Search results for "actin"
showing 10 items of 1375 documents
Aclidinium inhibits human lung fibroblast to myofibroblast transition
2011
Background Fibroblast to myofibroblast transition is believed to contribute to airway remodelling in lung diseases such as asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. This study examines the role of aclidinium, a new long-acting muscarinic antagonist, on human fibroblast to myofibroblast transition. Methods Human bronchial fibroblasts were stimulated with carbachol (10 −8 to 10 −5 M) or transforming growth factor-β1 (TGF-β1; 2 ng/ml) in the presence or absence of aclidinium (10 −9 to 10 −7 M) or different drug modulators for 48 h. Characterisation of myofibroblasts was performed by analysis of collagen type I and α-smooth muscle actin (α-SMA) mRNA and protein expression as well as α…
Rho protein inactivation induced apoptosis of cultured human endothelial cells.
2002
Small GTP-binding Rho GTPases regulate important signaling pathways in endothelial cells, but little is known about their role in endothelial cell apoptosis. Clostridial cytotoxins specifically inactivate GTPases by glucosylation [ Clostridium difficile toxin B-10463 (TcdB-10463), C. difficile toxin B-1470 (TcdB-1470)] or ADP ribosylation ( C. botulinum C3 toxin). Exposure of human umbilical cord vein endothelial cells (HUVEC) to TcdB-10463, which inhibits RhoA/Rac1/Cdc42, or to C3 toxin, which inhibits RhoA, -B, -C, resulted in apoptosis, whereas inactivation of Rac1/Cdc42 with TcdB-1470 was without effect, suggesting that Rho inhibition was responsible for endothelial apoptosis. Disruptio…
Bioaccumulation of dioxins, coplanar PCBs, PCDEs, HxCNs, R-PCNs, R-PCPHs and R-PCBBs in fish from a pulp-mill recipient watercourse
1993
Abstract Pike, perch and lake bream from the river Kymijoki were analyzed by gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (GC/MS) for toxic polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins (PCDDs) and dibenzofurans (PCDFs), hexachlorinated naphthalenes (HxCNs), non-ortho substituted polychlorinated biphenyls (coplanar PCBs) and alkylchloroaromatics of pulp mill origin. In most fish, the only congener of PCDD/PCDFs found was 2,3,7,8-TeCDF (
Small $C^1$ actions of semidirect products on compact manifolds
2020
Let $T$ be a compact fibered $3$--manifold, presented as a mapping torus of a compact, orientable surface $S$ with monodromy $\psi$, and let $M$ be a compact Riemannian manifold. Our main result is that if the induced action $\psi^*$ on $H^1(S,\mathbb{R})$ has no eigenvalues on the unit circle, then there exists a neighborhood $\mathcal U$ of the trivial action in the space of $C^1$ actions of $\pi_1(T)$ on $M$ such that any action in $\mathcal{U}$ is abelian. We will prove that the same result holds in the generality of an infinite cyclic extension of an arbitrary finitely generated group $H$, provided that the conjugation action of the cyclic group on $H^1(H,\mathbb{R})\neq 0$ has no eige…
Modelling bioconcentration of pesticides in fish using biopartitioning micellar chromatography.
2005
Ecotoxicity assessment is essential before placing new chemical substances on the market. An investigation of the use of the chromatographic retention (log k) in biopartitioning micellar chromatography (BMC) as an in vitro approach to evaluate the bioconcentration factor (BCF) of pesticides in fish is proposed. A heterogeneous set of 85 pesticides from six chemical families was used. For pesticides exhibiting bioconcentration in fish (experimental log BCF > 2), a quantitative retention-activity relationships (QRAR) model is able to perform precise log BCF estimations of new pesticides. Considering the present data, the results based on log k seem to be more reliable than those from availabl…
Chromatographic evaluation of the toxicity in fish of pesticides
2004
Abstract Ecotoxicity assessment is essential before placing new chemical substances on the market. An investigation of the use of the chromatographic retention (log k) in biopartitioning micellar chromatography (BMC) as an in vitro approach to evaluate the toxicity in fish of pesticides (acute toxicity levels as pLC50) is proposed. A heterogeneous data set of 85 pesticides from six chemical families with available experimental fish toxicity data (ECOTOX database from U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)) was used. For pesticides exhibiting non-polar narcosis mechanism in fish (non-specific toxicity), more reliable models and precise pLC50 estimations are obtained from log k (quantitat…
Quantum phase transitions for an integrable quantum Rabi-like model with two interacting qubits
2022
A two-interacting-qubit quantum Rabi-like model with vanishing transverse fields on the qubit pair is studied. Independently of the coupling regime, this model can be exactly and unitarily reduced to two independent single-spin quantum Rabi models, where the spin-spin coupling plays the role of the transverse field. This transformation and the analytical treatment of the single-spin quantum Rabi model provide the key to prove the integrability of our model. The existence of different first-order quantum phase transitions, characterized by discontinuous two-spin magnetization, mean photon number, and concurrence, is brought to light.
Prediction of new inorganic molecules with quantum chemical methods
2006
Quantum chemistry can today be employed to invent new molecules and explore unknown molecular bonding. An overview of novel species containing metals bound to polynitrogen clusters is presented. The prediction of metal polyhydrides is discussed. Finally, some species containing gold that behaves as a halogen are described, together with recent advances in actinide chemistry and exploration of the nature of the actinide–actinide chemical bonding.
Evidence for a Smooth Onset of Deformation in the Neutron-Rich Kr Isotopes
2012
The neutron-rich nuclei Kr94,96 were studied via projectile Coulomb excitation at the REX-ISOLDE facility at CERN. Level energies of the first excited 2 + states and their absolute E2 transition strengths to the ground state are determined and discussed in the context of the E(21+) and B(E2;21+→01+) systematics of the krypton chain. Contrary to previously published results no sudden onset of deformation is observed. This experimental result is supported by a new proton-neutron interacting boson model calculation based on the constrained Hartree-Fock-Bogoliubov approach using the microscopic Gogny-D1M energy density functional. © 2012 American Physical Society.
Sensitive laser spectroscopy on trapped barium ions by quenching with hydrogen
1983
The sensitivity of laser spectroscopy on barium ions stored in a radio frequency quadrupole trap was drastically increased by using hydrogen for quenching the optically pumped metastable states. The attained fluorescence intensity per ion permits the detection of single ions. The method will be applied to environmental studies on actinides.