OBJECTIVE Stretch induces functional and trophic effects in mammalian myocardium via various signal transduction pathways. We tested stretch signal transduction on immediate and slow force response (SFR) in rabbit myocardium. METHODS Experiments were performed in isolated right ventricular muscles from adult rabbit hearts (37 degrees C, 1 Hz stimulation rate, bicarbonate-buffer). Muscles were...

VDAC (voltage-dependent anion channel) is the pore-forming protein located in the outer mitochondrial membrane. In higher eukaryotes, three genes encode VDAC. Nevertheless, the knowledge of VDAC isoforms is mainly restricted to VDAC1, the only isoform that has been characterized from living tissues to date. We have highly enriched the isoform VDAC2 using as starting material bovine spermatozoa....

Sever-Chroneos, Zvjezdana, Cindy J. Bachurski, Cong Yan, and Jeffrey A. Whitsett. Regulation of mouse SP-B gene promoter by AP-1 family members. Am. J. Physiol. 277 (Lung Cell. Mol. Physiol. 21): L79–L88, 1999.—The regulatory role of activator protein-1 (AP-1) family members in mouse surfactant protein (SP) B (mSP-B) promoter function was assessed in the mouse lung epithelial cell line MLE-15. ...

The insulin-like growth factors (IGFs) have been implicated in the autocrine and/or paracrine growth of a number of tumor types, including lung tumors. Importantly, insulin-like growth factor-binding proteins (IGFBPs), which both enhance and inhibit the physiological and biological actions of the IGFs, have been shown to be secreted in vitro by a wide range of tumors. In particular, IGFBP-2 is ...

We present a new field theoretic formulation of the quantun mechanics of disordered systems. The problem is converted to an explicit field theory by changing variables in the functional integral over all random potentials to an integral over all possible wavefunctions. Unlike previous formulations this field theory has the novel feature of having the 'right' sign for the coefficient of the 'p" ...