BACKGROUND The objective of this prospective controlled trial was to investigate the ability of a group of serum and peritoneal fluid (PF) markers to predict, non-surgically, endometriosis. METHODS AND RESULTS Serum and PF samples were obtained from 130 women while undergoing laparoscopy for pain, infertility, tubal ligation or sterilization reversal. Concentrations of six cytokines [interleu...

Platelet activation and thrombin generation are crucial steps in primary and secondary haemostasis. However, both also play major roles in intravascular thrombus formation and therefore in the development of adverse cardiovascular events. In the current study, we first sought to investigate the associations of the platelet biomarkers platelet factor (PF)-4, thrombospondin (TSP)-1, soluble CD40 ...

AIM To compare the conjunctival and corneal reactions of commercially available solution of latanoprost (Xalatan) and preservative-free (PF) tafluprost in rabbits. METHODS The rabbits received 50 microl of phosphate-buffered saline (PBS), PF-tafluprost 0.0015%, latanoprost 0.005% or benzalkonium chloride (BAK) 0.02%; all solutions were applied at 5 min intervals for a total of 15 times. The o...

Nitrogen is the second most critical factor for crop production after water. In this study, the beneficial rhizobacterium Pseudomonas protegens Pf-5 was genetically modified to fix nitrogen using the genes encoding the nitrogenase of Pseudomonas stutzeri A1501 via the X940 cosmid. Pf-5 X940 was able to grow in L medium without nitrogen, displayed high nitrogenase activity and released significa...

To alleviate the problem of high dimensions in text clustering, an alternative to conventional methods is bipartite partitioning, where terms and documents are modeled as vertices on two sides respectively. Term weighting schemes, which assign weights to the edges linking terms and documents, are vital for the final clustering performance. In this paper, we conducted an comprehensive evaluation...

Five female members of a family manifesting a dominantly inherited bleeding disorder were investigated for coagulation and platelet abnormalities. A long bleeding time, mild thrombocytopenia, large platelets, low platelet factor-3 activity (PF-3), and low factor VIII levels were found in the proband. Long bleeding times, low PF-3, and low factor VIII levels were found in various combinations in...

Bone fracture healing is a complicated physiological regenerative process initiated in response to injury and is similar to bone development. To demonstrate whether an exogenous supply of parathyroid hormone-related protein (PTHrP) helps in bone fracture healing, closed mid-diaphyseal femur fractures were created and stabilized with intramedullary pins in eight-week-old wild-type (WT) PTHrP+/+ ...

The KIR genes and their HLA class I ligands have thus far not been investigated in pemphigus foliaceus (PF) and related autoimmune diseases, such as pemphigus vulgaris. We genotyped 233 patients and 204 controls for KIR by PCR-SSP. HLA typing was performed by LABType SSO reagent kits. We estimated the odds ratio, 95% confidence interval and performed logistic regression analyses to test the hyp...

The c-Met receptor tyrosine kinase and its ligand, hepatocyte growth factor (HGF), have been implicated in the progression of several human cancers and are attractive therapeutic targets. PF-2341066 was identified as a potent, orally bioavailable, ATP-competitive small-molecule inhibitor of the catalytic activity of c-Met kinase. PF-2341066 was selective for c-Met (and anaplastic lymphoma kinas...