The spinal nucleus of the bulbocavernosus (SNB) is a sexually dimorphic group of motoneurons whose development and maintenance are under androgenic control. Exposure to androgens early in development permanently alters SNB motoneuron number and soma size; in adulthood, androgens regulate dendritic and synaptic architecture. The present set of experiments investigates the influence of androgens ...

This study aimed to investigate the influence of acute (a single 15 min) and chronic (15 min daily for 21 days) exposure to forced swim (FS) test on nerve growth factor (NGF)/c-Fos cells in hypothalamic paraventricular (PV) and supraoptic (SO) nuclei, the central (CeA) and medial (MeA) amygdaloid nuclei and CA3-hippocampus in juvenile (P28) and aged (P360) rats. The double-immunofluorescence (-...

All cortical neurons are engaged in inhibitory feedback loops which ensure excitation-inhibition balance and are key elements for the development of coherent network activity. The resulting network patterns are strongly dependent on the strength and dynamic properties of these excitatory-inhibitory loops which show pronounced regional and developmental diversity. Therefore we compared the prope...

Coronary artery disease (CAD) is an immune-mediated chronic inflammatory disease mainly caused by atherosclerosis. The aims of this study were to investigate the role of interleukin-27 (IL-27) in patients with CAD and the severity of coronary artery lesions, which was evaluated by Gensini score and to investigate the biosynthesis of IL-27 and oxidized low-density lipoprotein (ox-LDL) in vitro u...

In this study, we observed the ontogenetic changes in glucose transporter 3 (GLUT3) immunoreactivity, a major neuronal GLUT, in the dentate gyrus of mouse brains at various ages: postnatal day (P) 1, 7, 14, 28, and 56. At P1, cresyl violet staining showed abundant neurons in the dentate gyrus, whereas the granule cell layer was ill-defined. At P7, the granule cell layer was observed, and cresyl...

Generalized vitiligo is an autoimmune disease characterized by melanocyte loss, which results in patchy depigmentation of skin and hair. Recent studies suggested the key role of CD8+T lymphocytes for mediating immune response in vitiligo through melanocyte differentiation antigens, including tyrosinase, gp100 and MelanA/Mart-1. However, the specific epitopes of these auto-antigens are still unk...

We evaluated two commercial human T-cell lymphotropic virus (HTLV) Western blot (WB; immunoblot) kits, Cambridge Biotech Corp. (CBC) and Diagnostic Biotechnology Ltd. (DBL). Both methods employ HTLV type I (HTLV-I) viral lysate and rgp21. The DBL WB kit also distinguishes between HTLV-I and HTLV-II antibodies, using an HTLV-I-specific and an HTLV-II-specific recombinant. Fifty weakly reactive H...

Amplitudes of EPSPs evoked by repetitive presynaptic action potentials can either decrease (synaptic depression) or increase (synaptic facilitation). To determine whether facilitation and depression in the connections between neocortical pyramidal cells varied with the identity of the pre- or the postsynaptic cell and whether they changed during postnatal development, whole-cell voltage recordi...

Bacterial proteins and their derivative peptides have emerged as promising anticancer agents. Nowadays they represent a valuable set of candidate drugs with different origins and modes of action. Among these, monomeric cupredoxins, which are metalloproteins involved in the electron transport chain of prokaryotes, have been shown to possess potent anticancer activities. In particular, much atten...

The members of the IL-12 family of heterodimeric cytokines play a pivotal role in initiation and regulation of cell-mediated immunity. Best known is IL-12p70, which promotes an immune response towards T(h)1 bias. Other members of this family (IL-23, IL-27) are less well characterized in terms of induction and function. Using either heat-killed or viable Salmonella Enteritidis or LPS as a stimul...