprotein I (a beta 2GPI); phosphatidylserine-dependent anti-prothrombin antibody (aPS/PT) and kininogen-dependent anti-phosphatidylethanolamine antibody (aPE) were also examined in each case. Results. Cases were divided into two groups according to patient response to standard treatment: good and poor outcome groups. All cases with poor outcome presented LA, with IgG a beta 2GPI and IgG aPS/PT were also frequently observed. IgG aPE did not correlate with pregnancy outcome. Conclusion. aPL profile may predict pregnancy outcome in patients with this subset of obstetric APS.”
“Tokita K, Yamamoto T, Boughter JD S63845 Jr. Gustatory neural responses to umami stimuli in the parabrachial nucleus of C57BL/6J mice. J Neurophysiol 107: 1545-1555, 2012. First published December 14, 2011; doi:10.1152/jn.00799.2011.-Umami is considered to be the fifth basic taste quality and is elicited by glutamate. The mouse is an ideal rodent model for the study of this taste quality because of evidence that suggests that this species, like humans, may sense umami-tasting compounds as unique from other basic taste qualities. We performed single-unit recording of taste responses in the parabrachial nucleus (PbN) of anesthetized C57BL/6J mice to investigate the central representation of umami taste.