This work aimed to establish the lineage of cells similar to the interstitial cells of Cajal (ICC), the arterial ICC-like (AIL) cells, which have recently been described in resistance arteries, and to study their location in the artery wall. Segments of guinea-pig mesenteric arteries and single AIL cells freshly isolated from them were used. Confocal imaging of immunostained cells or segments a...

The Yersinia pestis adhesin molecule Ail interacts with the extracellular matrix protein fibronectin (Fn) on host cells to facilitate efficient delivery of cytotoxic Yop proteins, a process essential for plague virulence. A number of bacterial pathogens are known to bind to the N-terminal region of Fn, comprising type I Fn (FNI) repeats. Using proteolytically generated Fn fragments and purified...

Among pathogenic Enterobacteriaceae, the proteins of the Ail/OmpX/PagC family form a steadily growing family of outer membrane proteins with diverse biological properties, potentially involved in virulence such as human serum resistance, adhesion and entry into eukaryotic culture cells. We studied the proteins Ail/OmpX/PagC in the bacterial Photorhabdus genus. The Photorhabdus bacteria form sym...

Androgen receptor (AR) antagonist MDV3100 is the first therapeutic approach in treating castration-resistant prostate cancer (CRPC), but tumours frequently become drug resistant via multiple mechanisms including AR amplification and mutation. Here we identify the small molecule Ailanthone (AIL) as a potent inhibitor of both full-length AR (AR-FL) and constitutively active truncated AR splice va...

Objectives This multicentre retrospective study in Japan aimed to assess the retention of biological disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs and Janus kinase inhibitors (JAKi), clarify factors affecting their a real-world cohort patients with rheumatoid arthritis. Methods The included 6666 treatment courses (bDMARD-naïve or JAKi-naïve cases, 55.4%; tumour necrosis factor (TNFi) = 3577; anti-inter...

To establish a successful infection, Yersinia pestis requires the delivery of cytotoxic Yops to host cells. Yops inhibit phagocytosis, block cytokine responses, and induce apoptosis of macrophages. The Y. pestis adhesin Ail facilitates Yop translocation and is required for full virulence in mice. To determine the contributions of other adhesins to Yop delivery, we deleted five known adhesins of...

We describe the Gwendolen BDI (Belief, Desires and Intentions) agent programming language. Gwendolen is implemented in the Agent Infrastructure Layer (AIL), a collection of Java classes intended for use in model checking agent programs in a variety of languages. The Gwendolen language was developed to test key features of the AIL and its integration with the model checker, JPF, and also to prov...

Attachment invasion locus (Ail) protein of Yersinia pestis is a crucial outer membrane protein for host invasion and determines bacterial survival within the host. Despite its importance in pathogenicity, surprisingly little is known on Ail biophysical properties. We investigate the contribution of micelle concentrations and interface tryptophans on the Ail β-barrel refolding and unfolding proc...

The high-affinity receptor for interleukin-3 (IL-3) is a complex of the IL-3–binding subunit (aIL-3) and a larger b chain—bc, or, in the mouse, bc or its close relative bIL-3. There is evidence that the critical event that initiates signaling is not the approximation of the cytoplasmic domains of aIL-3 and bIL-3, but is, rather, the formation of a b-b homodimer. Many of these studies involved t...