BACKGROUND Human Plexin-B1 is expressed in two truncated forms. The long form encodes a trans-membranal protein, while the short form, which is bound to the cell surface and partially secreted, possibly serves as a decoy receptor. Plexin receptors are trans-membrane proteins. The sema domain, found in the extracellular region, is common to all plexins, semaphorins, and the scatter factor recept...

Dietary sphingolipids such as glucosylceramide (GlcCer) are potential nutritional factors associated with prevention of metabolic syndrome. Our current understanding is that dietary GlcCer is degraded to ceramide and further metabolized to sphingoid bases in the intestine. However, ceramide is only found in trace amounts in food plants and thus is frequently taken as GlcCer in a health suppleme...

In human skeletal muscle, myoblasts represent the main population of myogenic progenitors. We previously showed that, beside their myogenic differentiation capacities, myoblasts also differentiate towards osteogenic and chondrogenic lineages, some properties generally considered being hallmarks of mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs). MSCs are also characterized by their immunosuppressive potential, t...

Human lymphotropic virus type 1 (HTLV-1) is a retrovirus causing HTLV-1-associated myelopathy/tropical spastic paraparesis (HAM/TSP), a neurodegenerative central nervous system (CNS) axonopathy. This virus mainly infects CD4(+) T lymphocytes without evidence of neuronal infection. Viral Tax, secreted from infected lymphocytes infiltrated in the CNS, is proposed to alter intracellular pathways r...

Agroforestry systems (AFS) represent an alternative to the current agricultural model, based on monoculture, mechanization, and intensive use of agrochemicals. The aim this study was characterize existing AFS in Southern region Brazil understand how their forestry certification process is conducted by official governmental body (SEMA-RS). Interviews were carried out with owners five one technic...

Activation of MET by HGF plays a key role in tumor progression. Using a recently developed llama platform that generates human-like immunoglobulins, we selected 68 different antibodies that compete with HGF for binding to MET. HGF-competing antibodies recognized 4 distinct hotspots localized in different MET domains. We identified 1 hotspot that coincides with the known HGF β chain binding site...

To improve cancer chemotherapy, a better understanding of the molecular mechanisms of drug resistance is essential. To identify the molecules responsible for drug resistance that is unrelated to MDR1 or MRP gene products, a eukaryotic expression cDNA library of cis-diamminedichloroplatinum(II) (CDDP)-resistant ovarian cancer TYKnuR cells was introduced into Cos-7 cells. After repeated CDDP sele...

Here we study the deformations of associative submanifolds inside a G 2 manifold M 7 with a calibration 3-form ϕ. A choice of 2-plane field Λ on M (which always exits) splits the tangent bundle of M as a direct sum of a 3-dimensional associate bundle and a complex 4-plane bundle T M = E ⊕ V, and this helps us to relate the deformations to Seiberg-Witten type equations. Here all the surveyed res...

During the development of neural circuitry, neurons of different kinds establish specific synaptic connections by selecting appropriate targets from large numbers of alternatives. The range of alternative targets is reduced by well organised patterns of growth, termination, and branching that deliver the terminals of appropriate pre- and postsynaptic partners to restricted volumes of the develo...

It is largely established that molecules first discovered in the nervous system are also found in the immune system. Neuropilin-1 (NP-1) was initially identified to mediate semaphorin-induced chemorepulsion during brain development and is also involved in peripheral T cell/dendritic cell interactions. Herein, we studied NP-1 during T cell development in the human thymus. NP-1 is expressed in bo...