Understanding tumor heterogeneity is an urgent and unmet need in cancer research. In this study, we used a morphology-based optical cell separation process to classify a heterogeneous cancer cell population into characteristic subpopulations. To classify the cell subpopulations, we assessed their morphology in hydrogel, a three-dimensional culture environment that induces morphological changes ...

The influences of temperature and nutritional conditions on the mycelium growth of oyster mushroom Pleurotus ostreatus (PO) and Pleurotus cystidiosus (PC) were investigated in laboratory experiment during the summer season of 2014. The results of the experiment indicated that potato dextrose agar (PDA) and yam dextrose agar (YDA) were the most suitable media for the mycelium growth of oyster mu...

The growth process of Lactobacillus curvatus colonies was quantified by a coupled growth and diffusion equation incorporating a volumetric rate of lactic acid production. Analytical solutions were compared to numerical ones, and both were able to predict the onset of interaction well. The derived analytical solution modeled the lactic acid concentration profile as a function of the diffusion co...

Endothelin (ET) is a vasoconstrictor peptide originally isolated from vascular endothelial cells. Recent studies have revealed that ET has many biological functions including growth factor-like activity. The present study aims to clarify whether ET-1 possesses the ability to stimulate anchorage-independent cellular growth, an indicator of factors with transforming activity. We found that NRK 49...

The growth capacity of femoral bone marrow stem cells from young and old long-lived mice was assessed in the spleen of X-irradiated young and old syngeneic recpients by determining: (a) the number of stem cells colonizing the spleen, (b) the rate of incorporation of 125I-labeled iododeoxyuridine by proliferating colony cells, and (c) the number of cells present in the largest colonies at the en...

The granulocyte macrophage colony-stimulating factor (GM-CSF) is known to play a protective role in intestinal inflammation. However, the effects of GM-CSF on the progression of colitis to colorectal carcinoma have long remained unclear. We have recently demonstrated that GM-CSF produced by colonic epithelial cells promotes colorectal tumorigenesis by stimulating the secretion of vascular endot...

Faster elimination of drug tolerant 'persister' bacteria may shorten treatment of tuberculosis (TB) but no method exists to quantify persisters in clinical samples. We used automated image analysis to assess whether studying growth characteristics of individual Mycobacterium tuberculosis colonies from sputum on solid media during early TB treatment facilitates 'persister' phenotyping. As Time t...

BACKGROUND The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of weak radiofrequency microwave (RF/MW) radiation emitted by mobile phones on colony growth of the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae. MATERIALS AND METHODS S. cerevisiae strains FF18733 (wild-type), FF1481 (rad1 mutant) and D7 (commonly used to detect reciprocal and nonreciprocal mitotic recombinations) were exposed to a 905 MHz electr...

The role of the KIT protooncogene in human hematopoiesis is uncertain. Therefore, we examined KIT mRNA expression in normal human bone marrow mononuclear cells (MNC) and used antisense oligodeoxynucleotides (oligomers) to disrupt KIT function. KIT mRNA was detected with certainty only in growth factor-stimulated MNC. Expression was essentially abrogated by making MNC quiescent or by inhibiting ...

Community assembly is driven by multiple factors, including resource availability and habitat requirements. Litter nesting ants respond to food and nest site availability, and adding food and nests may increase ant species richness and abundance. However, litter decomposers share food resources with ants, and increasing food availability may speed decomposition processes, eliminating twigs and ...