Spawning marine invertebrates are excellent models for studying fertilization and reproductive isolating mechanisms. To identify variation in the major steps in sea urchin gamete recognition, we studied sperm activation in three closely related sympatric Strongylocentrotus species. Sperm undergo acrosomal exocytosis upon contact with sulfated polysaccharides in the egg-jelly coat. This acrosome...

A food developed at the Hiroshima Prefectural Food Technology Research Center, Hiroshima, Japan, has proved to be a boon in videofluorography. The food features decreased hardness with retained their shape due to being impregnated with macerating enzymes under reduced pressure after vegetables are defrosted. Samples were removed immediately from the enzyme solution after freeze infusion. All fo...

When, at about the 40th hour of incubation, the heart of the embryonic chick begins to pump blood it is essentially a simple tubular structure, looped to the right. I t s wall consists of a tube of endothelium within a sleeve of epimyocardium. In living as well as in fixed preparations there is a space between these tmo layers. I n the living condition this space appears optically homogeneous. ...

AIM Implant-related infections are still a significant problem in spinal surgical procedures. Many drugs and methods have been tried to prevent implant-related infections. Our objective in this study was to evaluate whether royal jelly, which was found to hinder the growth of MRSA, has any preventive role in the prognosis of an infection in rats in an implant-related infection model. MATERIAL...

Whole royal jelly, when premixed with tumor cells before inoculation, has been shown to inhibit completely the development of transplantable AKR leukemia and of three lines of mouse ascitic tumors. Fractionation studies have established that all, or nearly all, of the in vitro antitumor activity of whole royal jelly can be accounted for in the major component of the ether-soluble fatty acid fra...

Background: A simple, portable measure of daytime sleepiness is the Oxford Sleep Resistance (OSLER-2) test; however its use is limited to those with good hand function. This study modified the OSLER-2 test to assess the measurement of daytime sleepiness using two alternative, non-hand-held response switches. Methods: The unit was modified to accept the standard hand-held switch, a head-tap swit...

objective(s):in the present study, we evaluated immunological and immunomodulatory properties of royal jelly (rj) in 2,4,6 trinitrobenzene sulfonic acid (tnbs)-induced colitis in rats. materials and methods: eighteen adult female wistar albino rats were divided into three groups of six animals each: a control group that received only saline solution, a tnbs-induced colitis group, and a tnbs-col...

Two groups of mAbs reacting with external domains of a major sea urchin sperm membrane glycoprotein of 210 kD were isolated. Previous studies have shown that group I mAbs inhibit the acrosome reaction induced by egg jelly and also cause large increases in intracellular Ca2+ [( Ca2+]i). Group II mAbs, at comparable levels of cell surface binding, neither inhibit the egg jelly-induced acrosome re...