Search results for "ocal"

Tetraspanin CD63 controls basolateral sorting of organic cation transporter 2 in renal proximal tubules.

2016

CD63 is a ubiquitously expressed member of the tetraspanin superfamily. Using a mating-based split-ubiquitin-yeast 2-hybrid system, pull-down experiments, total internal reflection fluorescence microscopy, Forster resonance energy transfer, and biotinylation assays, we found that CD63 interacts with human organic cation transporter 2 (hOCT2), which transports endogenous and exogenous substrates, such as neurotransmitters and drugs in several epithelial cells. CD63 overexpression affects cellular localization of hOCT2 expressed in human embryonic kidney (HEK)293 cells. Studies with CD63-knockout mice indicate that in renal proximal tubules, CD63 determines the insertion of the mouse ortholog…

Morphological and molecular characterization of Paragonimus caliensis Little, 1968 (Trematoda: Paragonimidae) from Medellin and Pichinde, Colombia

2018

Paragonimiasis is a subacute to chronic inflammatory granulomatous lung disease caused by the genus Paragonimus. In Latin America Paragonimus mexicanus Miyazaki & Ishii, 1968 is the only confirmed species to cause human infections. Paragonimus caliensis Little, 1968 is an uncommon species often regarded as a synonym of P. mexicanus. Recently, the study of two types of Paragonimus metacercariae from Costa Rica has provided new molecular and morphological evidence that P. caliensis is a separate species from P. mexicanus. In the present study, molecular, morphological and phylogenetic tools have been used to characterize two populations of Paragonimus located at west of Medellin, Antioquia an…

Residual tumor micro-foci and overwhelming regulatory T lymphocyte infiltration are the causes of bladder cancer recurrence

2016

Bladder cancer has an unexplained, high recurrence rate. Causes of recurrence might include the presence of sporadic tumor micro-foci in the residual urothelial tissue after surgery associated with an inverted ratio between intratumoral effector and regulatory T cell subsets. Hence, surgical specimens of both tumors and autologous, macroscopically/histologically free-of-tumor tissues were collected from 28 and 20 patients affected by bladder or renal cancer, respectively. The frequencies of effector (IFNγ+ and IL17+ T cells) and regulatory (CD4+CD25hiCD127lo and CD8+CD28-CD127loCD39+ Treg) T cell subpopulations among tumor infiltrating lymphocytes were analyzed by immunofluorescence, while …

2017

Several studies have demonstrated that the expression of odorant receptors (ORs) occurs in various tissues. These findings have served as a basis for functional studies that demonstrate the potential of ORs as drug targets for a clinical application. To the best of our knowledge, this report describes the first evaluation of the mRNA expression of ORs and the localization of OR proteins in the human retina that set a stage for subsequent functional analyses. RNA-Sequencing datasets of three individual neural retinae were generated using Next-generation sequencing and were compared to previously published but reanalyzed datasets of the peripheral and the macular human retina and to reference…

A survey of clearing techniques for 3D imaging of tissues with special reference to connective tissue

2016

AbstractFor 3-dimensional (3D) imaging of a tissue, 3 methodological steps are essential and their successful application depends on specific characteristics of the type of tissue. The steps are 1° clearing of the opaque tissue to render it transparent for microscopy, 2° fluorescence labeling of the tissues and 3° 3D imaging. In the past decades, new methodologies were introduced for the clearing steps with their specific advantages and disadvantages. Most clearing techniques have been applied to the central nervous system and other organs that contain relatively low amounts of connective tissue including extracellular matrix. However, tissues that contain large amounts of extracellular mat…

2021

Abstract Background Gastric inflammation is a major risk factor for gastric cancer. Current endoscopic methods are not able to efficiently detect and characterize gastric inflammation, leading to a sub-optimal patients’ care. New non-invasive methods are needed. Reflectance mucosal light analysis is of particular interest in this context. The aim of our study was to analyze reflectance light and specific autofluorescence signals, both in humans and in a mouse model of gastritis. Methods We recruited patients undergoing gastroendoscopic procedure during which reflectance was analysed with a multispectral camera. In parallel, the gastritis mouse model of Helicobacter pylori infection was used…

Kupffer Cell and Monocyte-Derived Macrophage Identification by Immunofluorescence on Formalin-Fixed, Paraffin-Embedded (FFPE) Mouse Liver Sections

2020

Kupffer cells are the liver-resident macrophages and represent the first line of defense between the pathogens circulating from the intestines through the portal vein and systemic circulation. Recent works have highlighted the complex heterogeneity of macrophage functions and origins, thus raising awareness on the need for a better characterization of macrophage populations. The immunohistochemistry method here described, allows for a rapid distinction between Kupffer cells and monocyte-derived macrophages present on formalin-fixed, paraffin-embedded mouse liver samples. This protocol has been optimized for its reproducibility, reliability, and simplicity.

2019

Background: Focal dystonias are severe and disabling movement disorders of a still unclear origin. The structural brain networks associated with focal dystonia have not been well characterized. Here, we investigated structural brain network fingerprints in patients with blepharospasm (BSP) compared with those with hemifacial spasm (HFS), and healthy controls (HC). The patients were also examined following treatment with botulinum neurotoxin (BoNT). Methods: This study included matched groups of 13 BSP patients, 13 HFS patients, and 13 HC. We measured patients using structural-magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) at baseline and after one month BoNT treatment, at time points of maximal and minim…

Chimeric proteins tagged with specific 3xHA cassettes may present instability and functional problems

2017

Epitope-tagging of proteins has become a widespread technique for the analysis of protein function, protein interactions and protein localization among others. Tagging of genes by chromosomal integration of PCR amplified cassettes is a widely used and fast method to label proteins in vivo. Different systems have been developed during years in the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae. In the present study, we analysed systematically a set of yeast proteins that were fused to different tags. Analysis of the tagged proteins revealed an unexpected general effect on protein level when some specific tagging module was used. This was due in all cases to a destabilization of the proteins and caused a red…

Deviance sensitivity in the auditory cortex of freely moving rats.

2018

Deviance sensitivity is the specific response to a surprising stimulus, one that violates expectations set by the past stimulation stream. In audition, deviance sensitivity is often conflated with stimulus-specific adaptation (SSA), the decrease in responses to a common stimulus that only partially generalizes to other, rare stimuli. SSA is usually measured using oddball sequences, where a common (standard) tone and a rare (deviant) tone are randomly intermixed. However, the larger responses to a tone when deviant does not necessarily represent deviance sensitivity. Deviance sensitivity is commonly tested using a control sequence in which many different tones serve as the standard, eliminat…