BACKGROUND A familial defect in intestinal barrier function has been found in Crohn's disease. AIM To investigate possible genetic and environmental influences on this barrier defect by studying intestinal permeability in both relatives and spouses of patients with Crohn's disease. SUBJECTS The study included 39 patients with Crohn's disease, 34 healthy first degree relatives, and 22 spouse...

Epidermal TNF expression increases in response to cutaneous permeability barrier disruption and wound healing. TNF signaling is mediated by acid and neutral sphingomyelinases (A- and N-SMase), which generate ceramide, an important regulator of proliferation, differentiation, and apoptosis. In the epidermis, ceramide is known to be an integral part of the extracellular stratum corneum (SC) lipid...

Background—A familial defect in intestinal barrier function has been found in Crohn’s disease. Aim—To investigate possible genetic and environmental influences on this barrier defect by studying intestinal permeability in both relatives and spouses of patients with Crohn’s disease. Subjects—The study included 39 patients with Crohn’s disease, 34 healthy first degree relatives, and 22 spouses. T...

Ca signaling plays an important role in endothelial cell (EC) functions including the regulation of barrier integrity. Recently, the endogenous lipid derivative, sphingosine-1-phosphate (S1P), has emerged as an important modulator of EC barrier function. We investigated the role of endogenously generated S1P in Ca metabolism and barrier function in human umbilical endothelial cells (HUVECs) sti...

   Graphene oxide nanosheet (GONS) can be a suitable membrane for gas separation with high permeability and selectivity. Separation of N2/CO2 using functionalized GONS was investigated by molecular dynamics simulations. The simulated systems were comprised of two types of GONS with a pore in their center, N2 and CO2 molecules. The selectivity and ...

Blood-brain barrier opening using focused ultrasound and microbubbles has been experimentally established as a noninvasive and localized brain drug delivery technique. In this study, the permeability of the opening is assessed in the murine hippocampus after the application of focused ultrasound at three different acoustic pressures and microbubble sizes. Using dynamic contrast-enhanced MRI, th...

The blood-brain barrier is a restrictive interface between the brain parenchyma and the intravascular compartment. Tight junctions contribute to the integrity of the blood-brain barrier. Hypoxic-ischemic damage to the blood-brain barrier could be an important component of fetal brain injury. We hypothesized that increases in blood-brain barrier permeability after ischemia depend upon the durati...

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE We sought to validate the blood-brain barrier permeability measurements extracted from perfusion-weighted MRI through a relatively simple and frequently applied model, the Patlak model, by comparison with gold standard histology in a rat model of ischemic stroke. METHODS Eleven spontaneously hypertensive rats and 11 Wistar rats with unilateral 2-hour filament occlusion ...