Calcium is an important second messenger in the phospholipase C (PLC) signal transduction pathway. Calcium signaling is involved in many biological processes, including muscle contraction, cellular activation, and cellular proliferation. Dendritic cell (DC) maturation is induced by many different stimuli, including bacterial lipopolysaccharide (LPS), bacterial toxins, inflammatory cytokines, pr...

Dendritic cells (DCs) respond to microbial infections by undergoing phenotypic maturation and by producing multiple cytokines. In the present study, we analyzed the ability of influenza A and Sendai viruses to induce DC maturation and activate tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF-alpha), alpha/beta interferon (IFN-alpha/beta), and IFN-like interleukin-28A/B (IFN-lambda2/3) and IL-29 (IFN-lambda1) g...

The probabilistic maturation reaction norm (PMRN) describes an individual's probability of maturing at a given age as a function of size and other relevant phenotypic traits. Population-level shifts in the PMRN are often interpreted to indicate genetic as opposed to phenotypic changes in maturation in fish. Inferences derived from trends in the PMRN have been challenged, warranting an experimen...

Commonly, female European eels are injected weekly with pituitary extract (PE) from carp (CPE) or salmon (SPE) to induce sexual maturation. However, a PE is mixture of gonadotropins and other hormones that not specific for eel rapidly cleared circulation. The aim this study was therefore test the effects highly stable eel-specific recombinant (rGTHs) on oocyte development in vitro vivo eels. Fo...

background: the effect of temperature and humidity on the maturation of toxocara cati eggs in an in vitro system was investigated. methods: suspensions of toxocara cati eggs, with 5% formalin/saline or 2.5% formalin/ringer were prepared and maintained at 37 °c under 40% humidity or at 25 °c under 98% humidity for 3 weeks for egg development. results: the suspension sample mixed by 2.5% formalin...

Miniature neurotransmission is the transsynaptic process where single synaptic vesicles spontaneously released from presynaptic neurons induce miniature postsynaptic potentials. Since their discovery over 60 years ago, miniature events have been found at every chemical synapse studied. However, the in vivo necessity for these small-amplitude events has remained enigmatic. Here, we show that min...

Dendritic filopodia are thought to participate in neuronal contact formation and development of dendritic spines; however, molecules that regulate filopodia extension and their maturation to spines remain largely unknown. Here we identify paralemmin-1 as a regulator of filopodia induction and spine maturation. Paralemmin-1 localizes to dendritic membranes, and its ability to induce filopodia an...

To examine the ability of dendritic cells (DC) to discriminate between helminth and microbial Ag and induce appropriately polarized Th responses, mouse DC were copulsed with the helminth Ag, schistosome egg Ag (SEA), along with the bacterium Proprionebacterium acnes, Pa, and transferred into wild-type mice. Strikingly, SEA/Pa-copulsed DC induced concurrent Pa-specific Th1 (but not Th2) response...

A hallmark of HIV-1 infection is the lack of sterilizing immunity. Dendritic cells (DCs) are crucial in the induction of immunity, and lack of DC activation might underlie the absence of an effective anti-HIV-1 response. We have investigated how HIV-1 infection affects maturation of DCs. Our data show that even though DCs are productively infected by HIV-1, infection does not induce DC maturati...