Genetically obese Zucker rats exhibit symptoms similar to those of obese patients with insulin-resistance or Type II diabetes; therefore, they have been used as a genetic model to study obesity, as well as a pharmacological model for the discovery of new drugs for the treatment of Type II diabetes and hyperlipidemia. In the present study, we compared the pharmacokinetics of two novel peroxisome...

Infiltrating leukocytes may be responsible for autoimmune disease. We hypothesized that the chemokine monocyte chemoattractant protein (MCP)-1 recruits macrophages and T cells into tissues that, in turn, are required for autoimmune disease. Using the MRL-Fas(lpr) strain with spontaneous, fatal autoimmune disease, we constructed MCP-1-deficient MRL-Fas(lpr) mice. In MCP-1-intact MRL-Fas(lpr) mic...

The 2-min protocol (1 + 1) for the betaeta-s.t.a.r. (manufactured by Neogen Corporation, Lansing, MI, USA) was validated at the Technology and Food Science Unit of the Institute for Agricultural and Fisheries Research according to Commission Decision 2002/657/EC. The test was very selective for the group of beta-lactam compounds: the only interference found was by clavulanic acid at 2500 microg...

The neonatal Ab and TCR repertoires are much less diverse, and also very different from, the adult repertoires due to the delayed onset of terminal deoxynucleotidyl transferase (TdT) expression in ontogeny. TdT adds nontemplated N nucleotides to the junctions of Igs and TCRs, and thus its absence removes one of the major components of junctional diversity in complementarity-determining region 3...

Animal models have enhanced our understanding of the pathogenesis of autoimmune diseases. For these models, genetically identical, inbred mice have commonly been used. Different inbred mouse strains, however, show a high variability in disease manifestation. Identifying the factors that influence this disease variability could provide unrecognized insights into pathogenesis. We established a no...

In this paper, the general class of morphological/rank/linear (MRL) multilayer feed-forward neural networks (NNs) is presented as a unifying signal processing tool that incorporates the properties of multilayer perceptrons (MLPs) and morphological/rank neural networks (MRNNs). The fundamental processing unit of MRL-NNs is the MRL-"lter, where the combination of inputs in every node is formed by...

The MRL mouse has been shown to display an epimorphic regenerative response after ear hole punching leading to complete closure within 30 days and cartilage regrowth. The regenerative capacity of the MRL has also been seen after a severe cryoinjury to the heart leads to complete healing without scarring and functional myocardium. The wound healing ear hole closure response that occurs in MRL mi...

Rhamnolipid biosurfactants produced mainly by Pseudomonas sp. had been reported to possess a wide range of potential industrial application. These biosurfactants are produced as monorhamnolipid (MRL) and di-rhamnolipid (DRL) congeners. The present study deals with rhamnolipid biosurfactants produced by three bacterial isolates from crude oil. Biosurfactants produced by one of the strains (named...

In systemic lupus erythematosus, the renal deposition of complement-containing immune complexes initiates an inflammatory cascade resulting in glomerulonephritis. Activation of the classical complement pathway with deposition of C3 is pathogenic in lupus nephritis. Although the alternative complement pathway is activated in lupus nephritis, its role in disease pathogenesis is unknown. To determ...

In general, mammalian males produce only spermatozoa in their testes and females produce only oocytes in their ovaries. However, newborn MRL/MpJ male mice produce oocytes within their testes. In this study, we examined the initiation and progression of oogenesis in fetal and neonatal MRL/MpJ mouse testes and evaluated the characteristics of testicular oocytes. Germ cells with positive reactions...