Background: Endometriosis, a disease affecting 3-10% of women of reproductive age, is characterized by the ectopic growth of endometrial glands and stroma surrounded by dense fibrous tissue. Whereas, normal eutopic endometrium shows scarless tissue repair during menstrual cycles, which suggests that the endometriotic tissues have distinct mechanisms of fibrogenesis. During the development of en...

OBJECTIVES Contractile function in the normally perfused infarct borderzone (BZ) is depressed. However, the impact of reduced BZ contractility on left ventricular (LV) pump function is unknown. As a consequence, there have been no therapies specifically designed to improve BZ contractility. We tested the hypothesis that an improvement in borderzone contractility will improve LV pump function. ...

Myosin II is the force-generating motor for cytokinesis, and although it is accepted that myosin contractility is greatest at the cell equator, the temporal and spatial cues that direct equatorial contractility are not known. Dividing sea urchin eggs were placed under compression to study myosin II-based contractile dynamics, and cells manipulated in this manner underwent an abrupt, global incr...

Binding of ouabain to Na/K-ATPase activated multiple signal transduction pathways including stimulation of Src, Ras, p42/ 44 MAPKs and production of reactive oxygen species (ROS) in rat cardiac myocytes. Inhibition of either Src or Ras ablated ouabain-induced increase in both [Ca] i and contractility. While PD98059 abolished the effects of ouabain on [Ca] i, it only caused a partial inhibition ...

A 47 year-old female died after mitral valve replacement. Post-cardiopulmonary bypass right ventricle was not able to pump despite good left ventricular contractility. At microscopic examination, diffuse right ventricular fatty infiltration was found. We found no previous report of this pathology in patients with mitral stenosis

In contrast to the highly dynamic actin cytoskeleton in non-muscle cells, actin filaments in muscle sarcomeres are thought to be relatively stable and undergo dynamics only at their ends. However, many proteins that promote rapid actin dynamics are also expressed in striated muscles. We show that a subset of actin filaments in cardiomyocyte sarcomeres displays rapid turnover. Importantly, we fo...

the cardiac action of phenoxybenzamine (dibenzyline) was studiedusing the maximum rate of pressure rise in the left ventricle as a measure of myocardial contractility. cardiac function was assessed by increasing the pressure load on the heart and measuring contractility as reflected by dp/dt. dibenzyline was found to change the cardiac response to pressure load. the rate of pressure increase in...

BACKGROUND Cellular contractility, essential for cell movement and proliferation, is regulated by microtubules, RhoA and actomyosin. The RhoA dependent kinase ROCK ensures the phosphorylation of the regulatory Myosin II Light Chain (MLC) Ser19, thereby activating actomyosin contractions. Microtubules are upstream inhibitors of contractility and their depolymerization or depletion cause cells to...

OBJECTIVE Aim was to assess whether lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-induced decrease of total peripheral resistance depends on Toll-like receptor (TLR)4 signaling and whether it is sensitive to NO-synthase or TLR4 antagonists. METHODS AND RESULTS C3H/HeN mice (control), expressing a functional, and C3H/HeJ mice, expressing a nonfunctional TLR4, were compared. LPS (20 mg/kg) was injected i.p. 6 hours...

Cell contractility is mainly imagined as a force dipole-like interaction based on actin stress fibers that pull cellular adhesion sites. Here, we present different type of isotropic contractions within the actomyosin cortex. Measuring mechanosensitive cortical suspended cells among various cell lines allowed us to exclude effects caused by fibers. We found epithelial display higher tension than...