Multiple factors, including peripheral vascular disease and neuropathy, contribute to the development and perpetuation of complications of the lower extremities in diabetes. The main aim of the present study was to assess the peripheral vascular and nerve status of diabetic and non-diabetic subjects that had undergone lower limb amputation. Various non-invasive tests of peripheral vascular and ...

Congenital afibrinogenemia is a rare autosomal recessive disorder characterized by the complete absence of plasma fibrinogen and by a bleeding tendency ranging from mild to moderately severe. Beside a deletion of the almost entire Aalpha-chain gene, only 2 missense mutations in the C-terminal domain of the Bbeta-chain have been very recently described as being associated with afibrinogenemia. W...

To better understand the epidemiology and population structure of Cryptococcus neoformans, we determined mating types for 358 C. neoformans strains isolated through the active surveillance program from 1992 to 1994 in four geographic areas in the United States: San Francisco, California; Georgia; Texas; and Alabama. Two assays were used to determine mating types: (i) crossing with standard labo...

A hallmark of breast carcinoma is the deposition of fibrinogen (FBG) without subsequent conversion to fibrin in the tumor stroma. In this study, the ability of the MCF-7 human breast cancer epithelial cell line to synthesize, secrete, and deposit FBG into the extracellular matrix (ECM) was examined. Whereas MCF-7 cells produced low levels of intact FBG, abundant levels of FBG intermediate compl...

New methods are proposed for the numerical evaluation of f (A) or f (A)b, where f (A) is a function such as A 1/2 or log(A) with singularities in (−∞, 0] and A is a matrix with eigenvalues on or near (0, ∞). The methods are based on combining contour integrals evaluated by the periodic trapezoid rule with conformal maps involving Jacobi elliptic functions. The convergence is geometric, so that ...

The presence of human fibrinogen in suspensions of washed human platelets is a requirement for ADP-induced platelet aggregation. Digestion of fibrinogen with plasmin destroys this function of the protein. The high solubility fraction of Kabi fibrinogen, fragment X (stage 1) and framgent X (stage 2), are two, eight, and ten times, respectively, less potent in promoting ADP-induced platelet aggre...

The calcineurin-regulated transcription factor, nuclear factor of activated T cells (NFAT), controls many aspects of T cell function. Here, we demonstrate that the calcineurin/NFAT pathway negatively regulates the expression of cyclin-dependent kinase 4 (CDK4). A canonical NFAT binding site was identified and found to be sensitive to calcium signals, FK506/CsA, and histone deacetylase activity ...

BACKGROUND The fibrinogen Aalpha Thr312Ala polymorphism occurs within the alphaC domain of fibrinogen, which is important for lateral aggregation and factor XIII-induced cross-linking of fibrin fibers. We have previously shown an association of Ala312 fibrinogen with poststroke mortality in subjects with atrial fibrillation and with pulmonary embolism in subjects with venous thrombosis. METHO...

We investigated the effect of elastase-like neutral protease isolated from human granolocytes on human fibrinogen. Dependent on enzyme concentration and time of incubation, the elastase-like protease induced a progressive degradation of fibrinogen. Analysis of the remaining polypeptide chains showed a high susceptibility of the Aalpha- and low susceptibility of the gamma-chain of fibrinogen tow...