PiT-1 and PiT-2 are related multiple transmembrane proteins which function as sodium-dependent phosphate transporters and as the cell receptors of several oncoretroviruses. Two copies of a homology domain that is found in distantly related species assign these proteins to a large family of phosphate transporters. A current membrane topology model of PiT-1 and PiT-2 predicts 10 transmembrane dom...

BACKGROUND The POU class 1 homeobox 1 transcription factor (POU1F1, also known as Pit-1) was reported to be associated with tumor progression and metastasis. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the prognostic value of Pit-1 in breast cancer patients. MATERIAL AND METHODS The relative expression levels of Pit-1 in breast cancer patients were detected by quantitative real-time PCR (qRT-PC...

It is commonly assumed that the facial pit of pitvipers forms relatively sharp images and can detect small differences in environmental surface temperatures. We have visualized the temperature contrast images formed on the facial pit membrane using a detailed optical and heat transfer analysis, which includes heat transfer through the air in the pit chambers as well as via thermal infrared radi...

Photoimmunotherapy (PIT) is a new cancer treatment that combines the specificity of antibodies for targeting tumors with the toxicity induced by photosensitizers after exposure to near infrared (NIR) light. We performed PIT in a model of disseminated gastric cancer peritoneal carcinomatosis and monitored efficacy with in vivo GFP fluorescence imaging. In vitro and in vivo experiments were condu...

TRPA1 is a calcium ion channel protein recently identified as the infrared receptor in pit organ-containing snakes. Therefore, understanding the molecular evolution of TRPA1 may help to illuminate the origin of "heat vision" in snakes and reveal the molecular mechanism of infrared sensitivity for TRPA1. To this end, we sequenced the infrared sensory gene TRPA1 in 24 snake species, representing ...

The Pavlovian-to-instrumental transfer (PIT) paradigm probes the influence of Pavlovian cues over instrumentally learned behavior. The paradigm has been used extensively to probe basic cognitive and motivational processes in studies of animal learning. More recently, PIT and its underlying neural basis have been extended to investigations in humans. These initial neuroimaging studies of PIT hav...

Slope stability analysis is one of the most important problems in mining and geotechnical engineering. Ignoring the importance of these problems can lead to significant losses. Selecting an appropriate method to analyze the slope stability requires a proper understanding of how different factors influence the outputs of the analyses. This paper evaluates the effects of considering the real geom...

PIT-2 is a type III sodium phosphate cotransporter and the receptor for amphotropic murine leukemia viruses. We have investigated the expression and the functions of a tagged version of PIT-2 in CHO cells. PIT-2 remained equally abundant at the cell surface within 6 h following variation of the phosphate supply. In contrast, the efficiency of phosphate uptake and retrovirus entry was inversely ...

Noise produced by blast waves can be a problem, especially when an explosion occurs near populated areas. As one means of reducing the blast noise, the explosive is detonated in a pit, a space closed at the bottom and sides, open at the top. A two-dimentional finite difference model was used to simulate such an explosion in a pit and to determine to what extent the blast wave was attenuated. Th...