The heart is a resistin target tissue and can function as an autocrine organ. We sought to investigate whether cyclic mechanical stretch could induce resistin expression in cardiomyocytes and to test whether there is a link between the stretch-induced TNF-alpha and resistin. Neonatal Wistar rat cardiomyocytes grown on a flexible membrane base were stretched by vacuum to 20% of maximum elongatio...

Resonance Raman spectra were obtained for 2-nitrophenol in cyclohexane solution with excitation wavelengths in resonance with the charge-transfer (CT) proton transfer band absorption. These spectra indicate that the Franck-Condon region photodissociation dynamics have multidimensional character with motion along more than 15 normal modes: the nominal CCH bend+CC stretch nu(12) (1326 cm(-1)), th...

In vivo, vascular walls are exposed to mechanical stretch, which may promote atherogenesis. This study was designed to investigate the effect of mechanical stretch on the production and gene expression of cytokines in endothelial cells (ECs) of human umbilical veins. ECs were cultured on flexible silicone membranes and exposed to cyclic mechanical stretch. Although the secretion levels of inter...

The expression of TRB3 (tribbles 3), an apoptosis regulated gene, increases during endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress. How mechanical stress affects the regulation of TRB3 in cardiomyocytes during apoptosis is not fully understood. An in vivo model of aorta-caval shunt in adult rats demonstrated the increased TRB3 protein expression in the myocardium. The tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-α) anta...

UNLABELLED Effect of Stretch on Conduction and Cx43. INTRODUCTION In disease states such as heart failure, myocardial infarction, and hypertrophy, changes in the expression and location of Connexin43 (Cx43) occur (Cx43 remodeling), and may predispose to arrhythmias. Stretch may be an important stimulus to Cx43 remodeling; however, it has only been investigated in neonatal cell cultures, which...

The nervous system counters mechanical perturbations applied to the arm with a stereotypical sequence of muscle activity, starting with the short-latency stretch reflex and ending with a voluntary response. Occurring between these two events is the enigmatic long-latency reflex. Although researchers have been fascinated by the long-latency reflex for over 60 years, some of the most basic questi...

We give a generalized definition of stretch that simplifies the efficient construction of lowstretch embeddings suitable for graph algorithms. The generalization, based on discounting highly stretched edges by taking their pth power for some 0 < p < 1, is directly related to performances of existing algorithms. This discounting of high-stretch edges allows us to treat many classes of edges with...

BACKGROUND Hollow smooth muscle organs such as the bladder undergo significant changes in wall tension associated with filling and distension, with attendant changes in muscle tone. Our previous study indicated that stretch induces Ca(2+) release occurs in the form of Ca(2+) sparks and Ca(2+) waves in urinary bladder myocytes. While, the mechanism underlying stretch-induced Ca2+ release in smoo...

The mechanical properties of the living cell are intimately related to cell signaling biology through cytoskeletal tension. The tension borne by the cytoskeleton (CSK) is in part generated internally by the actomyosin machinery and externally by stretch. Here we studied how cytoskeletal tension is modified during stretch and the tensional changes undergone by the sites of cell-matrix interactio...