The spindle assembly checkpoint (SAC) ensures the faithful segregation of the genome during mitosis by ensuring that sister chromosomes form bipolar attachments with microtubules of the mitotic spindle. p31 is an antagonist of the SAC effector Mad2 and promotes silencing of the SAC and mitotic progression. However, p31 interacts with Mad2 throughout the cell cycle. We show that p31 binds Mad2 s...

This paper describes a novel algorithm for numerical optimization, called Simple Adaptive Climbing (SAC). SAC is a simple efficient single-point approach that does not require a careful fine-tunning of its two parameters. SAC algorithm shares many similarities with local optimization heuristics, such as random walk, gradient descent, and hill-climbing. SAC has a restarting mechanism, and a powe...

Mutant mice deficient in glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase were used to induce teratomas. This enzyme is linked to the X chromosome, which can be inactivated in female embryo. The differences in the enzyme activity between yolk sac mesoderm and embryo versus yolk sac endoderm can be detected in female concepti by using appropriate crosses of wild-type and G6PD-deficient mice. Histochemical stud...

The spindle assembly checkpoint (SAC) monitors the attachment of microtubules to the kinetochore and inhibits anaphase when microtubule binding is incomplete. The SAC might also respond to tension; however, how cells can sense tension and whether its detection is important to satisfy the SAC remain controversial. We generated a HeLa cell line in which two components of the kinetochore, centrome...

Species accumulation curves (SAC), i.e. the relationship between species richness and the number of sampling units in a given community, can be used to describe diversity patterns while accounting for the well-known scale-dependence of species richness. Despite their value, the functional form and the parameters of SAC, as well as their determinants, have barely been investigated in plant commu...

AIMS Apoptosis of vascular smooth muscle cells (VSMC) in advanced atherosclerotic plaques is an important cause of plaque instability. Oxysterols have been suggested as important inducers of apoptosis in VSMC, but the precise mechanism is still poorly understood. Here we aimed to analyse the role of the soluble adenylyl cyclase (sAC). METHODS AND RESULTS VSMC derived from rat aorta were treat...

Injury associated with alcohol use is a significant problem among adolescents; however, routine evaluation of alcohol use in this population is not conducted. The purpose of this study was to compare injured adolescents presenting to an emergency room with a positive serum alcohol concentration (SAC+) with those injured adolescents with a negative serum alcohol concentration (SAC-). Data were c...

This study evaluated a novel stearic acid complexed high-amylose cornstarch (SAC) for the prevention of preneoplastic lesions in the colon of azoxymethane (AOM)-treated Fisher 344 rats fed resistant starches at 50-55% of the diet for 8 weeks. Uncooked SAC (r-SAC) diet was compared with raw normal-cornstarch diet (r-CS) or raw high-amylose cornstarch diet (r-HA), and water-boiled CS (w-CS) was c...

Inoculation of 200 mean egg infectious doses (EID(50)) of lentogenic Newcastle disease virus strain B1 (NDV-B1) into the air sac of 4-day-old specific-pathogen-free chicks provided significant protection against challenge of the air sac with 100 chicken mean lethal doses (LD(50)) of velogenic NDV-H but no protection against reinfection when the challenge was by the eye. Conversely, inoculation ...

Introduction The endolymphatic sac is thought to maintain the hydrostatic pressure and endolymph homeostasis for the inner ear, and its dysfunction may contribute to the pathophysiology of Ménière's disease. Throughout the years, different surgical procedures for intractable vertigo secondary to Ménière's disease have been described, and though many authors consider these procedures as effectiv...