BACKGROUND The only available vaccine that could be potentially beneficial against mycobacterial diseases contains live attenuated bovine tuberculosis bacillus (Mycobacterium bovis) also called Bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG). Even though the BCG vaccine is still widely used, results on its effectiveness in preventing mycobacterial diseases are partially contradictory, especially regarding Burul...

During kidney development, factors from the metanephric mesenchyme induce the growth and repeated branching of the ureteric bud, which gives rise to the collecting duct system and also induces nephrogenesis. One signaling pathway known to be required for this process includes the receptor tyrosine kinase RET and co-receptor GFR(&agr;)-1, which are expressed in the ureteric bud, and the secreted...

Arabidopsis thaliana shoot branching is inhibited by a low red light to far red light ratio (R:FR, an indicator of competition), and by loss of phytochrome B function. Prior studies have shown that phytochrome B deficiency suppresses bud growth by elevating systemic auxin signalling, and that increasing the R:FR promotes the growth of buds suppressed by low R:FR by inhibiting bud abscisic acid ...

Kidney development requires reciprocal interactions between the ureteric bud and the metanephrogenic mesenchyme. Whereas survival of mesenchyme and development of nephrons from mesenchymal cells depends on signals from the invading ureteric bud, growth of the ureteric bud depends on signals from the mesenchyme. This codependency makes it difficult to identify molecules expressed by the ureteric...

Bud outgrowth is a key process in the elaboration of yield and visual quality in rose crops. Although light intensity is well known to affect bud outgrowth, little is known on the mechanisms involved in this regulation. The objective of this work was to test if the control of bud outgrowth pattern along the stem by photosynthetic photon flux density (PPFD) is mediated by sugars, cytokinins and/...

Plant architecture is shaped by endogenous growth processes interacting with the local environment. The current study investigated crown development in young black alder trees, assessing the effects of local light conditions and branch height on individual bud mass and contents. In addition, we examined the characteristics of parent shoots [the cross-sectional area (CSA) of stem and total leaf ...

In budding yeast, the mitotic spindle moves into the neck between the mother and bud via dynein-dependent sliding of cytoplasmic microtubules along the cortex of the bud. How dynein and microtubules interact with the cortex is unknown. We found that cells lacking Num1p failed to exhibit dynein-dependent microtubule sliding in the bud, resulting in defective mitotic spindle movement and nuclear ...

BACKGROUND COPD patients have a higher risk of pneumonia when treated with fluticasone propionate (FP) than with placebo, and a lower risk with budesonide (BUD). We hypothesized that BUD and FP differentially affect the mucosal barrier in response to viral infection and/or cigarette smoke. METHODS We assessed protective effects of equivalent concentrations of BUD and FP on cytokine production...

Functional implications of the recently described fatty acid conjugation of budesonide (BUD) (Tunek, A., K. Sjödin, and G. Hallström, Drug Metabol. Dispos. 1997;25:1311-1317; Miller-Larson, A., E. Hjertberg, H. Mattsson, M. Dahlbäck, A. Tunek, and R. Brattsand, Am. J. Respir. Crit. Care Med. 1997;155:A353 [Abstr.]) were studied in a rat cell line, Rat1, transfected with the activation protein-1...

Mitochondria accumulate at neuronal and immunological synapses and yeast bud tips and associate with the ER during phospholipid biosynthesis, calcium homeostasis, and mitochondrial fission. Here we show that mitochondria are associated with cortical ER (cER) sheets underlying the plasma membrane in the bud tip and confirm that a deletion in YPT11, which inhibits cER accumulation in the bud tip,...