Hepatitis delta virus (HDV) can dramatically worsen liver disease in patients coinfected with hepatitis B virus (HBV). No effective medical therapy exists for HDV. The HDV envelope requires HBV surface antigen proteins provided by HBV. Once inside a cell, however, HDV can replicate its genome in the absence of any HBV gene products. In vitro, HDV virion assembly is critically dependent on preny...

Chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) is a hematopoietic stem cell disorder maintained by cancer stem cells. To target this population, we investigated the mechanism of action of BMS-214662, developed as a farnesyl transferase inhibitor (FTI) and unique in inducing apoptosis in these cells. By contrast, a related congener and equally effective FTI, BMS-225975 does not induce apoptosis, indicating a no...

In this paper, a new force transmission index called the mean force transmission index (MFTI) is proposed, and the force transmissibility analysis procedure is established for parallel manipulators. The MFTI is an extended definition of the force transmission index (FTI) introduced by the authors previously. It is shown that the FTI is a function of the input velocity ratio (IVR) for a multi-DO...

Serum concentration of FSH, LH, testosterone, prolactin,ACTH,cortisol, TSH, T ,T and resin Tuptake were measured in 146 men who were exposed to vesicants used by Iraqi regime, few days to 4 weeks prior to test'ing, Clinical and laboratory findings had confirmed that mustards had been used. Mean serum concentrations of FSH, LH, TSH and prolactin were not signi­ficantly different from normals. Fr...

A mathematical formula was derived from an active cross-bridge model to express the changes in the active myocardial force which occurred during systole. Using the formula and the assumption that the energy expenditure for cross-bridge cycling (Um) was a linear function of the force-time integral (FTI), we developed formulae describing the left ventricular Um versus FTI relation, the Um versus ...

Thyroid function was assessed at the time of initial diagnosis in 204 patients with lung cancer and compared with that of age and sex-matched patients with non-malignant lung disease. Abnormalities in thyroid function were found in 67 patients (33%). The most prevalent abnormality was a low T3 concentration; this was not associated with other clinical or biochemical evidence of hypothyroidism, ...

Oxidative stress seems to be present in patients with polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS). The aim of this study was to evaluate the correlation between characteristics of PCOS and serum concentrations of afamin, a novel binding protein for the antioxidant vitamin E. A total of 85 patients with PCOS and 76 control subjects were investigated in a pilot cross-sectional study design between 2009 and ...

The cytoplasmic deacetylase HDAC6 is an important regulator of cellular pathways that include response to stress, protein folding, microtubule stability, and cell migration, thus representing an attractive target for cancer chemotherapy. However, little is known about its upstream regulation. Our previous work has implicated HDAC6 as a new protein target for the farnesyltransferase inhibitors (...