We demonstrate that c-Jun N-terminal kinase (JNK) responds to substrate stiffness and regulates adherens junction (AJ) formation in epithelial cells in 2D cultures and in 3D tissues in vitro and in vivo. Rigid substrates led to JNK activation and AJ disassembly, whereas soft matrices suppressed JNK activity leading to AJ formation. Expression of constitutively active JNK (MKK7-JNK1) induced AJ ...

Using bone decalcified with 0-6 N hydrochloric acid as an inducing agent, the inductive capacity of different soft tissue sites was investigated. Muscle and fascia regularly permitted the induction of bone, while spleen, liver and kidney suppressed bone induction. Bone formation could be induced in these organs if living autologous fascia was implanted together with the inducing agent; while bo...

BACKGROUND To understand the involvement of structural maintenance of chromosome 4 (SMC4) in the development and progression of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). METHODS Real-time quantitative PCR and Western Blotting were applied to measure the expression of SMC4 in HCC samples and cell lines. The tumor-promoting effect of SMC4 was determined by WST-1, soft agar colony formation, cell motility...

An investigation was conducted to test the feasibility of demineralized bone matrix and cancellous bone chips in a reverse-phase medium carrier (DynaBlast) in concert with an extracellular matrix membrane (DynaMatrix) to provide hard and soft tissue regeneration for the purpose of a ridge preservation procedure. Nine patients requiring extraction of 30 maxillary teeth were grafted with DynaBlas...

Coacervation is usually defined as the spontaneous formation of a dense liquid phase from a macromolecular solution of poor solvent affinity. In "coacervation", the loss of solvation arises from the interaction of complementary macromolecular species. The formation of such macromolecule-rich fluids is well-known in mixtures of complementary polyelectrolytes; it can also occur from mixtures of p...

The glass-forming ability (GFA) of alloys with a high-solvent content such as soft magnetic Fe-based and Al-based alloys is usually limited due to strong formation of the solvent-based solid solution phase. Herein, we report that the GFA of soft magnetic Fe-based alloys (with >70 at.% Fe to ensure large saturation magnetization) could be dramatically improved by doping with only 0.3 at.% Cu whi...

Metal-Insulator type nano-granular magnetic (NGM) thin films have been noteworthily developed as several functional magnetic materials. The formation of nanogranular structure is strongly related to the magnitude of heat formation (H) of intergranule materials. Forming a larger H allows a clearer granular structure to be obtained. Soft magnetic properties and TMR effect of NGM films are revie...

ARTICLE INFO ABSTRACT Keywords: Au Cluster Oxidation Au cluster anions consisting of 2-13 atoms were soft-landed on native-oxide-covered Si wafers. Reaction of soft-landed clusters with an atomic oxygen atmosphere was studied using X-ray photoelectron spec-troscopy (XPS)_ Aus. AU7. and AU 13 turned out to show pronounced inertness for Au-oxide formation. When the samples with deposited Au clust...

Experimental results on hadronic soft and hard diffractive processes are reviewed with emphasis on aspects of the data that point to the underlying QCD mechanism for diffraction. Diffractive differential cross sections are shown to be factorized into two terms, one representing the total cross section at the reduced energy, corresponding to the rapidity region(s) in which there is particle prod...

The soft (≈ 0.1–2.0 keV) X-ray spectra of narrow-line Seyfert 1 galaxies are known to be generally steeper than those of Seyfert 1 galaxies with broader optical permitted lines. This has been attributed to the presence of strong soft X-ray excesses, over the hard X-ray power law, in many narrow-line Seyfert 1s. Here we use the currently available ASCA data to systematically compare the harder (...