The objective of this study was to determine the role of individual NFAT isoforms in TNFα-induced retinal leukostasis. To this end, human retinal microvascular endothelial cells (HRMEC) transfected with siRNA targeting individual NFAT isoforms were treated with TNFα, and qRT-PCR was used to examine the contribution of each isoform to the TNFα-induced upregulation of leukocyte adhesion proteins....

Patients with low-grade myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS) show high levels of tumor necrosis factor (TNF ) and upregulation of apoptosis in the marrow. In contrast, marrow cells in advanced MDS are typically resistant to TNF -induced apoptosis but are rendered apoptosissensitive on coculture with stroma. The present studies show that CD34 marrow cells in advanced MDS express high levels of TWIST,...

We calculate single top–quark production at hadron colliders via the chromo–magnetic flavor–changing neutral current couplings t̄cg and t̄ug. We find that the strength for the anomalous t̄cg (t̄ug) coupling may be probed to κc/Λ = 0.092 TeV −1 (κu/Λ = 0.026 TeV ) at the Tevatron with 2 fb of data and κc/Λ = 0.013 TeV −1 (κu/Λ = 0.0061 TeV) at the LHC with 10 fb of data. The two couplings may be dis...

We investigated a general framework of the Standard Model with two Higgs doublets (2HDSM) with suppressed flavor-changing neutral currents (FCNC’s). Loop-induced FCNC (and CP-violating) effects, when confronted with experimental constraints for theK-K̄, B-B̄ and D-D̄ mixing and for the (b → sγ) decay, provide us with constraints on the values of the dominant Yukawa couplings of the charged Higgs, ...

Lymphocyte function-associated antigen 1 (LFA-1) plays important roles in immune cell adhesion, trafficking, and activation and is a therapeutic target for the treatment of multiple autoimmune diseases. Efalizumab is one of the most efficacious antibody drugs for treating psoriasis, a very common skin disease, through inhibition of the binding of LFA-1 to the ligand intercellular adhesion molec...

Glycosaminoglycans (GAGs) are ubiquitously present at the cell surface and in extracellular matrix, and crucial for matrix assembly, cell-cell and cell-matrix interactions. The supramolecular presentation of GAG chains, along with other matrix components, is likely to be functionally important but remains challenging to control and to characterize, both in vivo and in vitro. We present a method...

Memory CD4+ T cells are considered a stable latent reservoir for human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) and a barrier to eradication of this retroviral infection in patients under therapy. It has been shown that memory CD4+ T cells are preferentially infected with HIV-1, but the exact mechanism(s) responsible for this higher susceptibility remains obscure. Previous findings indicate that i...

The stability of the standard vacuum imposes constraints on flavor violating trilinear soft terms which are stronger than the laboratory bounds coming from the absence of neutral flavor violations (FCNC). Furthermore, contrary to the FCNC bounds, these constraints persist even if the scale of supersymmetry breaking is arbitrarily large. CERN-TH-96/116 SCIPP-96-22 SU-ITP 96/16 IEM-FT-131/96 May ...

We study the FCNC top quark decays t→ c h in the framework of the MSSM, where h ≡ h, H, A is any of the supersymmetric neutral Higgs bosons. We include the leading set of SUSY-QCD and SUSY electroweak contributions. While the FCNC top quark decay into the SM Higgs boson has such a negligible rate that will not be accessible to any presently conceivable accelerator, we find that there is a chanc...

BACKGROUND The significant reduction of angiographic restenosis rates in the ISAR-SWEET study (intracoronary stenting and antithrombotic regimen: is abciximab a superior way to eliminate elevated thrombotic risk in diabetes) raises the question of whether abciximab acts on clopidogrel-independent mechanisms in suppressing neointimal hyperplasia. The current study investigates the direct effect ...