Insufficient activity of the neurotransmitters serotonin and norepinephrine is a central element of the model of depression most widely held by neurobiologists today. In the late 1970s and 1980s, numerous studies were performed in which depressed patients were treated with the serotonin precursors L-tryptophan and 5-hydroxytryptophan (5-HTP), and the dopamine and norepinephrine precursors tyros...

The conversion of lignocellulosic biomass to fuels, chemicals, and other commodities has been explored as one possible pathway toward reductions in the use of non-renewable energy sources. In order to identify which plants, out of a diverse pool, have the desired chemical traits for downstream applications, attributes, such as cellulose and lignin content, or monomeric sugar release following a...

hiPSC derivation and selection remains inefficient; with selection of high quality clones dependent on extensive characterization which is not amenable to high-throughput (HTP) approaches. We recently described the use of a cocktail of small molecules to enhance hiPSC survival and stability in single cell culture and the use of flow cytometry cell sorting in the HTP-derivation of hiPSCs. Here w...

we studied the effect of the selective alha-2 adrenoceptor blocker idazoxan and precursor serotonin (5-htp) on anxiety-related behavior in rats. the conflict drinking test, and evaluator plus-maze were used as model. idazoxan (2 mg/kg) showed an anticonflict effect, having doses dependently increased the number of punished lickes. 5-htp showed that anxiolytic-like effect in both models. this dr...

This study aimed to demonstrate the influence of the systemic administration of l-5-hydroxy-tryptophan (L-HTP) on the plasma levels of melatonin during the dark period in quails. Throughout daylight, the plasma levels of melatonin did not differ significantly, oscillating between 110.2 +/- 15.8 pg.mL(-1) and 157.4 +/- 34.8 pg.mL(-1), from 8 to 16 hours. L-HTP (25 mg.kg(-1), through the intracel...

Chromatin immunoprecipitation followed by high-throughput (HTP) sequencing (ChIP-seq) is a powerful tool to establish protein-DNA interactions genome-wide. The primary limitation of its broad application at present is the often-limited access to sequencers. Here we report a protocol, Mab-seq, that generates genome-scale quality evaluations for nucleic acid libraries intended for deep-sequencing...

Evidence suggests that task-based training approaches can improve the performance of children with handwriting difficulties. The present case study tests the efficacy of the Handwriting Task Program (HTP). Three male children (9-10 yr. old) with poor handwriting skills and different developmental disorders participated in the HTP, twice per week, for 13 wk. Handwriting legibility was assessed t...

The efficacy and tolerability of 5-hydroxy-L-tryptophan (5-HTP) were studied in an open 90-day study in 50 patients affected by primary fibromyalgia syndrome. When all the clinical variables studied throughout the trial (number of tender points, anxiety, pain intensity, quality of sleep, fatigue) were compared with baseline results, they all showed a significant improvement (P less than 0.001)....

As an increasing number of genes and open reading frames of unknown function are discovered, expression of the encoded proteins is critical toward establishing function. Accordingly, there is an increased need for highly efficient, high-fidelity methods for directional cloning. Among the available methods, site-specific recombination-based cloning techniques, which eliminate the use of restrict...