Recent work has revealed the molecular mechanisms governing one of the most dramatic examples of parallel evolution in nature: the repeated loss of lateral plate armor in freshwater populations of threespine stickleback. Yet, the ecological mechanisms responsible for armor loss remain unclear. Using a balanced experimental design, we examined Heuts' (1947) hypothesis that selection due to diffe...

The TLZ method is a new crystal growth method which we have invented for the growth of homogeneous mixed crystals. The influence of convection in a melt on the compositional homogeneity of TLZ-grown InxGa1−xAs crystals was investigated by the growth of various diameter crystals on the ground. The results have shown that excellent compositional homogeneity is realized even on the ground if the c...

In the last two decades, there has been a strong interest in searching for biological treatments for regeneration of injured growth plate cartilage and prevention of its bony repair. Various means have been tried, including implantation of chondrocytes, mesenchymal stem cell (MSC), together with exogenous growth factor and scaffolds, and gene therapy. However, with the lack of success with chon...

A novel method utilizing the BD Oxygen Biosensor System has been developed to rapidly, simply, and accurately determine the growth rate of microorganisms in broth, with no needfor plate counts, standardized inocula, or technically difficult manipulations. The BD Oxygen Biosensor System incorporates an oxygen-sensitive material into the wells of standard Falcon microplates. The time response of ...

In microorganisms, and more particularly in yeasts, a standard phenotyping approach consists in the analysis of fitness by growth rate determination in different conditions. One growth assay that combines high throughput with high resolution involves the generation of growth curves from 96-well plate microcultivations in thermostated and shaking plate readers. To push the throughput of this met...

Introduction Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) has been used to identify focal bone marrow edema or a focal periphyseal edema (FOPE) zone, in the closing growth plates of adolescent knees. Case Report In the current case, an 11-year-old boy reported pain in his left hip. He had been participating in gymnastic classes at school, but otherwise, he was not an active athlete. Based on MRI findings...

In the growth plate, the interplay between parathyroid hormone-related peptide (PTHrP) and Indian hedgehog (Ihh) signaling tightly regulates chondrocyte proliferation and differentiation during longitudinal bone growth. We found that PTHrP increases the expression of Zfp521, a zinc finger transcriptional coregulator, in prehypertrophic chondrocytes. Mice with chondrocyte-targeted deletion of Zf...

Tibial dyschondroplasia (TD) in poultry is a disorder of growth plate cartilage that fails to resorb and consequently prevents bone formation. Matrix metalloproteinases (MMP) contribute to the process of resorption through the degradation of extracellular matrices and facilitating vascularization, growth plate remodeling, and maturation. In order to understand the cause of the failure of cartil...