Microtubules (MTs) are important cytoskeletal structures engaged in a number of specific cellular activities, including vesicular traffic, cell cyto-architecture and motility, cell division, and information processing within neuronal processes. MTs have also been implicated in higher neuronal functions, including memory and the emergence of "consciousness". How MTs handle and process electrical...

Microtubules (MTs) are fibrous and tube-like cell substructures exist in cytoplasm of cells which play a vital role in many cellular processes. Surface effects on the vibration of bioliquid MTs surrounded by cytoplasm is investigated in this study. The emphasis is placed on the effect of the motor protein motion on the MTs. The MT is modeled as an orthotropic beam and the surrounded cytoplasm i...

All TV-video systems receive and/or process the audio portion of the TV signal. The audio circuits may receive only the monaural portion or may decode the MTS stereo and SAP audio signals as well. The Electronics Industry Association (EIA) reports that sales of MTS Stereo TV receivers have enjoyed six straight years of double digit increases. MTS Stereo decoder circuits are now virtually standa...

We present a computational model to test a "polarity sorting" mechanism for microtubule (MT) organization in developing axons. We simulate the motor-based axonal transport of short MTs to test the hypothesis that immobilized cytoplasmic dynein motors transport short MTs with their plus ends leading, so "mal-oriented" MTs with minus-end-out are transported toward the cell body while "correctly" ...

BACKGROUND Tamm-Horsfall glycoprotein (THP) and uromodulin are the most abundant glycoproteins in non-pregnant women's/men's and pregnant women's urine, respectively. However, the bioactivities of these glycoproteins are still unclear. OBJECTIVE To evaluate the immunomodulatory properties of THP and uromodulin on human peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) METHODS: THP and uromodulin isol...

Plant metallothioneins (MTs), which are cysteine-rich, low-molecular-weight, and metal-binding proteins, play important roles in detoxification, metal ion homeostasis, and metal transport adjustment. In this study, a novel metallothionein gene, designated as ScMT2-1-3 (GenBank Accession number JQ627644), was identified from sugarcane. ScMT2-1-3 was 700 bp long, including a 240 bp open reading f...

Phortress is a novel benzothiazole compound with activity concentrated in certain breast, ovarian and renal cancer cell lines. Its anti-angiogenic effects are unknown. In this study, the in vitro anti-angiogenic effects of Phortress were screened for and results compared with two control drugs, paclitaxel and fumagillin. in vitro anti-angiogenic activity was examined by MTS assays, growth curve...

Microtubules (MTs) polymerized with GMPCPP, a slowly hydrolyzable GTP analogue, are stable in buffer but are rapidly depolymerized in Xenopus egg extracts. This depolymerization is independent of three previously identified MT destabilizers (Op18, katanin, and XKCM1/KinI). We purified the factor responsible for this novel depolymerizing activity using biochemical fractionation and a visual acti...

Magnetic nanoparticles [MNPs] made from iron oxides have many applications in biomedicine. Full understanding of the interactions between MNPs and mammalian cells is a critical issue for their applications. In this study, MNPs were coated with poly(ethylenimine) [MNP-PEI] and poly(ethylene glycol) [MNP-PEI-PEG] to provide a subtle difference in their surface charge and their cytotoxicity which ...

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE We objectively assessed surface structural changes of the hippocampus in mesial temporal sclerosis (MTS) and assessed the ability of large-deformation high-dimensional mapping (HDM-LD) to demonstrate hippocampal surface symmetry and predict group classification of MTS in right and left MTS groups compared with control subjects. METHODS Using eigenvector field analysis o...