Restoration of the colonic epithelial barrier is an important response during colitis. L-arginine (L-Arg) is a semiessential amino acid that reduces murine colitis induced by Citrobacter rodentium. Cationic amino acid transporter (CAT) proteins increase L-Arg uptake into cells. L-Arg is utilized to produce nitric oxide (NO), by inducible NO synthase (iNOS), or L-ornithine (L-Orn) by arginase (A...

Reverse transcription-quantitative real-time PCR (RT-qPCR) is a widely used technique for gene expression analysis. The reliability of this method depends largely on the suitable selection of stable reference genes for accurate data normalization. Hypericum perforatum L. (St. John's wort) is a field growing plant that is frequently exposed to a variety of adverse environmental stresses that can...

Animal studies show that high cortisol levels exert their effect on stressful task performance via modulation of the amygdala. Availability of noradrenaline in this brain region appears to be a critical prerequisite for this effect. This relationship between noradrenaline and cortisol is explained by an animal model where the amygdala constitutes a crucial region for this interaction. In humans...

BACKGROUND Resistance training is a potent stimulus to induce muscle hypertrophy. Supplemental protein intake is known to enhance gains in muscle mass through activation of the mammalian target of rapamycin complex 1 (mTORC1) pathway, which initiates protein translation. While the optimal dose of high quality protein to promote post exercise anabolism in young or older men has been investigated...

To evaluate deterioration of oat seeds during storage, we analyzed oxygen radicals, antioxidant enzyme activity, proline content, and gene transcript levels in oat seeds with different moisture contents (MCs; 4, 16, and 28% w/w) during storage for 0, 6, and 12 months (CK, LT-6, and LT-12 treatments, respectively) at 4°C. The germination percentage decreased significantly with higher seed MCs an...

In the fission yeast, two Tor isoforms, Tor1 and Tor2, oppositely regulate gene expression of amino acid permeases. To elucidate the transcriptional machinery for these regulations, here we have employed the cap analysis of gene expression (CAGE), a method of analyzing expression profiles and identifying transcriptional start sites (TSSs). The loss of Tor1 decreased, and Tor2 inhibition by its ...

Systems y+ and y+L represent the main routes for arginine transport in mammalian cells. While system y+ activity is needed for the stimulated NO production in rodent alveolar macrophages (AM), no information is yet available about arginine transport in human AM. We study here arginine influx and genes for arginine transporters in AM from bronchoalveolar lavage of normal subjects. These cells ex...

Growth of Colletotrichum gloeosporioides in the presence of cation salts NaCl and KCl inhibited fungal growth and anthracnose symptom of colonization. Previous reports indicate that adaptation of Aspergillus nidulans to salt- and osmotic-stress conditions revealed the role of zinc-finger transcription factors SltA and CrzA in cation homeostasis. Homologs of A. nidulans SltA and CrzA were identi...