Insulin-stimulated muscle glucose uptake is inversely associated with the muscle glycogen concentration. To investigate whether this association is a cause and effect relationship, we compared insulin-stimulated muscle glucose uptake in noncontracted and postcontracted muscle of GSL3-transgenic and wild-type mice. GSL3-transgenic mice overexpress a constitutively active form of glycogen synthas...

Clinical and experimental studies indicate a role for GH in mechanisms related to anhedonia/hedonia, psychic energy, and reward. Recently we showed that transgenic mice with general overexpression of bovine GH display increased spontaneous locomotor activity. In the present study, we investigated whether this behavioral change is owing to a direct action of GH in the central nervous system or t...

The role of the renin-angiotensin system in blood pressure control and in the development of hypertension was investigated by generating transgenic mice carrying the rat renin or angiotensinogen gene or both genes under the control of the mouse metallothionein I promoter. The systolic blood pressure was significantly elevated in transgenic mice carrying both transgenes but was maintained normal...

PTH-related protein (PTHrP) is produced in vascular smooth muscle, where it is postulated to exert vasorelaxant properties by activation of the PTH/PTHrP type 1 receptor. As a model for studying the actions of locally produced PTHrP in vascular smooth muscle in vivo, we developed transgenic mice that overexpress the PTH/PTHrP receptor (PTHrP-R) in smooth muscle. Oocyte injection with a SMP8-PTH...

Skeletal muscle glucose transport was examined in transgenic mice overexpressing the glucose transporter GLUT1 using both the isolated incubated-muscle preparation and the hind-limb perfusion technique. In the absence of insulin, 2-deoxy-d-glucose uptake was increased approximately 3-8-fold in isolated fast-twitch muscles of GLUT1 transgenic mice compared with non-transgenic siblings. Similarly...

This work studies the effect of azobenzene dye Disperse Red 1 (DR1) doping and annealing on thermomechanical photomechanical properties poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) fibers. The mechanical are measured as a function temperature, pump light intensity, polarization. We find that with DR1 increases stiffness glass transition temperature (Tg) PMMA Moreover, below Tg decreases Young’s modulus Tg....

Analysis of HLA class II transgenic mice has progressed in recent years from analysis of single chain HLA class II transgenes with expression of mixed mouse/human heterodimers to double transgenic mice expressing normal human heterodimers. Previous studies have used either HLA transgenic mice in which there is a species-matched interaction with CD4 or mice which lack this interaction. Since bot...

BACKGROUND Human T-cell leukemia virus type I (HTLV-1) can cause an aggressive malignancy known as adult T-cell leukemia/lymphoma (ATL) as well as inflammatory diseases such as HTLV-1-associated myelopathy/tropical spastic paraparesis (HAM/TSP). A transgenic mouse that expresses HTLV-1 Tax also develops T-cell leukemia/lymphoma and an inflammatory arthropathy that resembles rheumatoid arthritis...

The expression of HLA-DR1 (DRB1*0101) is associated with an enhanced risk for developing rheumatoid arthritis (RA). To study its function, we have solved the three-dimensional structure of HLA-DR1 complexed with a candidate RA autoantigen, the human type II collagen peptide CII (259-273). Based on these structural data, the CII peptide is anchored by Phe263 at the P1 position and Glu266 at P4. ...

The first hydrophobic pocket, P1, of class II MHC has been shown to be an important site of peptide anchoring. Two polymorphisms occur in this pocket in the human class II MHC beta chain at position 85 and 86. beta 85 is usually Val, occasionally Ala, whereas beta 86 can be Gly or Val. However, Ala85 is found only in conjunction with Val86. The independent effect of the polymorphism at these tw...