Search results for "Pathway"
showing 10 items of 1685 documents
Activation of MORs in the VTA induces changes on cFos expression in different projecting regions: Effect of inflammatory pain.
2019
Abstract Chronic pain is a worldwide major health problem and many pain-suffering patients are under opioid based therapy. Epidemiological data show that pain intensity correlates with the risk of misuse of prescription opioids, and other drugs of abuse including alcohol. This increased vulnerability to suffer Substance Use Disorders could be, in part, caused by functional changes that occur over the mesocorticolimbic system, a brain pathway involved in reward processing and addiction. Previous data in rats revealed that inflammatory pain desensitizes mu opioid receptors (MORs) in the ventral tegmental area (VTA). As a consequence, pain alters dopamine release in the nucleus accumbens (NAc)…
Spinal plasticity with motor imagery practice.
2019
KEY POINTS: While a consensus has now been reached on the effect of motor imagery (MI) – the mental simulation of an action – on motor cortical areas, less is known about its impact on spinal structures. The current study, using H‐reflex conditioning paradigms, examined the effect of a 20 min MI practice on several spinal mechanisms of the plantar flexor muscles. We observed modulations of spinal presynaptic circuitry while imagining, which was even more pronounced following an acute session of MI practice. We suggested that the small cortical output generated during MI may reach specific spinal circuits and that repeating MI may increase the sensitivity of the spinal cord to its effects. T…
Fabrication of amorphous strontium polyphosphate microparticles that induce mineralization of bone cells in vitro and in vivo.
2017
Abstract Here we describe the fabrication process of amorphous strontium-polyphosphate microparticles (“Sr-a-polyP-MP”). The effects of these particles on growth and gene expression were investigated with SaOS-2 cells as well as with human mesenchymal stem cells (MSC) and compared with those particles prepared of amorphous calcium-polyphosphate (“Ca-a-polyP-MP”) and of strontium salt. The results revealed a markedly higher stimulation of growth of MSC by “Sr-a-polyP-MP” compared to “Ca-a-polyP-MP” and a significant increase in mineralization of SaOS-2 cells, as well as an enhanced upregulation of the expression of the genes encoding for alkaline phosphatase and the bone morphogenetic protei…
Silver nanoparticle based coatings enhance adipogenesis compared to osteogenesis in human mesenchymal stem cells through oxidative stress.
2020
Silver nanoparticle (AgNP) based antibacterial surfaces were fabricated using plasma polymerization technology and their effects on differentiation of human bone-marrow derived mesenchymal stem cells (hMSCs) were investigated in this study. The results showed that AgNP coated surfaces do not affect the initial adhesion, spreading and proliferation of hMSCs. Furthermore, the silver coated surface promoted adipogenic differentiation of hMSCs as demonstrated by more accumulation of lipid droplets and upregulation of adipogenesis-related genes such as peroxisome proliferator activated receptor gamma (PPAR gamma), adipocyte determination and differentiation factor (ADD1) and CCAAT/enhancer bindi…
Search for a Minimal Set of Parameters by Assessing the Total Optimization Potential for a Dynamic Model of a Biochemical Network.
2017
Selecting an efficient small set of adjustable parameters to improve metabolic features of an organism is important for a reduction of implementation costs and risks of unpredicted side effects. In practice, to avoid the analysis of a huge combinatorial space for the possible sets of adjustable parameters, experience-, and intuition-based subsets of parameters are often chosen, possibly leaving some interesting counter-intuitive combinations of parameters unrevealed. The combinatorial scan of possible adjustable parameter combinations at the model optimization level is possible; however, the number of analyzed combinations is still limited. The total optimization potential (TOP) approach is…
Extracellular Hsp70 Enhances Mesoangioblast Migration via an Autocrine Signaling Pathway
2017
Mouse mesoangioblasts are vessel-associated progenitor stem cells endowed with the ability of multipotent mesoderm differentiation. Therefore, they represent a promising tool in the regeneration of injured tissues. Several studies have demonstrated that homing of mesoangioblasts into blood and injured tissues are mainly controlled by cytokines/chemokines and other inflammatory factors. However, little is known about the molecular mechanisms regulating their ability to traverse the extracellular matrix (ECM). Here, we demonstrate that membrane vesicles released by mesoangioblasts contain Hsp70, and that the released Hsp70 is able to interact by an autocrine mechanism with Toll-like receptor …
Determinism and contingency shape metabolic complementation in an endosymbiotic consortium
2017
Bacterial endosymbionts and their insect hosts establish an intimate metabolic relationship. Bacteria offer a variety of essential nutrients to their hosts, whereas insect cells provide the necessary sources of matter and energy to their tiny metabolic allies. These nutritional complementations sustain themselves on a diversity of metabolite exchanges between the cell host and the reduced yet highly specialized bacterial metabolism-which, for instance, overproduces a small set of essential amino acids and vitamins. A well-known case of metabolic complementation is provided by the cedar aphid Cinara cedri that harbors two co-primary endosymbionts, Buchnera aphidicola BCc and Ca. Serratia sym…
Ribosome-Targeting Antibiotics Impair T Cell Effector Function and Ameliorate Autoimmunity by Blocking Mitochondrial Protein Synthesis
2019
Summary While antibiotics are intended to specifically target bacteria, most are known to affect host cell physiology. In addition, some antibiotic classes are reported as immunosuppressive for reasons that remain unclear. Here, we show that Linezolid, a ribosomal-targeting antibiotic (RAbo), effectively blocked the course of a T cell-mediated autoimmune disease. Linezolid and other RAbos were strong inhibitors of T helper-17 cell effector function in vitro, showing that this effect was independent of their antibiotic activity. Perturbing mitochondrial translation in differentiating T cells, either with RAbos or through the inhibition of mitochondrial elongation factor G1 (mEF-G1) progressi…
pH-sensitive vibrational probe reveals a cytoplasmic protonated cluster in bacteriorhodopsin
2017
Infrared spectroscopy has been used in the past to probe the dynamics of internal proton transfer reactions taking place during the functional mechanism of proteins but has remained mostly silent to protonation changes in the aqueous medium. Here, by selectively monitoring vibrational changes of buffer molecules with a temporal resolution of 6 µs, we have traced proton release and uptake events in the light-driven proton-pump bacteriorhodopsin and correlate these to other molecular processes within the protein. We demonstrate that two distinct chemical entities contribute to the temporal evolution and spectral shape of the continuum band, an unusually broad band extending from 2,300 to well…
The hydrolysis of 6-phosphogluconolactone in the second step of pentose phosphate pathway occurs via a two-water mechanism.
2018
Hydrolysis reaction marks the basis of life yet the mechanism of this crucial biochemical reaction is not completely understood. We recently reported the mechanisms of hydrolysis of nucleoside triphosphate and phosphate monoester. These two reactions hydrolyze P-O-P and P-O-C linkages, respectively. Here, we present the mechanism of hydrolysis of δ-6-phosphogluconolactone, which is an important precursor in the second step of the pentose phosphate pathway. Its hydrolysis requires the cleavage of C-O-C linkage and its mechanism is hitherto unknown. We report three mechanisms of hydrolysis of δ-6-phosphogluconolactone based on density functional computations. In the energetically most favorab…