Activin A and betacellulin (BTC) are thought to regulate differentiation of pancreatic beta-cells during development and regeneration of beta-cells in adults. In the present study, we used neonatal rats treated with streptozotocin (STZ) to investigate the effects of activin A and BTC on regeneration of pancreatic beta-cells. One-day-old Sprague-Dawley rats were injected with STZ (85 micro g/g) ...

BACKGROUND Liver transplantation is an important treatment option for patients with liver-originated tumors including biliary tract carcinomas (BTCs). Post-transplant tumor recurrence remains a limiting factor for long-term survival. The mammalian target of rapamycin-targeting immunosuppressive drug rapamycin could be helpful in lowering BTC recurrence rates. Therein, we investigated the antipr...

Directed delivery of EGF receptor (EGFR) ligands to the apical or basolateral surface is a crucial regulatory step in the initiation of EGFR signaling in polarized epithelial cells. Herein, we show that the EGFR ligand betacellulin (BTC) is preferentially sorted to the basolateral surface of polarized MDCK cells. By using sequential truncations and site-directed mutagenesis within the BTC cytop...

Betacellulin (BTC), a member of the epidermal growth factor (EGF) family of peptide growth factors, was purified from a growth-factor-enriched whey fraction of bovine milk by a combination of ion-exchange chromatography, gel-filtration chromatography, affinity chromatography and reverse-phase HPLC. Bovine BTC (bBTC) had an apparent molecular mass of 21-22 kDa on SDS/PAGE and exists in a glycosy...

The asymmetric unit of the title compound, [Zn3(HCO2)3(C9H3O6)(C3H7NO)3] n , contains one Zn ion, one formate ligand, one N,N-di-methyl-formamide (DMF) ligand and one-third of a benzene-1,3,5-tri-carboxyl-ate (btc) ligand situated on a crystallographic 3 axis. Each Zn(II) atom is coordinated by one O atom from a DMF ligand, two O atoms from two btc ligands and three O atoms from three formate l...

A novel ligand, 5,5'-(2,2'-bipyridine-4,4'-diyl)-bis(thiophene-2-carboxylic acid) (BTC), and its Ru(II) complex (BTC-1) in which the anchoring group is attached to the thiophene units were developed. Using a low-volatility electrolyte and 3.3 mum mesoporous TiO2 films BTC-1 achieved a solar-to-electricity conversion efficiency of 6.1%, compared to 4.8% for N719 under the same experimental condi...

Biliary tract carcinoma (BTC) has a poor prognosis due to limited treatment options. There is, therefore, an urgent need to identify new targets and to design innovative therapeutic approaches. Among potential candidatemolecules, we evaluated the nonreceptor tyrosine kinase Src, observing promising antitumor effects of its small-molecule inhibitor saracatinib in BTC preclinical models. The pres...

Image compression is used to reduce the size of digital image files in order to lessen the physical storage and transmission bandwidth costs. The main challenge in image compression is reducing the file size while maintaining much of the visual information. In this study, we explore one class of image compression techniques – the Block Truncation Coding (BTC) – and propose a new variant which w...

We recently reported several driver genes of biliary tract carcinoma (BTC) that are known to play important roles in oncogenesis and disease progression. Although the need for developing novel therapeutic strategies is increasing, there are very few BTC cell lines and xenograft models currently available for conducting preclinical studies. Using a total of 88 surgical BTC specimens and 536 immu...

OBJECTIVE To examine the issues surrounding the development and implementation of a behind-the-counter (BTC) category of medications. DATA SOURCES Testimony from organizations submitting comments to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) panel hearings in November 2007, the 2009 final report of the U. S. General Accounting Office regarding a BTC drug category, literature review of research th...