Macrophages display different phenotypes that can switch in response to their micro-environment. In our earlier study (Chiang, C. S., Liu, W. C. and Jung, S. M., 2005. Compartmental responses after thoracic irradiation of mice: strain differences. Int. J. Radiat. Oncol. Biol. Phys. 62:862) on radiation-induced cytokine expression in lung lavage samples, there was a suggestion that the procedure...

BACKGROUND/AIMS Congenital Sick Sinus Syndrome (SSS) is a disorder associated with sudden cardiac death due to severe bradycardia and prolonged pauses. Mutations in HCN4, the gene encoding inward Na+/K+ current (If), have been described as a cause of congenital SSS. The objective of this study is to develop an SSS model in embryonic zebrafish, and use zebrafish as a moderate-throughput assay to...

Purified tRNA genes are expressed when microinjected into the nucleus of X.laevis oocytes. In this paper we describe a method to assay the capacity to be aminoacylated of the tRNA transcribed in the frog oocytes. The method exploits the radiochemical purity of the transcript and relies on the binding of aminoacyl-tRNA but not of uncharged tRNA to purified elongation factor EF-Tu. We also presen...

MicroRNAs (miRNA) are a class of small RNA molecules that regulate numerous critical cellular processes and bind to partially complementary sequences resulting in down-regulation of their target genes. Due to the incomplete homology of the miRNA to its target site identification of miRNA target genes is difficult and currently based on computational algorithms predicting large numbers of potent...

To determine if the murine insulinoma, β-TC-6, is a suitable substitute for primary pancreatic β-cells in the study of βcell functional heterogeneity, we used three distinct functional assays to ascertain the cell line’s response to glucose or a glucose analog. These assays include: (i) a 2-NBDG uptake assay; (ii) a calcium influx assay, and; (iii) a quinacrine secretion assay. We show that a p...

introduction: telomeric repeat amplification protocol assay (trap assay) is a standard established technique to detect the activity (expression) of telomerase in the cancerous samples. it includes a time-consuming procedure that has significant drawbacks such as high cost, complicacy, time-consuming procedure, equipment-dependent steps and false-positive signals caused by inclusion of pcr insid...

BACKGROUND The development of microarray-based genetic tests for diseases that are caused by known mutations is becoming increasingly important. The key obstacle to developing functional genotyping assays is that such mutations need to be genotyped regardless of their location in genomic regions. These regions include large variations in G+C content, and structural features like hairpins. MET...

The present study was designed to explore the nutraceutical potential of orange peel, malted barley, and fenugreek-based value-added/functional health mix. Purposely, peel fenugreek powder have been combined germinated barley flour with different ratio . composite subjected a nutritional antioxidant assay. analysis revealed that are good sources protein, fiber, fat, potassium (K), calcium (Ca)....

background: holothuroids (sea cucumbers) are members of the phylum echinodermata, which produce saponins. saponins exhibit a wide spectrum of pharmacological and biological activities. in this study, we isolated the crude saponins from the body wall of the dominant iranian species of sea cucumber, holothuria leucospilota (h. leucospilota). the purpose of this study was to confirm the presence o...

background: alpinia galanga l. belonging to the family zingiberaceae is widely grown in the state of kerala, india. they are effective antioxidant and free radical scavenger under both in vitro and in vivo condition. the efficacy of the isolated flavonoids in conferring protection from radiation induced damages to genomic dna was studied. materials and methods: the bioflavonoids, galangin and k...