Dimethylhydrazine (DMH) is a potent procarcinogen with selectivity for the colon. To determine whether alterations in the lipid composition and fluidity of rat colonic brush border membranes existed before the development of DMH-induced colon cancer, rats were injected s.c. with this agent (20 mg/kg body weight per wk) or diluent for 5, 10, and 15 wk. Animals were killed at these time periods a...

Biological chemists have often regarded the fluidity or plasticity of a membrane as a property that may be adaptively altered to accommodate changes in environmental temperature. The implication that cells exhibit an intelligent (or at least, appropriate) response provides us with several questions to examine. (1) Is temperature or some aspect of fluidity perceived by the responsive cellular el...

Novelty and surprises differentially modify the left and right sides of the brain. Here we show that repeated brief exposures to the novelty of a non-home environment during infancy and early adulthood lead to long-lasting changes in adulthood in the global bi-lateralization organization of the brain as indexed by a transiently detectable right-sided orientating bias upon the initial encounter ...

It has been known for many years that an excess of thrombin is formed during the clotting of blood or plasma, that the excess is rapidly inactivated, and that such inactivation is important in maintaining normal fluidity of the blood (1). Considerable attention has been given to the question of what happens to the excess of thrombin, but little conclusive information has been obtained concernin...

Fluorescence polarisation of 1,6-diphenyl-1,3,5-hexatriene was used to study the lymphocyte membrane in rheumatoid arthritis. The increase of polarisation value in the patients (n = 27) compared with healthy controls (n = 32) suggests a decrease of membrane fluidity. Moreover, erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR) and plasma fibrinogen concentrations were positively correlated with lymphocyte fl...