Seasonal malaria chemoprevention (SMC) is defined as the intermittent administration of full treatment courses of an antimalarial drug to children during the peak of malaria transmission season with the aim of preventing malaria-associated mortality and morbidity. SMC using sulfadoxine-pyrimethamine (SP) combined with amodiaquine (AQ) is a promising strategy to control malaria morbidity in area...

The structural maintenance of chromosomes (SMC) complex plays an important role in chromosome organization and segregation in most living organisms. In Caulobacter crescentus, SMC is required to align the left and the right arms of the chromosome that run in parallel down the long axis of the cell. However, the mechanism of SMC-mediated alignment of chromosomal arms remains elusive. Here, using...

Decay-accelerating factor (DAF) is a constitutively expressed plasma membrane glycoprotein on blood cells and endothelium that inhibits cell surface C3/C5 convertase formation, thus inhibiting complement activation and protecting cells from lysis by the terminal complement components. Using monoclonal anti-DAF antibodies in conjunction with anti-smooth muscle cell (SMC)-specific myosin antibodi...

We have recently shown that all-trans retinoic acid (tRA) modulates arterial smooth muscle cell (SMC) morphologic features and biochemical composition in vitro. It has been proposed that different SMC phenotypes coexist in arteries, which may be retrieved in culture: hence, a differential action of tRA on distinct SMC subsets is conceivable. We have examined the effect of tRA on SMC proliferati...

Structural maintenance of chromosomes proteins (SMCs) bind to DNA and function to ensure proper chromosome organization in both eukaryotes and bacteria. Caulobacter crescentus possesses a single SMC homolog that plays a role in organizing and segregating daughter chromosomes. Approximately 1,500 to 2,000 SMC molecules are present per cell during active growth, corresponding to one SMC complex p...

specimens and using immunomagnetic beads (Miltenyi). Commercially available aortic medial SMC from six healthy donors were purchased from Promocell. Cells were used consistently at passage 3. We used two-dimensional electrophoresis with digital image analysis (SameSpots, Non-linear Dynamics) and tandem mass spectrometry to detect changes in proteome of atherosclerotic SMC. Results Analysis of 2...

BACKGROUND Myocardin is thought to have a key role in smooth muscle cell (SMC) development by acting on CArG-dependent genes. However, it is unclear whether myocardin-induced SMC maturation and increases in agonist-induced calcium signalling are also associated with increases in the expression of non-CArG-dependent SMC-specific genes. Moreover, it is unknown whether myocardin promotes SMC devel...

BACKGROUND Marfan syndrome (MFS) is caused by mutations in the gene encoding fibrillin-1 (FBN1); however, the mechanisms through which fibrillin-1 deficiency causes MFS-associated aortopathy are uncertain. Recently, attention was focused on the hypothesis that MFS-associated aortopathy is caused by increased transforming growth factor-β (TGF-β) signaling in aortic medial smooth muscle cells (SM...

The cells that make up blood vessel walls appear to participate actively in local immune and inflammatory responses, as well as in certain vascular diseases. We tested here whether smooth muscle cells (SMC) can produce the important inflammatory mediator IL6. Unstimulated SMC in vitro elaborated 5 X 10(3) pg recIL6/24h (i.e., biological activity equivalent to 5 X 10(3) pg recombinant IL6 (recIL...

In this paper, the discretized sliding mode control system (SMC) is studied along with some key issues in SMC systems–reachability condition, dynamics of sliding mode and mathched uncertainty being addressed. The purpose of this paper is to bring a guide for SMC implementation and new perspective for understanding SMC systems.