Follistatin (Fst) functions to bind and neutralize the activity of members of the transforming growth factor-β superfamily. Fst has a well-established role in skeletal muscle, but we detected significant Fst expression levels in interscapular brown and subcutaneous white adipose tissue, and further investigated its role in adipocyte biology. Fst expression was induced during adipogenic differen...

The present study evaluated the correlation between the behavior of mice in the forced swimming test (FST) and in the elevated plus-maze (PM). The effect of the order of the experiments, i.e., the influence of the first test (FST or PM) on mouse behavior in the second test (PM or FST, respectively) was compared to handled animals (HAND). The execution of FST one week before the plus-maze (FST-P...

The fixation index F(st) plays a central role in ecological and evolutionary genetic studies. The estimators of Wright ([Formula: see text]), Weir and Cockerham ([Formula: see text]), and Hudson et al. ([Formula: see text]) are widely used to measure genetic differences among different populations, but all have limitations. We propose a minimum variance estimator [Formula: see text] using [Form...

BACKGROUND Follistatin (FST), a single chain glycoprotein, is originally isolated from follicular fluid of ovary. Previous studies have revealed that serum FST served as a biomarker for pregnancy and ovarian mucinous tumor. However, whether FST can serve as a biomarker for diagnosis in lung adenocarcinoma of humans remains unclear. METHODS AND RESULTS The study population consisted of 80 pati...

OBJECTIVE To identify and quantify frontal sharp transients found in neonatal polysomnography of healthy full term newborns in each stage of the sleep-wake cycle within the first 48 hours of life. METHOD The EEG from healthy term 32 newborns, legal age of two days and with adequate monitoring during pregnancy. Frontal sharp transients (FST) were quantified, according to synchronous or asynchr...

We investigated the antidepressant-like effect of lactoferrin (Lf) in a repeated forced-swim test (FST) stress mouse model. FST was performed on days 1, 2, 7 and 14. Bovine Lf (bLf) or bovine serum albumin (BSA) was supplemented at 1% to the commercial diet after the first FST throughout the experimental period. The FST-control and FST+BSA group showed a marked increase in immobility time on da...

BACKGROUND/AIM Activin and its antagonist follistatin (FST) have been implicated in several solid tumours. This study investigated the role of FST in breast cancer. MATERIALS AND METHODS FST expression was examined using reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR), real-time quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) and immunohistochemistry in a cohort of breast cancer sample...