We used 5,6-dichloro-1-D-ribofuranosylbenzimidazole (DBB), a selective and reversible inhibitor of mRNA production; io investigate the regulation of the pathway leading-to resistance to viruses in cells treated with interferon (IF). DRB allows initiation of transcription but promotes premature termination of the nucleotide chains, so that it abolishes interferon-dependent protection against vir...

This study aimed to assess the role of constitutive protein kinase CK2 in cytokine-induced activation of NFκB in pancreatic β cell death. The CK2 inhibitors DRB (5,6-dichloro-1-β-D-ribofuranosylbenzimidazole) (50 μM) and DMAT (2-dimethylamino-4,5,6,7-tetrabromo-1H-benzimidazole) (5 μM), which decreased CK2 activity by approx. 65 %, rescued INS-1E β cells and mouse islets from cytokine (IL-1β, T...

Across species, diversity at the major histocompatibility complex (MHC) is critical to individual disease resistance and, hence, to population health; however, MHC diversity can be reduced in small, fragmented, or isolated populations. Given the need for comparative studies of functional genetic diversity, we investigated whether MHC diversity differs between populations which are open, that is...

Major histocompatibility complex (MHC) variability is believed to be maintained by pathogen-driven selection, mediated either through heterozygous advantage or frequency-dependent selection. However, empirical support for these hypotheses under natural conditions is rare. In this study, we investigated the genetic constitution of the functionally important MHC class II gene (DRB exon 2) and the...

Lung alveolar epithelial cells are the first barrier exposed to volatile anesthetics, such as sevoflurane, prior to reaching the targeted neuronal cells. Previously, the effects of volatile anesthetics on lung surfactant were studied primarily with physicochemical models and there has been little experimental data from cell cultures. Therefore it was investigated whether sevoflurane induces apo...

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES The prognosis and natural history of bradycardia related to drugs such as beta-blockers and non-dihydropyridine calcium channel blockers are not well known. SUBJECTS AND METHODS We retrospectively analyzed 38 consecutive patients (age 69+/-11, 21 women) with drug-related bradycardia (DRB) between March 2005 and September 2007. A drug-associated etiology for the brady...

Good-genes hypotheses predict that development of secondary sexual characters can be an honest advertisement of heritable male quality. We explored this hypothesis using a cervid model (adult, male white-tailed deer, Odocoileus virginianus) to determine whether antler development could provide an honest signal of a male's genetic quality and condition to adversaries. We compared antler, morphom...

An association has previously been shown between antibiotic-refractory Lyme arthritis, the human histocompatibility leukocyte antigen (HLA)-DR4 molecule, and T cell recognition of an epitope of Borrelia burgdorferi outer-surface protein A (OspA163-175). We studied the frequencies of HLA-DRB1-DQA1-DQB1 haplotypes in 121 patients with antibiotic-refractory or antibiotic-responsive Lyme arthritis ...

ICP22 is a multifunctional herpes simplex virus 1 (HSV-1) regulatory protein that regulates the accumulation of a subset of late (gamma(2)) proteins exemplified by U(L)38, U(L)41, and U(S)11. ICP22 binds the cyclin-dependent kinase 9 (cdk9) but not cdk7, and this complex in conjunction with viral protein kinases phosphorylates the carboxyl terminus of RNA polymerase II (Pol II) in vitro. The pr...

Clinically used calcineurin inhibitors, including tacrolimus (FK506) and cyclosporine A, can induce calcineurin inhibitor-induced pain syndrome (CIPS), which is characterized as severe pain and pain hypersensitivity. Increased synaptic N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor (NMDAR) activity in the spinal dorsal horn plays a critical role in the development of CIPS. Casein kinase II (CK2), a serine/threo...