Human lung fibroblasts are a potential source of endothelin-1 (ET-1), a pro-fibrotic mediator. The present study explored possible muscarinic and β-adrenergic modulations of ET-1 expression in human lung fibroblasts. MRC-5 human lung fibroblasts were cultured. Expression of prepro-endothelin-1 (ppET-1) mRNA was determined by quantitative real time PCR. [(3)H]-Proline incorporation was determine...

AIMS Salusin-β is a bioactive peptide with peripheral hypotensive, mitogenic and pro-atherosclerotic effects. The present study was designed to determine the roles of salusin-β in the paraventricular nucleus (PVN) and its relationship with arginine vasopressin (AVP) in hypertension and sympathetic activation. METHODS AND RESULTS Renovascular hypertension was induced by two-kidney, one-clip (2...

Renal ischemia-reperfusion injury is associated with the loss of tubular epithelial cell-cell and cell-matrix interactions which contribute to renal failure. The Epac-Rap signaling pathway is a potent regulator of cell-cell and cell-matrix adhesion. The cyclic AMP analogue 8-pCPT-2'-O-Me-cAMP has been shown to selectively activate Epac, whereas the addition of an acetoxymethyl (AM) ester to 8-p...

Centrality measures have been defined to quantify the importance of a node in complex networks. The relative importance of a node can be measured using its centrality rank based on the centrality value. In the present work, we predict the degree centrality rank of a node without having the entire network. The proposed method uses degree of the node and some network parameters to predict its ran...

The results of kinetic simulations of magnetic reconnection in Harris current sheets are analyzed. A range of guide fields is considered to study reconnection in plasmas characterized by different β values, β > me/mi. Both an implicit Particle-in-Cell (PIC) simulation method and a parallel explicit PIC code are used. Simulations with mass ratios up to the physical value are performed. The simul...