Vanilloid Receptor-1 (TRPV1) Expression and Function in the Vasculature of the Rat

Transient receptor potential (TRP) cation channels are emerging in vascular biology. In particular, the expression of the capsaicin receptor (TRPV1) was reported in vascular smooth muscle cells. This study characterized the arteriolar TRPV1 function and expression in the rat. TRPV1 mRNA was expressed in various vascular beds. Six commercially available antibodies were tested for TRPV1 specificity. Two of them were specific (immunostaining was abolished by blocking peptides) for neuronal TRPV1 and one recognized vascular TRPV1. TRPV1 was expressed in blood vessels in the skeletal muscle, mesenteric and skin tissues, as well as in the aorta and carotid arteries. TRPV1 expression was found to be regulated at the level of individual blood vessels, where some vessels expressed, while others did not express TRPV1 in the same tissue sections. Capsaicin (a TRPV1 agonist) evoked constrictions in skeletal muscle arteries and in the carotid artery, but had no effect on the femoral and mesenteric arteries or the aorta. In blood vessels, TRPV1 expression was detected in most of the large arteries, but there were striking differences at level of the small arteries. TRPV1 activity was suppressed in some isolated arteries. This tightly regulated expression and function suggests a physiological role for vascular TRPV1.     

Grapheme-colour synaesthesia improves detection of embedded shapes,but without pre-attentive ‘pop-out’ of synaesthetic colour

For people with synaesthesia letters and numbers may evoke experiences of colour. It has been previously demonstrated that these synaesthetes may be better at detecting a triangle made of 2s among a background of 5s if they perceive 5 and 2 as having different synaesthetic colours. However, other studies using this task (or tasks based on the same principle) have failed to replicate the effect or have suggested alternative explanations of the effect. In this study, we repeat the original study on a larger group of synaesthetes (n = 36) and include, for the first time, an assessment of their self-reported colour experiences. We show that synaesthetes do have a general advantage over controls on this task. However, many synaesthetes report no colour experiences at all during the task. Synaesthetes who do report colour typically experience around one third of the graphemes in the display as coloured. This is more consistent with theories of synaesthesia in which spatial attention needs to be deployed to graphemes for conscious colour experiences to emerge than the interpretation based on ‘pop-out’.     

Recent advances in ABE fermentation: hyper-butanol producing Clostridium beijerinckii BA101

This is an overview of the mutant strain Clostridium beijerinckii BA101 which produces solvents (acetone–butanol–ethanol, ABE) at elevated levels. This organism expresses high levels of amylases when grown on starch. C. beijerinckii BA101 hydrolyzes starch effectively and produces solvent in the concentration range of 27–29 g l⁻¹. C. beijerinckii BA101 has been characterized for both substrate and butanol inhibition. Supplementing the fermentation medium (MP2) with sodium acetate enhances solvent production to 33 g l⁻¹. The results of studies utilizing commercial fermentation medium and pilot plant-scale reactors are consistent with the results using small-scale reactors. Pervaporation, a technique to recover solvents, has been applied to fed-batch reactors containing C. beijerinckii BA101, and solvent production as high as 165 g l⁻¹ has been achieved. Immobilization of C. beijerinckii BA101 by adsorption and use in a continuous reactor resulted in reactor productivity of 15.8 g l⁻¹ h⁻¹. Recent economic studies employing C. beijerinckii BA101 suggested that butanol can be produced at US$0.20–0.25 lb⁻¹ by employing batch fermentation and distillative recovery. Application of new technologies such as pervaporation, fed-batch culture, and immobilized cell reactors is expected to further reduce these prices. Journal of Industrial Microbiology & Biotechnology (2001) 27, 287–291. Received 12 September 2000/ Accepted in revised form 27 January 2001     

The effect of diethyl- -fluoroglutarate on phosphates and glutamate in slices of rabbit cerebral cortex

Abstract— The diethyl ester of α-fluoroglutarate (DEFG), an inhibitor of glutamate dehydrogenase, was prepared, and its effect on glutamate and phosphates in slices of rabbit cerebral cortex was examined. The primary effect of the drug on cortical slices incubating in a Krebs-Ringer glucose medium was to decrease the tissue levels of glutamate in association with decreased levels and turnover of high-energy phosphates. Assimilation of exogenous glutamate by the slices was partially blocked in the presence of the drug and severely depressed oxidative phosphorylation resulted when glutamate and DEFG were both present in the incubation mixture. The results suggested a significant relationship between the activity of cerebral glutamate dehydrogenase and oxidative phosphorylation. During incubation in a Krebs-Ringer glucose medium the endogenous pool of free amino acids in the cortical slice partitioned with the medium. Little or no glutamate, aspartate or GABA was present in the medium after incubation, but glycine, alanine, threonine, serine and glutamine did partition to varying degrees, with over one-half of the glutamine present in the incubation medium. With the exception of ‘leakage’ of aspartate, the partitioning patterns were relatively unaffected by the presence of added glutamate or DEFG.     

Rapidly measuring the speed of unconscious learning: amnesics learn quickly and happy people slowly

Background

We introduce a method for quickly determining the rate of implicit learning.

Methodology/Principal Findings

The task involves making a binary prediction for a probabilistic sequence over 10 minutes; from this it is possible to determine the influence of events of a different number of trials in the past on the current decision. This profile directly reflects the learning rate parameter of a large class of learning algorithms including the delta and Rescorla-Wagner rules. To illustrate the use of the method, we compare a person with amnesia with normal controls and we compare people with induced happy and sad moods.

Conclusions/Significance

Learning on the task is likely both associative and implicit. We argue theoretically and demonstrate empirically that both amnesia and also transient negative moods can be associated with an especially large learning rate: People with amnesia can learn quickly and happy people slowly.     

Targeting Myofibroblasts in Model Systems of Fibrosis by an Artificial α-Smooth Muscle-Actin Promoter Hybrid

Myofibroblasts are the main cell types producing extracellular matrix proteins in a variety of fibrotic diseases. Therefore, they are useful targets for studies of intracellular communication and gene therapeutical approaches in scarring diseases. An artificial promoter containing the −702 bp regulatory sequence of the α-smooth muscle actin (SMA) gene linked to the first intron enhancer sequence of the β-actin gene and the β-globin intron-exon junction was constructed and tested for myofibroblast-dependent gene expression using the green fluorescent protein as a reporter. Reporter expression revealed myofibroblast-specific function in hepatic and renal myofibroblasts, in vitro. In addition, differentiation-dependent activation of the SMA-β-actin promoter hybrid was shown after induction of myofibroblastic features in mesangial cells by stretching treatment. Furthermore, wound healing experiments with SMA-β-actin promoter reporter mice demonstrated myofibroblast-specific action, in vivo. In conclusion, the −702 bp regulatory region of the SMA promoter linked to enhancing β-actin and β-globin sequences benefits from its small size and is suggested as a promising tool to target myofibroblasts as the crucial cell type in various scarring processes.     

Kinetic Cell-Cycle Analysis of a Cultured Mammalian Cell Population

The parameters of the cell cycle are analyzed in terms of the stochastic theory of cell proliferation for a murine mastocytoma line. The cells were grown in suspension culture under steady-state conditions in a chemostat. Initial estimates of the parameters from synchronous growth indicate that agreement of the data with the model is obtained only if the model is modified to include an initial proliferating fraction of less than 100%, and a cell loss continuing throughout the course of the experiment. The analysis verifies that the modified theory adequately describes the data, and that similar parameters are obtained from both desynchronization and percent labeled mitosis experiments. The average cycle time from 10 desynchronization experiments was 8.24 ± 0.52 h with a cellular standard deviation of 1.28 ± 0.18. The combined parameter obtained by dividing the cellular standard deviation by the cycle time is shown to be a useful measure of biological variability well defined over many different experiments. The rate constant for cell loss is about 0.009 which gives an 8% cell loss per cycle. The cell loss is sufficient to account for the apparent deficit in initially proliferating cells. The initial distribution of the synchronous cells is qualitatively examined and is found to be peaked late in G₁ or early in S.