RATIONALE The small GTPase Rac is critical to vascular endothelial functions, yet its regulation in endothelial cells remains unclear. Understanding the upstream pathway may delineate Rac activation mechanisms and its role in maintaining vascular endothelial barrier integrity. OBJECTIVE By investigating phosphatidylinositol (3,4,5)-trisphosphate-dependent Rac exchanger 1 (P-Rex1), one of the ...

Fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET) between lipid-linked donor and acceptor molecules in two apposing lipid bilayer membranes is used to resolve topographical features at an intermembrane junction. Efficient energy transfer occurs when the membranes are apposed closely, which creates an image, or footprint, that maps the contact zone and reveals nanometer-scale topographical structure...

Introduction: Electronic portal imaging devices (EPIDs) are fundamentally used for instantaneous verification of the patient set‐up, block shape, and leaf positions during radiation therapy. In radiotherapy, situations arise in which an inclined PTV must be treated mutually with adjacent nodal regions. This methodology is most widely used for matching tangential/lateral breas...

The development of high-performance solar cells offers a promising pathway toward achieving high power per unit cost for many applications. Because state-of-the-art efficiencies single-junction are approaching the Shockley-Queisser limit, multi-junction (MJ) very attractive high-efficiency cells. This paper reviews progress in III–V compound and MJ In addition, analytical results efficiency pot...

Laminins are heterotrimeric molecules composed of an a , a b , and a g chain; they have broad functional roles in development and in stabilizing epithelial structures. Here, we identified a novel laminin, composed of known a and b chains but containing a novel g chain, g 3. We have cloned gene encoding this chain, LAMC3, which maps to chromosome 9 at q31-34. Protein and cDNA analyses demonstrat...

The American Association of Endodontists defines root canal obturation as the complete, three-dimensional obturation of the root of canal system, as close as possible to the cemento-dentinal junction without overor underfilling. Moreover, obturation should be carried out using a minimal amount of biocompatible sealer and the obturated canal should demonstrate a radiographically dense filling ex...

Endocrine pituitary cells are neuronlike; they express numerous voltage-gated sodium, calcium, potassium, and chloride channels and fire action potentials spontaneously, accompanied by a rise in intracellular calcium. In some cells, spontaneous electrical activity is sufficient to drive the intracellular calcium concentration above the threshold for stimulus-secretion and stimulus-transcription...

Monoclonal antibodies directed against seven different sites on Dictyostelium myosin (Peltz, G., J. A. Spudich, and P. Parham, 1985, J. Cell Biol., 100: 1016-1023) were tested for their ability to inhibit movement of myosin in vitro, using the Nitella-based myosin-mediated bead movement assay (Sheetz, M. P., R. Chasan, and J. A. Spudich, 1984, J. Cell Biol., 99: 1867-1871). To complement this f...

The blood–brain barrier (BBB) protects the neural microenvironment from changes of the blood composition. It is located in the endothelium, which is both seamless and interconnected by tight junctions. The restrictive paracellular diffusion barrier goes along with an extremely low rate of transcytosis and the expression of a high number of channels and transporters for molecules that cannot ent...