The discussion concentrated on antigenic aspects of HSV * (structural and nonstructural antigens, type-specific anti gens, antigenic differences among HSV-2 strains, and an tigens common to HSV-2 and cervical cancer) and on anti body responses to HSV (ability to detect specific HSV-2 reactions, role of prior HSV-1 experience, methods of mea surement, and frequency of HSV-2 antibodies in cervica...

BACKGROUND Mild cold exposure and overfeeding are known to elevate energy expenditure in mammals, including humans. This process is called adaptive thermogenesis. In small animals, adaptive thermogenesis is mainly caused by mitochondrial uncoupling in brown adipose tissue and regulated via the sympathetic nervous system. In humans, skeletal muscle is a candidate tissue, known to account for a l...

Western blots detected uncoupling protein 3 (UCP3) in skeletal-muscle mitochondria from wild-type but not UCP3 knock-out mice. Calibration with purified recombinant UCP3 showed that mouse and rat skeletal muscle contained 0.14 microg of UCP3/mg of mitochondrial protein. This very low UCP3 content is 200-700-fold less than the concentration of UCP1 in brown-adipose-tissue mitochondria from warm-...

Hypoxia is an acknowledged pathway to renal injury and ischemia-reperfusion (I/R) and is known to reduce renal oxygen tension (Po2). We hypothesized that renal I/R increases oxidative damage and induces mitochondrial uncoupling, resulting in increased oxygen consumption and hence kidney hypoxia. Lewis rats underwent syngenic renal transplantation (TX) and contralateral nephrectomy. Controls wer...

Contraction in the mammalian heart is controlled by the intracellular Ca(2+) concentration as it is in all striated muscle, but the heart has an additional signaling system that comes into play to increase heart rate and cardiac output during exercise or stress. β-adrenergic stimulation of heart muscle cells leads to release of cyclic-AMP and the activation of protein kinase A which phosphoryla...

During the last decade, the possibility that 'mild' uncoupling could be protective against oxidative damage by diminishing ROS (reactive oxygen species) production has attracted much interest. In the present paper, we briefly examine the evidence for this possibility. It is only ROS production from succinate under reverse electron-flow conditions that is sensitive to membrane potential fluctuat...

Uncoupling protein mediates electrophoretic transport of protons and anions across the inner membrane of brown adipose tissue mitochondria. The mechanism and site of proton transport, the mechanism by which fatty acids activate proton transport, and the relationship between fatty acids and anion transport are unknown. We used fluorescent probes to measure H+ and anion transport in vesicles reco...

doi:10.1002/2211-5463.12410 Mitochondrial uncoupling protein-2 (UCP2) mediates free fatty acid (FA)dependent H translocation across the inner mitochondrial membrane (IMM), which leads to acceleration of respiration and suppression of mitochondrial superoxide formation. Redox-activated mitochondrial phospholipase A2 (mt-iPLA2c) cleaves FAs from the IMM and has been shown to acts in synergy with ...

Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a chronic, progressive and inflammatory disease often leading to irreversible destruction of articular structures and consequent disability. The key steps of RA pathogenetic mechanisms are the break of immune tolerance and the production of autoantibodies, followed by systemic and local inflammation resulting in damage of both subchondral bone (erosion) and cartilag...

Stearoylethanolamide (SEA) is present in human, rat and mouse brain in amounts comparable with those of the endocannabinoid anandamide (arachidonoylethanolamide; AEA). Yet, the biological activity of SEA has never been investigated. We synthesized unlabelled and radiolabelled SEA to investigate its binding, degradation and biological activity in rat C6 glioma cells. We report that SEA binds to ...