Monitoring the DNA-Damage Response (DDR) activated pathway in multicellular tumor spheroid models is an important challenge as these 3D models have demonstrated their major relevance in pharmacological evaluation. Herein we present DDR-Act-FP, a fluorescent biosensor that allows detection of DDR activation through monitoring of the p21 promoter p53-dependent activation. We show that cells expre...

Inwardly rectifying potassium (Kir) channels regulate multiple tissues. All Kir channels require interaction of phosphatidyl-4,5-bisphosphate (PIP2) at a crystallographically identified binding site, but an additional nonspecific secondary anionic phospholipid (PL(-)) is required to generate high PIP2 sensitivity of Kir2 channel gating. The PL(-)-binding site and mechanism are yet to be elucida...

We present the frailtyHL package for fitting semi-parametric frailty models using hlikelihood. This package allows lognormal or gamma frailties for random-effect distribution, and it fits shared or multilevel frailty models for correlated survival data. Functions are provided to format and summarize the frailtyHL results. The estimates of fixed effects and frailty parameters and their standard ...

Human autoimmune diseases thought to arise from the combined effects of multiple susceptibility genes include systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) and autoimmune diabetes. Well-characterised polygenic mouse models closely resembling each of these diseases exist, and genetic evidence links receptors for the Fc portion of immunoglobulin G (FcR) with their pathogenesis in mice and humans [1] [2] [3]...

Introduction Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is accompanied by complex immune alterations and inflammation, the possible role played Natural Killer (NK) in such only barely understood. Methods To address this question we analysed activating inhibitory NK receptors, as well cells phenotype function a group of mothers children who developed ASD (ASD-MO; N=24) comparing results to those obtained he...

The aim of the study was to evaluate the function of monocytes in children with leukemias and lymphomas based on the expression of critical costimulatory, activatory and adhesion molecules (CD80, CD86, HLA-DR and CD54 = ICAM-1), estimated with tricolor flow cytometry. In comparison to the control group we found a lower percentage of monocytes with costimulatory molecules (CD80 before and CD86 a...

Natural cytotoxic effector functions are regulated by a multitude of opposing signals provided by immunoglobulin and lectin-like functional molecules. While inhibitory receptors possess immunoreceptor tyrosine-based inhibition motif (ITIM) cytoplasmic sequences recruiting tyrosine phosphatases, activatory receptors require association with accesory immunoreceptor tyrosine-based activation motif...