The regulation of B-cell and T-cell immune responses has been extensively examined and in the experimental animal appears to involve regulatory or "suppressor" T cells (1-4). The limitations of in vitro experimentation have made comparable study of nonpathological human suppression quite difficult (5). We report here an in vitro method that generates and quantitates suppressor activity in man a...

Phosphorylation of the regulatory light chain of myosin II (MLC) controls the contractility of actomyosin in nonmuscle and muscle cells. It has been reported that cdc2 phosphorylates MLC in vitro at Ser-1 or Ser-2 and Thr-9 which protein kinase C phosphorylates (Satterwhite, L. L., M. J. Lohka, K. L. Wilson, T. Y. Scherson, L. K. Cisek, J. L. Corden, and T. D. Pollard. 1992 J. Cell Biol. 118:59...

Conventional (cv) and germfree (gf) mice are able to give a good proliferative response to allogeneic cells in the mixed leukocyte culture (MLC) test, while the response to xenogeneic stimulating cells has been in question. Previous studies by others have suggested only a low MLC response in cv animals and none in gf ones. We have found that both cv and gf animals can give a good MLC response t...

We tested the hypothesis that slowing of shortening velocity generated by type IIB fibers from hindlimb-unweighted (HU) rats resulted from a reduced ATPase activity and/or a reduction in the relative content of myosin light chain 3f isoform content (MLC(3f)). After 2, 3, and 4 wk of HU, maximal unloaded shortening velocity (V(o)) of single permeabilized semimembranosus muscle fibers was determi...

PURPOSE To assess the impact of two multileaf collimator (MLC) systems (2.5 and 5 mm leaf widths) on three-dimensional conformal radiotherapy, intensity-modulated radiotherapy, and dynamic conformal arc techniques for stereotactic body radiation therapy (SBRT) of liver and lung lesions. METHODS Twenty-nine SBRT plans of primary liver (n=11) and lung (n=18) tumors were the basis of this study....

AIMS The aims of this study were to determine if the prostanoid F receptor (FPR)-mediated inotropic effect in rat ventricle is mediated by increased phosphorylation of myosin light chain-2 (MLC-2) and to elucidate the signalling pathway(s) activated by FPRs to regulate MLC-2 phosphorylation. METHODS AND RESULTS Contractility was measured in left ventricular strips from adult male rats. Strips...

This study investigated the impact of beam complexities on planar quality assur-ance and plan quality robustness by introducing MLC errors in intensity-modulate radiation therapy. Forty patients' planar quality assurance (QA) plans were enrolled in this study, including 20 dynamic MLC (DMLC) IMRT plans and 20 static MLC (SMLC) IMRT plans. The total beam numbers were 150 and 160 for DMLC and SML...

The signaling cascades initiated by motilin receptors in gastric and intestinal smooth muscle cells were characterized. Motilin bound with high affinity (IC(50) 0.7 +/- 0.2 nM) to receptors on smooth muscle cells; the receptors were rapidly internalized via G protein-coupled receptor kinase 2 (GRK2). Motilin selectively activated G(q) and G(13), stimulated G alpha(q)-dependent phosphoinositide ...

Intestinal response to injury requires coordinated regulation of the tension exerted by subepithelial myofibroblasts (SEM). However, the signals governing relaxation of intestinal SEM have not been investigated. Our aim was to test the hypothesis that signal transduction pathways initiated by C-type natriuretic peptide (CNP) induce intestinal SEM relaxation. We directly quantified the effects o...