introduction: cardiac glycosides such as digoxin or digitoxin are the natural products that are traditionally used to increase cardiac contractile force in patients with heart failure and cardiac arrhythmias. it has been shown that digoxin can directly inhibit the cell proliferation and lead to cell apoptosis. present study was conducted to analyze the effect of digoxin in the cohorts of mesenc...

silybum marianum, is known to have anti-inflammatory, hepatoprotective and anticarciogenic effects. the aim of this study was to compare effects of silymarin, rapamycin and fk506 on proliferation and apoptosis of human t cells stimulated with con a. peripheral blood mononuclear cells (pbmc) were stimulated with concavalin a  ( con a) (5µg/ml) and then treated with different inhibitors (silymari...

a purification procedure of pertussis toxin (pt) from submerged culture of bordetella pertussis (b.pertussis) strain 134 using adsorption and affinity chromatography was discussed. the yield of the resulting pt was approximately 37.5mg/l of concentrated culture supernatant. the polypeptide pattern of the purified pt was investigated by sds-page and showed five bands between 11 to 26 kda using l...

Epithelial cells (ECs) continuously interact with microorganisms and detect their presence via different pattern-recognition receptors (PRRs) including Toll-like receptors (TLRs). Ligation of epithelial TLRs by pathogens is usually associated with the induction of pro-inflammatory mediators and antimicrobial factors. In this study, using human airway ECs as a model, we found that detection of m...

Microorganisms are an essential component of cheese, playing an important role during its manufacture and ripening. Cheese microbiota can be composed by starter cultures, group formed mainly by lactic acid bacteria (LAB) such as Lactococcus, Lactobacillus, Streptococcus, Leuconostoc and Enterococcus involved in acid production and flavor development during ripening; adjunct microbial cultures a...

Iron-rich (ferruginous) ocean chemistry prevailed throughout most of Earth's early history. Before the evolution and proliferation of oxygenic photosynthesis, biological production in the ferruginous oceans was likely driven by photoferrotrophic bacteria that oxidize ferrous iron {Fe(II)} to harness energy from sunlight, and fix inorganic carbon into biomass. Photoferrotrophs may thus have fuel...

An individual-based, mass-spring modeling framework has been developed to investigate the effect of cell properties on the structure of biofilms and microbial aggregates through Lagrangian modeling. Key features that distinguish this model are variable cell morphology described by a collection of particles connected by springs and a mechanical representation of deformable intracellular, interce...

Development of the infant small intestine is influenced by bacterial colonization. To promote establishment of optimal microbial communities in preterm infants, knowledge of the beneficial functions of the early gut microbiota on intestinal development is needed. The purpose of this study was to investigate the impact of early preterm infant microbiota on host gut development using a gnotobioti...