stimming

Calcium (Ca(2+)) signaling plays a critical role in regulating plethora of cellular functions including cell survival, proliferation and migration. The perturbations in cellular Ca(2+) homeostasis can lead to cell death either by activating autophagic pathways or through induction of apoptosis. Endoplasmic reticulum (ER) is the major storehouse of Ca(2+) within cells and a number of physiological agonists mediate ER Ca(2+) release by activating IP3 receptors (IP3R). This decrease in ER Ca(2+) levels is sensed by STIM, which physically interacts and activates plasma membrane Ca(2+) selective Orai channels...

Huntington's disease (HD) is an autosomal-dominant, progressive neurodegenerative disease characterized by selective loss of neurons in the striatum and cortex, which leads to progressive motor dysfunction, cognitive decline and behavioral symptoms. HD is caused by a trinucleotide (CAG) repeat expansion in the gene encoding for huntingtin (HTT). Despite the fact that the HD gene was identified over 20 years ago, there is no effective disease-modifying therapy for HD and only symptomatic therapies are available to date...

The purpose of the present study was to assess whether urinary soluble T-cell immunoglobulin and mucin domain-containing protein 3 (sTim-3) could be adopted as a novel non‑invasive biomarker for acute rejection (AR) following renal transplantation. A total of 156 patients were enrolled between January 2006 and December 2009, comprising 49 patients with biopsy‑proven AR, 58 patients with stable grafts and no abnormal histological findings (NO‑AR), 10 patients with subclinical rejection (SCR) in protocol biopsies, 10 patients with acute tubular necrosis (ATN) and 29 patients with chronic allograft nephropathy (CAN)...

BACKGROUND: Prediction of motor diagnosis in Huntington's disease (HD) can be improved by incorporating other phenotypic and biological clinical measures in addition to cytosine-adenine-guanine (CAG) repeat length and age. OBJECTIVE: The objective was to compare various clinical and biomarker trajectories for tracking HD progression and predicting motor conversion. METHODS: Participants were from the PREDICT-HD study. We constructed a mixed-effect model to describe the change of measures while jointly modeling the process with time to HD diagnosis...

BACKGROUND: Chloroquine, a bitter tastant, inhibits Ca(2+) signaling, resulting in suppression of B cell activation; however, the inhibitory mechanism remains unclear. RESULTS: In this study, thapsigargin (TG), but not caffeine, induced sustained intracellular Ca(2+) increases in mouse splenic primary B lymphocytes, which were markedly inhibited by chloroquine. Under Ca(2+)-free conditions, TG elicited transient Ca(2+) increases, which additionally elevated upon the restoration of 2 mM Ca(2+)...

AIM: Children treated with a growth hormone (GH) for idiopathic growth hormone deficiency (IGHD) may be monitored with the first-year prediction model from the Pfizer International Growth Database (KIGS) using auxology, age, GH dose and the maximum GH concentration from a stimulation test (GHmax stim). We tested the hypothesis that using a 12-hour spontaneous profile (GHmax 12h) would be as accurate. METHODS: We studied 98 prepubertal Swedish children (78 boys) aged 2-12 years enrolled in KIGS...

BACKGROUND: Subthalamic deep brain stimulation (STN-DBS) is an established treatment for the motor complications of Parkinson's disease (PD) and may have beneficial effects on non-motor symptoms (NMS). However, the acute effect of STN stimulation on NMS has only been explored in small PD cohorts with short post-surgical follow-up. OBJECTIVE: To study NMS response to an acute stimulation challenge in an STN-DBS PD population with a medium/long-term post-surgical follow-up...

Tight control of basal cytosolic Ca(2+) concentration is essential for cell survival and to fine-tune Ca(2+)-dependent cell functions. A way to control this basal cytosolic Ca(2+) concentration is to regulate membrane Ca(2+) channels including store-operated Ca(2+) channels and secondary messenger-operated channels linked to G-protein-coupled or tyrosine kinase receptor activation. Orai, with or without its reticular STIM partner and Transient Receptor Potential (TRP) proteins, were considered to be the main Ca(2+) channels involved...

PURPOSE: To determine whether fertility preservation with ovarian stimulation (OS) results in treatment delay in breast cancer (BC) patients receiving neoadjuvant therapy (NAT). METHODS: This is a retrospective study of women screened for the prospective neoadjuvant ISPY2 trial at the University of California San Francisco. All patients were <43, had stage II-III BC, and received neoadjuvant therapy. Time to initiation of NAT was compared between women who underwent OS (STIM) and women who did not (control)...

We investigated the role of Na(+)/ Ca(2+) exchange (NCX) in the refilling of endoplasmic reticulum (ER) Ca(2+) in vascular endothelial cells under various conditions of cell stimulation and plasma membrane (PM) polarization. Better understanding of the mechanisms behind basic ER Ca(2+) content regulation is important, since current hypotheses on the possible ultimate causes of ER stress point to deterioration of the Ca(2+) transport mechanism to/from ER itself. We measured [Ca(2+)]i temporal changes by Fura-2 fluorescence under experimental protocols that inhibit a host of transporters (NCX, Orai, non-selective transient receptor potential canonical (TRPC) channels, sarco/endoplasmic reticulum Ca(2+) ATPase (SERCA), Na(+)/ K(+) ATPase (NKA)) involved in the Ca(2+) communication between the extracellular space and the ER...

The Ca(2+) sensor proteins STIM1 and STIM2 are crucial elements of store-operated calcium entry (SOCE) in breast cancer cells. Increased SOCE activity may contribute to epithelial-mesenchymal transitions (EMT) and increase cell migration and invasion. However, the roles of STIM1 and STIM2 in TGF-β-induced EMT are still unclear. In this study, we demonstrate roles of STIMs in TGF-β-induced EMT in breast cancer cells. In particular, STIM1 and STIM2 expression affected TGF-β-induced EMT by mediating SOCE in MDA-MB-231 and MCF-7 breast cancer cells...

OBJECTIVE: Deep brain stimulation (DBS) of the subthalamic nucleus (STN) is a highly effective symptomatic therapy for motor deficits in Parkinson's disease (PD). An additional, disease-modifying effect has been suspected from studies in toxin-based PD animal models, but these models do not reflect the molecular pathology and progressive nature of PD that would be required to evaluate a disease-modifying action. Defining a disease-modifying effect could radically change the way in which DBS is used in PD...

BACKGROUND: Neuromuscular electrical stimulation (NMES) is commonly used to activate skeletal muscles and reverse muscle atrophy in clinical populations. Clinical recommendations for NMES suggest the use of short pulse widths (100-200 μs) and low-to-moderate pulse frequencies (30-50 Hz). However, this type of NMES causes rapid muscle fatigue due to the (non-physiological) high stimulation intensities and non-orderly recruitment of motor units. The use of both wide pulse widths (1000 μs) and tendon vibration might optimize motor unit activation through spinal reflex pathways and thus delay the onset of muscle fatigue, increasing muscle force and mass...

The transcription factor NFAT5 is up-regulated in several clinical disorders including dehydration. NFAT5-sensitive genes include serum and glucocorticoid-inducible kinase (SGK)-1. The kinase is a powerful regulator of Orai1, a Ca(2+)-channel accomplishing store-operated Ca(2+)-entry (SOCE). Orai1 is stimulated after intracellular store depletion by the Ca(2+) sensors stromal interaction molecule (STIM)-1, or STIM2, or both. In the present study, we explored whether nuclear factor of activated T cell (NFAT)-5 influences Ca(2+)-signaling in megakaryocytes...

T2⁎ weighted 3D Gradient Echo (GRE) acquisition is the main sequence used for Susceptibility Weighted Imaging (SWI) and Quantitative Susceptibility Mapping (QSM). These applications require a long echo time (TE) to build up phase contrast, requiring a long repetition time (TR), and leading to excessively lengthy scans. The long TE acquisition creates a significant amount of unused time within each TR, which can be utilized for either multi-echo sampling or additional image encoding with the echo-shift technique...

Nanotechnology and synthetic biology are rapidly converging, with DNA origami being one of the leading bridging technologies. DNA origami was shown to work well in a wide array of biotic environments. However, the large majority of extant DNA origami scaffolds utilize bacteriophages or plasmid sequences thus severely limiting its future applicability as a bio-orthogonal nanotechnology platform. In this paper we present the design of biologically inert (i.e., "bio-orthogonal") origami scaffolds. The synthetic scaffolds have the additional advantage of being uniquely addressable (unlike biologically derived ones) and hence are better optimized for high-yield folding...

BACKGROUND: Research supports that in vitro fertilization causes anxiety and that anxiety can continue into the resulting pregnancy. Most women who have IVF will have a less invasive treatment for infertility prior to IVF; however, it is unclear if specific less invasive treatment cycles impact anxiety that is experienced in the pregnancy resulting from IVF. METHODS: A prospective study was conducted for women who became pregnant via IVF, and data was collected about reported previous non-IVF treatment cycles as well as Pregnancy Related Anxiety Measure...

On-chip high-Q microcavities possess significant potential in terms of integration of optical microresonators into functional optoelectronic devices that could be used in various applications, including biosensors, photonic-integrated circuits, or quantum optics experiments. Yet, despite the convenience of fabricating wafer-scale integrated microresonators with moderate Q values using standard microfabrication techniques, surface-tension-induced microcavities (STIMs), which have atomic-level surface roughness enabling the observation of Q values larger than 10⁶, could only be produced using individual thermal treatment of every single microresonator within the devised area...

RATIONALE: In intensive care unit (ICU) patients, diaphragm dysfunction is associated with adverse clinical outcomes. Ultrasound measurements of diaphragm thickness, excursion (EXdi) and thickening fraction (TFdi) are putative estimators of diaphragm function, but have never been compared with phrenic nerve stimulation. Our aim was to describe the relationship between these variables and diaphragm function evaluated using the change in endotracheal pressure after phrenic nerve stimulation (Ptr,stim), and to compare their prognostic value...

RATIONALE: Small airways are the primary site of pathologic changes in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), the major smoking-induced lung disorder. OBJECTIVES: Based on the concept of proximal-distal patterning that determines regional specialization of the airway epithelium during lung development, we hypothesized that a similar program operates in the adult human lung being altered by smoking leading to decreased regional identity of the small airway epithelium (SAE)...