PURPOSE To investigate whether the absence of the Fas-Fas ligand system of apoptosis regulation affects hyperoxia-induced retinal vaso-obliteration and retinal neovascularization in a mouse model of oxygen-induced retinopathy. METHODS C57BL/6 (B6) and congenic Fas ligand-deficient generalized lymphoproliferative disease (gld) mice were exposed to 75% oxygen from postnatal day (P)7 to P12 and ...

Traumatic experiences early in life can contribute to the development of mood and anxiety disorders that manifest during adolescence and young adulthood. In young rats exposed to acute fear or stress, alterations in neural development can lead to enduring behavioral abnormalities. Here, we used a modified extinction intervention (retrieval+extinction) during late adolescence (post-natal day 45 ...

Neurogenesis in the dentate gyrus (DG) has attracted attention since abnormal supragranular mossy fiber sprouting occurs in the same region, in temporal lobe epilepsy. Thus, we submitted developing rats to pilocarpine-induced status epilepticus (SE) to study the relationship between neurogenesis and mossy fiber sprouting. Groups were submitted to SE at: I-P9, II-P7, P8 and P9, III-P17 e IV-P21....

Murine monoclonal antibodies directed against the structural proteins p17 and p24 of human immunodeficiency virus type 1 were investigated in an epitope mapping system. Overlapping peptides consisting of 15 amino acids of the p17 and p24 protein, respectively, were used as competitors in an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. Three different immunogenic regions (A, B, and C) could be defined, on...

Three weeks after myocardial infarction (MI) in the rat, remodeled hypertrophy of noninfarcted myocardium is at its maximum and the heart is in a compensated stage with no evidence of heart failure. Our hemodynamic measurements at this stage showed a slight but insignificant decrease of +dP/dt but a significantly higher left ventricular end-diastolic pressure. To investigate the basis of the di...

West Central Africa has been implicated as the epicenter of the HIV-1 epidemic, and almost all group M subtypes can be found there. Previous analysis of early HIV-1 group M sequences from Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of Congo, formerly Zaire, revealed that isolates from a number of individuals fall in different positions in phylogenetic trees constructed from sequences from opposite ends...

Eyeblink conditioning is a well-established model for studying the developmental neurobiology of associative learning and memory. However, age differences in extinction and subsequent reacquisition have yet to be studied using this model. The present study examined extinction and reacquisition of eyeblink conditioning in developing rats. In Experiment 1, post-natal day (P) 17 and 24 rats were t...

PURPOSE We sought to determine the effect of sildenafil on retinal vascular changes in a mouse model of oxygen-induced retinopathy (OIR). METHODS Vascular defects in OIR mice were quantified by measuring vaso-obliteration at postnatal days 12 and 17 (P12 and P17) and neovascularization at P17 to compare sildenafil-treated to dextrose-treated OIR mice. Retinal HIF1α protein expression was quan...

The gag gene of HIV-1 encodes a single open reading frame of 55 kDa that contains three subdomains: the matrix domain (p17), the capsid domain (p24) and the nucleocapsid domain (p15). The p24 and p17 proteins have a predominant alpha-helical structure and perform important functions throughout the viral life-cycle. The determination of gag-specific antibodies is important because declining tite...