BACKGROUND The pancreatic exocrine cell line AR42J-B13 can be reprogrammed to hepatocytes following treatment with dexamethasone. The question arises whether dexamethasone also has the capacity to induce ductal cells as well as hepatocytes. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS AR42J-B13 cells were treated with and without dexamethasone and analyzed for the expression of pancreatic exocrine, hepatoc...

Two hundred and eighty nine unrelated Marathas residing in Mumbai, Maharastra, (Western India) were studied for HLA A, B, C and DR locus antigen profiles. The HLA antigen maximum likelihood gene frequencies of HLA A1, A2, A9 (24), A11, A19 (33), B5, B7, B35, B40 (61), Cw3, Cw6, DR2, DR5, DR7, DQ1 and DQ2 were increased while that of HLA A3, A10 (26), A36, B8, B13, B16 (38), B18, B21, B22 (55), ...

Pdx1 (pancreatic and duodenal homeobox 1), Ngn3 (neurogenin 3) and MafA (v-maf musculoaponeurotic fibrosarcoma oncogene family, protein A) have been reported to bring about the transdifferentiation of pancreatic exocrine cells to beta (β) cells in vivo. We have investigated the mechanism of this process using a standard in vitro model of pancreatic exocrine cells, the rat AR42j-B13 cell line. W...

INTRODUCTION chronic Chagas heart disease (CCHD) is the most common manifestation of American Trypanosomiasis, causing about 50,000 deaths annually. Several factors bear correlation with the severity of CCHD. However, to our knowledge, the assessment on the contribution of major cardiovascular risk factors (CRF), such as hypertension and atherogenic dyslipidemia (AD) to CCHD severity is scarce,...

A rhamnose-containing polysaccharide (RCP) was extracted and purified from cell walls of Streptococcus mutans B13 (serotype d) and was chemically and immunologically characterized. Walls were initially extracted with 5% trichloroacetic acid at 4 degrees C to remove the serotype antigen and were then sequentially extracted with increasing concentrations of hot acid. Extracts lacking galactose we...