A molecular dynamics investigation of the effects of a diluent on the detonation of a model crystalline explosive is presented. The diluent, a heavy material that cannot exothermally react with any species of the system, is inserted into the crystalline explosive in two ways. The first series of simulations investigates the attenuation of the energy of a detonation wave in a pure explosive afte...

Immunity-related GTPases (IRG) play an important role in defense against intracellular pathogens. One member of this gene family in humans, IRGM, has been recently implicated as a risk factor for Crohn's disease. We analyzed the detailed structure of this gene family among primates and showed that most of the IRG gene cluster was deleted early in primate evolution, after the divergence of the a...

We originated and characterized melanoma cell lines derived from tumors of two feline and two canine veterinary patients. These lines reestablished the morphology, physiology and cell heterogeneity of their respective parental tumors. We evaluated the cytotoxicity of bleomycin (BLM) alone, or combined with interferon-β (IFN-β) or HSVtk/GCV suicide gene (SG) lipofection on these cells. Although ...

Loss of epithelial cell polarity promotes cell invasion and cancer dissemination. Therefore, identification of factors that disrupt polarized acinar formation is crucial. Reactive oxygen species (ROS) drive cancer progression and promote inflammation. Here, we show that the non-polarized breast cancer cell line T4-2 generates significantly higher ROS levels than polarized S1 and T4R cells in th...

All eukaryotic cells replicate segments of their genomes in a defined temporal sequence. In multicellular organisms, at least half of the genome is subject to changes in this temporal sequence during development. We now know that this temporal sequence and its developmentally regulated changes are conserved across distantly related species, suggesting that it either represents or reflects somet...

Acute and chronic inflammation is characterized by increased reactive oxygen species (ROS) production, dysregulation of mitochondrial metabolism and abnormal immune function contributing to cardiovascular diseases and sepsis. Clinical and epidemiological studies suggest potential beneficial effects of dietary interventions in inflammatory diseases but understanding of how nutrients work remains...

Arousal from deep hibernation is accompanied by a transient rise of melatonin (Mel) in circulation; there are no comparable analyses of Mel concentrations in species that undergo much shallower, shorter duration episodes of daily torpor. Serum Mel concentrations were determined during arousal from both natural daily torpor and torpor induced by 2-deoxy-D-glucose (2-DG) treatment (2,500 mg/kg, i...

The success or failure of interspecific crosses is vital to evolution and to agriculture, but much remains to be learned about the nature of hybridization barriers. Several mechanisms have been proposed to explain postzygotic barriers, including negative interactions between diverged sequences, global genome rearrangements, and widespread epigenetic reprogramming. Another explanation is imbalan...

This report offers a consensus opinion on the diagnosis of spontaneous canine hyperadrenocorticism. The possibility that a patient has hyperadrenocorticism is based on the history and physical examination. Endocrine tests should be performed only when clinical signs consistent with HAC are present. None of the biochemical screening or differentiating tests for hyperadrenocorticism are perfect. ...

PCR mutagenesis of a 0.9-kbp fragment, containing a repressor gene, traR, and its target promoter, Ptra, from Streptomyces nigrifaciens plasmid pSN22, produced Streptomyces lividans clones with temperature-inducible Ptra expression. Using the promoterless gene for the thermostable Thermus flavus malate dehydrogenase as an indicator, an induction of enzyme activity of as much as was observed in ...