calcineurin (can) is a ca2+/calmodulin (ca2+/cam)-dependent serine/threonine protein phosphatase expressed in most mammalian tissues but found at higher concentration in brain. in the last decade there have been a steadily increasing number of studies identifying neuronal can as a primary suspect in neuronal vulnerability, synapse loss, dendritic atrophy, synaptic dysfunction and neuroinflammat...

Gastrointestinal motility disorders, severe variants in particular, remain a therapeutic challenge in pediatric surgery. Absence of enteric ganglion cells that originate from neural crest cells is a major cause of dysmotility. However, the limitations of currently available animal models of dysmotility continue to impede the development of new therapeutics. Indeed, the short lifespan and/or poo...

The aim of this study was to examine mitogen-activated protein kinase (ERK1/2) activation in the human neonatal colonic enteric nervous system. For this, we investigated by immunocytochemistry the cellular localization of phosphorylated ERK1/2 (P-ERK) in a series of normal human colon samples removed from newborns and in patients with intestinal obstruction such as Hirschsprung's disease (HSCR)...

the chick model is a useful research tool to investigate the development of the enteric nervous system (ens). recognition of appropriate markers for detection of chick enteric ganglia will allow better utilization of this model to study abnormalities of the ens. this study aimed to validate a set of antibodies for avian ens studies on wax sections. the specimens were taken from jejunum and colo...

BACKGROUND Colonic diverticular disease (diverticulosis) is a common disorder in Western countries. Although its pathogenesis is probably multifactorial, motor abnormalities of the large bowel are thought to play an important role. However, little is known about the basic mechanism that may underlie abnormal colon motility in diverticulosis. AIMS To investigate the interstitial cells of Cajal...

Peripheral glia includes predominantly myelinating and non-myelinating Schwann cells in addition to satellite, terminal and enteric glia as well as other unresolved subtypes with localized functions. Of these subtypes, all of them originate from neural crest-derived embryonic Schwann cell precursors (SCPs). Specific gene regulatory networks control neural crest specification and downstream even...

Calcium signaling in fura-2 acetoxymethyl ester-loaded enteric glia was investigated in response to neuroligands; responses to AlP were studied in detail. Carbachol (1 mM), glutamate (100 jiM), norepinephrine (10 jiM), and substance P (1 pM) did not increase the intracellular calcium concentration ([Ca24 ],) in cultured enteric glia. An increasing percentage of glia responded to serotonin (4%; ...

Figure 1. Neuronal-glia ineractions during intestinal inflammation and neural stem cell transfer. ATP, adenosine triphosphate; NO, nitric oxide; P2X7R, purinergic receptor P2X, ligand gated ion channel, 7. Cneurons in the human body. For more than a century, physicians and scientists have argued that glia provide the fundamental infrastructure and life support to neurons, without which the brai...