Cytoskeleton alterations are a hallmark of mesangial cell activation during glomerulosclerosis. The aim of this study was to investigate whether mycophenolic acid (MPA) affects cytoskeletal organization and motility of human mesangial cells. Using the IP15 cell line, we found that treatment with 1 micromol/L MPA inhibited both receptor-dependent (angiotensin II) and receptor-independent (KCl) c...

BACKGROUND Physical activity (PA), weight-bearing exercises (WBE) and muscle strength contribute to skeletal development, while sedentary behaviour (SB) adversely affects bone health. Previous studies examined the isolated effect of PA, SB or muscle strength on bone health, which was usually assessed by x-ray methods, in children. Little is known about the combined effects of these factors on b...

OBJECTIVE Traumatic impacts on the articular joint surface in vitro are known to lead to degeneration of the cartilage. The main objective of this study was to develop a spring-loaded impact device that can be used to deliver traumatic impacts of consistent magnitude and rate and to find whether impacts cause catabolic activities in articular cartilage consistent with other previously reported ...

Marker PDU Aligned Framing (MPA) is designed to work as an "adaptation layer" between TCP and the Direct Data Placement protocol (DDP) as described in RFC 5041. It preserves the reliable, in-order delivery of TCP, while adding the preservation of higher-level protocol record boundaries that DDP requires. MPA is fully compliant with applicable TCP RFCs and can be utilized with existing TCP imple...

osmotic stress is one of the major factors that significantly reduce yields in dry areas. plants respond to this abiotic stress at physiological and molecular levels. many genes are induced under stress conditions by transcription factors. dehydration responsive element binding (dreb) protein is a subfamily of ap2/erf transcription factors which control expression of many osmotic stress-inducib...

BACKGROUND Age-related endothelial dysfunction and vascular stiffening are associated with increased cardiovascular (CV) risk. Many groups have encouraged goals of ≥10 000 steps/day or ≥30 min/day of moderate intensity physical activity (MPA) to reduce age-related CV risk. The impact of MPA on the vasculature of older adults remains unclear. METHODS AND RESULTS We randomized 114 sedentary old...

BACKGROUND The purpose of this study was to compare the frequency-dependent viscoelastic properties of human and bovine cartilage. METHODS Full-depth cartilage specimens were extracted from bovine and human femoral heads. Using dynamic mechanical analysis, the viscoelastic properties of eight bovine and six human specimens were measured over the frequency range 1 Hz to 88 Hz. Significant diff...

We investigated the extent of osmotic adjustment and changes in transpiration rate that occur in response to repeated cycles of water deficit stress in 6-year-old Thuja occidentalis L. (eastern white cedar) trees. Groups of trees were water-stress conditioned by repeated exposure to predetermined thresholds of nonlethal water stress by withholding water until the predawn water potential fell to...