background: microglial cells act as the sentinel of the central nervous system .they are involved in neuroprotection but are highly implicated in neurodegeneration of the aging brain. when over-activated, microglia release pro-inflammatory factors, such as nitric oxide (no) and cytokines, which are critical in eliciting neuroinflammatory responses associated with neurodegenerative diseases. thi...

We have recently discovered bovine and human vascular smooth muscle cells (SMCs) express a novel constitutive Nuclear Factor-kappa B (NF-kappa B)/Rel-like activity (Lawrence, R., L.-J. Chang, U. Siebenlist, P. Bressler, and G.E. Sonenshein. 1994. J. Biol. Chem. 269:28913-28918), here termed SMC-Rel. Since cytomegalovirus (CMV) infection of human vascular SMCs has been implicated in aberrant SMC...

Recombinant DNA clones have been generated from mouse myeloma MOPC 21 immunoglobulin kappa light chain mRNA. Complementary DNA (cDNA) synthesized on kappa light chain mRNA by reverse transcriptase was made double stranded and inserted into the bacterial plasmid vector, pMB9. Approximately 70 tetracycline-resistant transformed colonies containing kappa light chain mRNA sequences were identified ...

Chronic pruritus is frequently refractory to currently available treatments. Studies suggest that pruritus may arise from an imbalance of the mu- and kappa-opioid receptor system activity in either the skin or the central nervous system. Stimulation of kappa-opioid receptors by their agonists inhibits pruritus in both animals and humans. The antipruritic effect of kappa-opioid receptors agonist...

The weighted kappa statistic has been used as an agreement index for ordinal data. Using data on the comparability of primary and proxy respondent reports of alcohol drinking frequency we show that the value of weighted kappa can be sensitive to the choice of weights. The distinction between association and agreement is clarified and it is shown that in some respects weighted kappa behaves more...

Immunoglobulin light chain (IgL) rearrangements occur more frequently at Ig kappa than at Ig lambda. Previous results suggested that the unrearranged Ig kappa locus negatively regulates Ig lambda transcription and/or rearrangement. Here, we demonstrate that expression of a VJ lambda 1-joint inserted into its physiological position in the Ig lambda locus is independent of Ig kappa rearrangements...

G protein-coupled receptor kinases (GRKs) phosphorylate opioid receptors, which eventually results in receptor sequestration. With respect to kappa-opioid receptors, it is known that internalization occurs in a species-specific manner. That is, the agonist-occupied human kappa-receptors will sequester whereas murine receptors fail to do so. This investigation concentrates on the internalization...

Background and Objectives: MThe Emergency Severity Index (ESI) triage is commonly used in clinical settings to determine the patients’ emergency severity. However, the reliability of this index is not sufficiently explored. The present study examines the inter-rater reliability of ESI by comparing triage ratings as performed by nurses and physicians. Methods: This prospective cross-sectional st...