UNLABELLED Cell dose is a major limitation for umbilical cord blood (UCB) transplantation because units containing a minimum of 2.5 x 10(7) total nucleated cells (TNC)/kilogram patient body weight are frequently not available. The transplantation of 2 partially HLA-matched UCB units has been adopted as a simple approach for increasing the TNC.We sought to determine whether the relative safety a...

Gillis TE, Marshall CR, Tibbits GF. Functional and evolutionary relationships of troponin C. Physiol Genomics 32: 16–27, 2007. First published October 16, 2007; doi:10.1152/physiolgenomics.00197.2007.—Striated muscle contraction is initiated when, following membrane depolarization, Ca binds to the low-affinity Ca binding sites of troponin C (TnC). The Ca activation of this protein results in a ...

This article provides a brief review of multi-scale modeling at the molecular to cellular scale, with new results for heart muscle cells. A finite element-based simulation package (SMOL) was used to investigate the signaling transduction at molecular and sub-cellular scales (http://mccammon.ucsd.edu/smol/, http://FETK.org) by numerical solution of time-dependent Smoluchowski equations and a rea...

To determine the forms of cardiac troponin I (cTnI) circulating in the bloodstream of patients with acute myocardial infarction (AMI) and patients receiving a cardioplegia during heart surgery, we developed three immunoenzymatic sandwich assays. The first assay involves the combination of two monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) specific for human cTnI. The second assay involves the combination of a mA...

The hypothesis that elevated [CO(2)] alleviates ureide inhibition of N(2)-fixation was tested. Short-term responses of the acetylene reduction assay (ARA), ureide accumulation and total non-structural carbohydrate (TNC) levels were measured following addition of ureide to the nutrient solution of hydroponically grown soybean. The plants were exposed to ambient (360 micromol mol(-1)) or elevated...

This study focuses on the effects of mechanical unloading of rat soleus muscle on the isoform patterns of the three troponin (Tn) subunits: troponin T (TnT), troponin I (TnI), and troponin C (TnC). Mechanical unloading was achieved by hindlimb unloading (HU) for time periods of 7, 15, and 28 days. Relative concentrations of slow and fast TnT, TnI, and TnC isoforms were assessed by electrophoret...

Globoid cell leukodystrophy (GLD), or Krabbe disease, is a rare and often fatal demyelinating disease caused by mutations in the galactocerebrosidase (galc) gene that result in accumulation of galactosylsphingosine (psychosine). We recently reported that the extracellular matrix (ECM) protease, matrix metalloproteinase-3, is elevated in GLD and that it regulates psychosine-induced microglial ac...

Background Migraine is a primary headache of imprecisely known mechanism, but activation of the trigeminovascular system (TS) appears to be essential during the attack. Intensive research has recently focused on pituitary adenylate cyclase-activating polypeptide (PACAP) and the kynurenine systems as potential pathogenic factors. Aim We investigated the link between these important mediators a...

Ecto-5'-nucleotidase (eN, CD73) mediates extracellular adenosine production from 5'-AMP. Non-enzymatic functions of eN have also been reported. The aim of the study was to investigate the role of ecto-5'-nucleotidase in aggressive melanoma behaviour. Analysis of the involvement of eN in adhesion, migration and invasion revealed eN functions unknown to date. We found that following eN blockade b...

The gene encoding human fast skeletal muscle troponin C (TnC) was cloned, mapped, and sequenced. The locations of intron positions in this gene were compared to those in the related genes for mouse slow skeletal TnC and vertebrate and nonvertebrate calmodulins. We detected strikingly similar purine-rich DNA sequences on the coding strand in the basal promoter of the genes for fast and slow trop...