The pyruvate dehydrogenase enzyme complex (PDC) is rate limiting for glucose oxidation in the heart. Inhibition of PDC by end-product feedback and phosphorylation by pyruvate dehydrogenase kinase (PDK) operate in concert to inhibit PDC activity. Because the transcriptional regulator peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor (PPAR)-alpha increases PDK expression in some tissues, we examined wha...

Metabolic aberrations in the form of altered flux through key metabolic pathways are the major hallmarks of several life-threatening malignancies including malignant gliomas. These adaptations play an important role in the enhancement of the survival and proliferation of gliomas at the expense of the surrounding normal/healthy tissues. Recent studies in the field of neurooncology have directly ...

Dichloroacetate (DCA) has been used for many years as an investigational drug to treat children born with mitochondrial disorders. Through its inhibition of Pyruvate Dehydrogenase Kinase (PDK), a key component of the pyruvate dehydrogenase complex, DCA has shown promise in facilitating oxidative phosphorylation in cell mitochondria. Recently, DCA has received more attention as a possible treatm...

Fiber type specificity for expression of all three rat skeletal muscle pyruvate dehydrogenase kinase (PDK) isoforms (PDK1, 2, and 4) was determined in fed and 24-h fasted rats. PDK activity and isoform protein and mRNA contents were determined in white gastrocnemius (WG; fast-twitch glycolytic), red gastrocnemius (RG; fast-twitch oxidative), and soleus (Sol; slow-twitch oxidative) muscles. PDK ...

Most commonly-used techniques in smart environments such as ADL recognition are designed and tested for a specific space and a specific person; therefore learning in each environmental situation is treated as a separate context. In this paper, we try to develop a method for recognizing and transferring learned knowledge of activities between different residents. Our method is able to map activi...

The identification and isolation of protein fragments that are responsible for specialized functions such as DNA binding, transactivation, and enzymatic activity (3,4,6) is a common technique for dissecting protein structure-function relationships. Subsequent functional analysis of protein fragments by mutational studies frequently aids the investigator in determining critical regions and resid...

A skill transfer and improvement framework was designed and implemented to transfer skills to a simulated robot without the help of a robotics expert. A skill expert first learns to perform the desired task by maneuvering the robot and giving actuator commands using the keyboard. The framework is then used to transfer the expert’s skills to the robot by teaching the robot’s controller to perfor...

We have developed a new method for introducing large numbers of isolated mitochondria into tissue culture cells. Direct microinjection of mitochondria into typical mammalian cells has been found to be impractical due to the large size of mitochondria relative to microinjection needles. To circumvent this problem, we inject isolated mitochondria through appropriately sized microinjection needles...