Proliferating nonmyocardial cells (NMCs) complicate primary heart cultures and may influence myocardial cell (MC) differentiation. In cultures from the day-old rat ventricle, we validated a method to arrest this proliferation; and we quantitated cross-striated cells and the chronotropic response to isoproterenol to assess MC differentiation. MCs were cultured at single cell density using an imp...

Mucosal barrier dysfunction contributes to gastrointestinal diseases. Our aims were to validate urine sugar excretion as an in vivo test of small bowel (SB) and colonic permeability and to compare permeability in patients with irritable bowel syndrome-diarrhea (IBS-D) to positive and negative controls. Oral lactulose (L) and mannitol (M) were administered with (99m)Tc-oral solution, (111)In-ora...

Inhibitory G protein activity (Gi) and nitric oxide (NO) modulate muscarinic-cholinergic (MC) inhibition of cardiac beta-adrenergic inotropic responses. We hypothesized that Gi mediates MC-NO synthase (NOS) signal transduction. Isoproterenol (0.2-0.8 microg/min) and acetylcholine (1 microM) were administered to isolated perfused rat hearts pretreated with saline (controls; n = 8) or pertussis t...

Microscopic colitis (MC) is comprised of two entities, lymphocytic (LC) and collagenous colitis. Up to 20% of patients with chronic diarrhea that have a normal appearing colonoscopy will be diagnosed with MC. Since MC was first described less than 40 years ago, little is known about the mechanisms involved in disease pathogenesis. Nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs are associated with an incr...

Purpose: To evaluate the short-term efficacy of intravitreal anti-VEGF (Lucentis) and sub-tenon injection of triamcinolone acetonide for choroidal neovascularization (CNV) associated with multifocal choroiditis (MC). Methods: Eight eyes of 8 patients treated with intravitreal anti-VEGF and posterior sub-tenon injection of Triamcinolone Acetonide (TA) for subfoveal or juxtafoveal CNV associated ...

Myotonia congenita (MC) is the commonest genetic skeletal muscle ion channelopathy. It is caused by mutations in CLCN1 on chromosome 7q35, which alter the function of the major skeletal muscle voltage-gated chloride channel. Dominant and recessive forms of the disease exist. We have undertaken a clinical, genetic and molecular expression study based upon a large cohort of over 300 UK patients. ...

OBJECTIVE The objective was to assess endometrial chemokines in users of the levonorgestrel-releasing intrauterine system (LNG-IUS) and correlate them with leucocyte populations, uterine natural killer cells (uNK) and mast cells (MCs). MATERIALS AND METHODS Endometrium was obtained from two groups of women who had been using LNG-IUS for 3 years or more: 11 amenorrhoeic women formed the non-bl...

Near-infrared (NIR) luminescent lanthanide complexes hold great promise for practical applications, as their optical properties have several complementary advantages over organic fluorophores and semiconductor nanoparticles. The fundamental challenge for lanthanide luminescence is their sensitization through suitable chromophores. The use of the metallacrown (MC) motif is an innovative strategy...

Eutrophication and warming are key drivers of cyanobacterial blooms, but their combined effects on microcystin (MC) concentrations are less studied. We tested the hypothesis that warming promotes cyanobacterial abundance in a natural plankton community and that eutrophication enhances cyanobacterial biomass and MC concentrations. We incubated natural seston from a eutrophic pond under normal, h...

BACKGROUND Mast cell (MC)-derived serine proteases have been implicated in a variety of inflammatory processes. We have previously shown that rat peritoneal MC (PMC) express mRNA for protease activated receptor 2 (PAR-2), a G-coupled receptor activated by trypsin-like proteases. Recent evidence also suggests that MC-induced inflammation can be mediated through PAR. Therefore, we hypothesized th...