Heparan sulfates (HSs) are complex and highly active molecules that are required for synaptogenesis and long-term potentiation. A deficit in HSs leads to autistic phenotype in mice. Here, we investigated the long-term effect of heparinase I, which digests highly sulfated HSs, on the spontaneous bioelectrical activity of neuronal networks in developing primary hippocampal cultures. We found that...

The human beta-globin locus control region (LCR) consists of five erythroid-lineage-specific DNase I-hypersensitive sites (HSs) and is required for activation of the beta-globin locus chromatin domain and globin gene expression. Each DNase I-HS of the LCR consists of a highly conserved core element and flanking sequences. To analyze the functional role of the core elements of the HSs, we delete...

Heparan sulfate (HS) proteoglycans represent a major component of the extracellular matrix and are critical for brain development. However, their function in the mature brain remains to be characterized. Here, acute enzymatic digestion of HS side chains was used to uncover how HSs support hippocampal function in vitro and in vivo. We found that long-term potentiation (LTP) of synaptic transmiss...

Comprehensive identification of sequences that regulate transcription is one of the major goals of genome biology. Focal alteration in chromatin structure in vivo, detectable through hypersensitivity to DNaseI and other nucleases, is the sine qua non of a diverse cast of transcriptional regulatory elements including enhancers, promoters, insulators, and locus control regions. We developed an ap...

Crystallography and periodic average structures (PASs) of two-dimensional (2D) quasiperiodic tilings with N-fold symmetry (N-QPTs with N = 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 15) were studied using the higher-dimensional approach. By identifying the best (most representative) PASs for each case, it was found that the complexity of the PASs and the degree of average periodicity (DAP) strongly depend on the...

To achieve better structural performance, lesser damage along with minimum residual displacements is a main objective of earthquake resistant design. In ordinary steel reinforced concrete frames, chances of severe damage because of the lower strength of conventional steel are always present during strong earthquakes. With the invention of high-strength steel (HSS) it can be anticipated that its...

BACKGROUND The aim of this study was to develop a Chinese HIV/AIDS Stigma Scale (C-HSS) and test its reliability and validity among migrant workers in eastern China. METHODS Nine hundred sixty four migrant workers completed the C-HSS questionnaire in Zhejiang province. The Split-half reliability coefficient (R) and Cronbach's alpha coefficient (a) for internal consistency of the scale were us...

Liver biopsy is the gold-standard method to stage fibrosis; however, it is an invasive procedure and is potentially dangerous. The main objective of this study was to evaluate biological markers, such as cytokines IL-13, IFN-gamma, TNF-alpha and TGF-beta, platelets, bilirubins (Bil), alanine aminotransferase (ALT) and aspartate aminotransferase (AST), total proteins, gamma-glutamil transferase ...

Bracketing induction is the unsupervised learning of hierarchical constituents without labeling their syntactic categories such as verb phrase (VP) from natural raw sentences. Constituent Context Model (CCM) is an effective generative model for the bracketing induction, but the CCM computes probability of a constituent in a very straightforward way no matter how long this constituent is. Such m...

Lowering the growth temperature of HepG2 cells from 37 degrees C to 20 degrees C results in a 73% reduction in human squalene synthase (HSS) protein, a 76% reduction in HSS mRNA, and a 96% reduction in promoter activity of a secreted alkaline phosphatase-HSS reporter gene. A similar decrease in either mRNA or protein levels is observed for 3-hydroxy-3-methylglutaryl CoA reductase, farnesyl diph...