Search results for "units"
showing 10 items of 576 documents
Endothelial cell damage is the central part of COVID-19 and a mouse model induced by injection of the S1 subunit of the spike protein☆
2021
Neurologic complications of symptomatic COVID-19 are common. Brain tissues from 13 autopsies of people who died of COVID-19 were examined. Cultured endothelial and neuronal cells were incubated with and wild type mice were injected IV with different spike subunits. In situ analyses were used to detect SARS-CoV-2 proteins and the host response. In 13/13 brains from fatal COVID-19, pseudovirions (spike, envelope, and membrane proteins without viral RNA) were present in the endothelia of microvessels ranging from 0 to 14 positive cells/200× field (mean 4.3). The pseudovirions strongly co-localized with caspase-3, ACE2, IL6, TNFα, and C5b-9. The surrounding neurons demonstrated increased NMDAR2…
Crosstalk between angiotensin and the nonamyloidogenic pathway of Alzheimer's amyloid precursor protein.
2017
The association between hypertension and an increased risk for Alzheimer's disease (AD) and dementia is well established. Many data suggest that modulation of the renin-angiotensin system may be meaningful for the prevention and therapy of neurodegenerative disorders, in particular AD. Proteolytic cleavage of the amyloid precursor protein (APP) by α-secretase precludes formation of neurotoxic Aβ peptides and is expected to counteract the development of AD. An established approach for the up-regulation of α-secretase cleavage is the activation of G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs). Therefore, our study aimed to analyze whether stimulation of angiotensin AT1 or AT2 receptors stably expressed…
Candida blood stream infections observed between 2011 and 2016 in a large Italian University Hospital: A time-based retrospective analysis on epidemi…
2019
Candida bloodstream infection (BSI) represents a growing infective problem frequently associated to biofilm production due to the utilization of intravascular devices. Candida species distribution (n = 612 strains), their biofilm production and hospital antifungal drug consumption were evaluated in different wards of a tertiary care academic hospital in Italy during the years 2011–2016. In the considered time window, an increasing number of Candida BSI (p = 0.005) and of biofilm producing strains were observed (p<0.0001). Although C. albicans was the species more frequently isolated in BSI with a major biofilm production, an increased involvement of non-albicans species was reported, partic…
Genotyping and Antifungal Susceptibility of Dipodascus capitatus Isolated in a Neonatal Intensive Care Unit of a Sicilian Hospital
2017
In August 2015, Dipodascus capitatus was isolated from two patients admitted to the neonatal intensive care unit. Nosocomial acquisition of the fungus was suspected and epidemiological studies were undertaken. The patients were simultaneously hospitalized, and the comparison of the two isolates by two independent molecular typing methods have confirmed clonal dissemination of a single strain of D. capitatus. Antimicrobial susceptibility testing was useful for identifying the appropriated antifungal therapy in micafungin. To our knowledge these are the first described cases of neonatal D. capitatus infection and also the first report of successful treatment by micafungin.
Sorting signals for PIN1 trafficking and localization
2016
PIN-FORMED (PIN) family proteins direct polar auxin transport based on their asymmetric (polar) localization at the plasma membrane. In the case of PIN1, it mainly localizes to the basal (rootward) plasma membrane domain of stele cells in root meristems. Vesicular trafficking events, such as clathrin-dependent PIN1 endocytosis and polar recycling, are probably the main determinants for PIN1 polar localization. However, very little is known about the signals which may be involved in binding the μ-adaptin subunit of clathrin adaptor complexes (APs) for sorting of PIN1 within clathrin-coated vesicles, which can determine its trafficking and localization. We have performed a systematic mutagene…
Diversity, evolution, and function of myriapod hemocyanins.
2018
Background Hemocyanin transports O2 in the hemolymph of many arthropod species. Such respiratory proteins have long been considered unnecessary in Myriapoda. As a result, the presence of hemocyanin in Myriapoda has long been overlooked. We analyzed transcriptome and genome sequences from all major myriapod taxa – Chilopoda, Diplopoda, Symphyla, and Pauropoda – with the aim of identifying hemocyanin-like proteins. Results We investigated the genomes and transcriptomes of 56 myriapod species and identified 46 novel full-length hemocyanin subunit sequences in 20 species of Chilopoda, Diplopoda, and Symphyla, but not Pauropoda. We found in Cleidogona sp. (Diplopoda, Chordeumatida) a hemocyanin-…
Singular Location and Signaling Profile of Adenosine A2A-Cannabinoid CB1 Receptor Heteromers in the Dorsal Striatum
2018
The dorsal striatum is a key node for many neurobiological processes such as motor activity, cognitive functions, and affective processes. The proper functioning of striatal neurons relies critically on metabotropic receptors. Specifically, the main adenosine and endocannabinoid receptors present in the striatum, ie, adenosine A(2A) receptor (A(2A)R) and cannabinoid CB1 receptor (CB1R), are of pivotal importance in the control of neuronal excitability. Facilitatory and inhibitory functional interactions between striatal A(2A)R and CB1R have been reported, and evidence supports that this cross-talk may rely, at least in part, on the formation of A(2A)R-CB1R heteromeric complexes. However, th…
Parallel Pairwise Epistasis Detection on Heterogeneous Computing Architectures
2016
This is a post-peer-review, pre-copyedit version of an article published in IEEE Transactions on Parallel and Distributed Systems. The final authenticated version is available online at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/TPDS.2015.2460247. [Abstract] Development of new methods to detect pairwise epistasis, such as SNP-SNP interactions, in Genome-Wide Association Studies is an important task in bioinformatics as they can help to explain genetic influences on diseases. As these studies are time consuming operations, some tools exploit the characteristics of different hardware accelerators (such as GPUs and Xeon Phi coprocessors) to reduce the runtime. Nevertheless, all these approaches are not able t…
Comparison of hemolytic activity of the intermediate subunit of Entamoeba histolytica and Entamoeba dispar lectins.
2017
Galactose and N-acetyl-D-galactosamine-inhibitable lectin of Entamoeba histolytica has roles in pathogenicity and induction of protective immunity in rodent models of amoebiasis. Recently, the intermediate subunit of the lectin, Igl1, of E. histolytica has been shown to have hemolytic activity. However, the corresponding lectin is also expressed in a non-virulent species, Entamoeba dispar, and another subunit, Igl2, is expressed in the protozoa. Therefore, in this study, we compared the activities of Igl1 and Igl2 subunits from E. histolytica and E. dispar using various regions of recombinant Igl proteins expressed in Escherichia coli. The recombinant E. dispar Igl proteins had comparable h…
Fibrinogen Gamma Chain Promotes Aggregation of Vesicular Stomatitis Virus in Saliva.
2020
This article belongs to the Section Animal Viruses.