Research over the past 2 decades provides ample evidence that small leucine-rich proteoglycans (SLRPs; such as decorin, biglycan, fibromodulin, and lumican) of the extracellular matrix are deeply involved in the regulation of inflammatory and fibrotic renal disorders. Initial efforts in SLRP research focused on the interaction between decorin and TGF-β because it had been unequivocally demonstr...

Small leucine-rich repeat proteoglycans (SLRP) are present in the extracellular matrix of the temporomandibular joint (TMJ) disc. Lumican and fibromodulin, classified as class 2 SLRPs, play important roles in TMJ assembly, proliferation and inflammation. Degenerative change in the TMJ disc gives rise to the process of internal derangement (ID). In this study, we immunohistochemically examined t...

The ECM exerts great effects on cells, and changed composition may therefore have profound impact. Small leucine-rich proteoglycans, e.g. fibromodulin, are essential in collagen assembly. Our aim was to investigate the role of fibromodulin in healthy and fibrotic lung parenchyma, theorizing that fibromodulin-deficient animals would be protected against fibrosis. Repeated subcutaneous bleomycin-...

Proteoglycans extracted with 4 M guanidinium chloride from young (mean 20 years) or old (mean 79 years) macroscopically normal human articular cartilage were separated by density gradient centrifugation and Q-Sepharose chromatography and characterized by gradient gel SDS/PAGE and immunodetection before and after removal of glycosaminoglycan chains. The extracts contained two large populations o...

The protein kinase C (PKC) signaling, a major regulator of chondrocytic differentiation, has been also implicated in pathological extracellular matrix remodeling, and here we investigate the mechanism of PKCε-dependent regulation of the chondrocytic phenotype in human nucleus pulposus (NP) cells derived from herniated disks. NP cells from each donor were successfully propagated for 25+ culture ...

Flashbulb memories (FMs) are vivid, stable memories for the reception of arousing, consequential news. Although such memories have been found in people of all ages, in the only examination of age differences to date, Cohen, Conway, and Maylor (1994) reported that older adults were less likely than young adults to experience a FM. We hypothesised that FM would be impaired in older adults with re...

Tumor barrier function in carcinoma represents a major challenge to treatment and is therefore an attractive target for increasing drug delivery. Variables related to tumor barrier include aberrant blood vessels, high interstitial fluid pressure, and the composition and structure of the extracellular matrix. One of the proteins associated with dense extracellular matrices is fibromodulin, a col...

Collagen IX containing the N-terminal noncollagenous domain 4 (NC4) is unique to cartilage and a member of the family of fibril-associated collagens with both collagenous and noncollagenous domains. Collagen IX is located at the surface of fibrils formed by collagen II and a minor proportion of collagen XI, playing roles in tissue stability and integrity. The NC4 domain projects out from the fi...

Small leucine-rich proteoglycans (SLRPs) regulate extracellular matrix organization, a process essential in development, tissue repair, and metastasis. In vivo interactions of biglycan and fibromodulin, two SLRPs highly expressed in tendons and bones, were investigated by generating biglycan/fibromodulin double-deficient mice. Here we show that collagen fibrils in tendons from mice deficient in...

The “Listening Walker” is an interactive sound installation designed as a video game with different levels of exploration. It is a part of a research project, the goal of which is to analyze writing styles used in interactive sound installations and to propose new authoring tools for composers. The version presented at FDG illustrates the scripting style where the narration takes the player’s p...