Apoptosis is a form of programmed cell death critical for development and homeostasis in multicellular organisms. Apoptosis-like cell death (ALCD) has been described in several fungi, including the opportunistic human pathogen Cryptococcus neoformans. In addition, capsular polysaccharides of C. neoformans are known to induce apoptosis in host immune cells, thereby contributing to its virulence....

Many plant species undergo changes in leaf morphology as the vegetative shoot meristem matures (Poethig, 2003; Telfer et al., 1997). In Arabidopsis, juvenile leaves are produced before shoot maturation and are relatively round and lack trichomes on the abaxial side (underside) of the leaves. Adult leaves formed after the shoot meristem matures are more elliptical and have abaxial trichomes. An ...

Mutations affecting the Arabidopsis SWC6 gene encoding a putative orthologue of a component of the SWR1 chromatin remodelling complex in plants have been characterized. swc6 mutations cause early flowering, shortened inflorescence internodes, and altered leaf and flower development. These phenotypic defects resemble those of the photoperiod independent early flowering 1 (pie1) and early in shor...

Inflammation is an important component of various cancers and its inflammatory cells and mediators have been shown to have prognostic potential. Tumor-infiltrating mast cells can promote tumor growth and angiogenesis, but the mechanism of mast cell activation is unclear. In earlier studies, we demonstrated that immunoglobulin free light chains (FLC) can trigger mast cells in an antigen-specific...

Recently, turbidimetric immunoassays for detecting and quantifying and free light chains (FLC) have become available and are promoted as being more sensitive than immunofixation electrophoresis (IFE) in detecting FLC monoclonal proteins. In this study, we assessed the ability of these turbidimetric assays to detect serum monoclonal proteins involving both free and heavy-chain-bound and light ch...

The angular distribution of forward-scattered light in transient-scattering-mode (TSM) and extended-scattering-mode (ESM) ferroelectric liquid-crystal (FLC) devices was evaluated by use of circularly polarized incident light. For both modes the intensity and the distribution of forward-scattered light depended primarily on the FLC birefringence, spontaneous polarization, and the cell path lengt...

Long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) have been proposed to play important roles in gene regulation. However, their importance in epigenetic silencing and how specificity is determined remain controversial. We have investigated the cold-induced epigenetic switching mechanism involved in the silencing of Arabidopsis thaliana Flowering Locus C (FLC), which occurs during vernalization. Antisense transcrip...

Monitoring of serum free immunoglobulin light chains (FLC) in 26 myeloma patients who achieved immunofixation negativity after allografting showed a decrease of FLC at a median of 128 days before immunofixation negativity. In patients who subsequently relapsed, a 25% increase of FLC was observed at a median of 98 days before immunofixation positivity.

The effect of intelligent semi-active thermal exchange-fuzzy controller in structural rehabilitation by attenuating seismic responses of structural systems is investigated. In the suggested control system, MR dampers and sensors are employed as a semi-active controller. Resultant control forces of MR damper are administrated by providing external voltage supply, during the earthquakes and high ...