Gene/Protein Disease Symptom Drug Enzyme Compound
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Query: UNIPROT:Q86TM3 (cage)
 29,987 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

We examined the extent of morphological alterations and the myosin heavy chain (MHC) distribution in the rat soleus muscle after a 4-week period of spontaneous recovery or retraining after hindlimb suspension (HS). Moreover, we tested the hypothesis that dantrolene sodium, which affects the flux of calcium over the sarcoplasmic reticulum membrane, was able to attenuate muscle damage. Three groups of rats were submitted to 3 weeks of HS, followed by either 4 weeks of unrestricted cage activity (HC, n = 7), or running training for the same period and were compared to age-matched animals (C, n = 8). Trained rats were treated with either placebo or dantrolene sodium (HTP, HTD, n = 8 each, respectively). Four weeks after HS recovery, the percentage of myofibres with internal nuclei (%in) was determined by histological staining with hematoxylin and eosin. %in was affected by the individual rat (P < 0.001), and was higher in the mid-belly region of the muscle (P < 0.05). Muscle damage, as estimated by %in, was more extensive in trained rats (i.e. HTP and HTD) than in HC animals (23% and 12%, respectively). Moreover, dantrolene sodium tended to exert a protective effect on training-induced muscle injury. A 12% increase in type I MHC was observed in both HTP and HTD rats, in comparison with group C animals (P < 0.001). The relative proportion of type-I MHC was inversely correlated with %in (r = -0.65, P < 0.001). Running recovery led to an increased citrate synthase activity in comparison with that of C or HC rats. In conclusion, the present findings demonstrate that running recovery from HS increases the incidence of muscle damage, and that dantrolene sodium administration has only limited protective effects against exercise-induced muscle injury.
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PMID:Muscle damage induced by running training during recovery from hindlimb suspension: the effect of dantrolene sodium. 936 82

Recoverin is an EF-hand calcium-binding protein reportedly involved in the transduction of light by vertebrate photoreceptor cells. It also is an autoantigen in a cancer-associated degenerative disease of the retina. Measurements by circular dichroism presented here demonstrate that the binding of calcium to recoverin causes large structural changes. increasing the alpha-helical content of the protein and decreasing its beta-turn, beta-sheet and 'other' structures. The maximum helical content (67%) was observed at 100 microM free calcium and, unlike calmodulin, decreased as the calcium concentration was modulated in either direction from this value. Fluorescence measurements indicated that recoverin may aggregate or undergo structural changes independent of calcium binding as the calcium concentration is increased above 100 microM. EGTA also appeared to affect the structure of recoverin independent of its chelation of calcium. While calcium-induced conformational changes have been proposed to alter the membrane binding of recoverin through association of its myristoylated amino terminus, in the experiments presented here the partitioning of recoverin between the cytoplasmic and membrane compartments of the rod photoreceptor outer segment was unaffected by the concentration of calcium, therefore it appears unlikely that a calcium-myristoyl switch acts alone to anchor recoverin directly to the membrane. These experiments were conducted with native recoverin which is heterogeneously acylated, but mass spectrometry confirmed that simple chromatographic methods could be devised to isolate the different forms of recoverin for further studies.
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PMID:Calcium binding to recoverin: implications for secondary structure and membrane association. 939 25

One thousand male Hubbard chicks were used in a 21-d study (10 birds per battery cage) to determine relative biological availability of phosphorus in seven samples of commercial dicalcium phosphate, expected to contain variable amounts of monocalcium phosphate. Five samples were from established producers in Brazil and two from the U.S. Pure calcium phosphate dibasic dihydrate was used as the reference standard. Phosphates were added to the corn-soybean basal diet (22.5% CP; 0.4% total phosphorus) to provide 0.1, 0.2, and 0.3% supplemental phosphorus. The calcium level was 1.0% for all diets. Left tibias were removed for bone ash (BA) and bone strength (BS) determination. Body weight, feed intake (FI), BA, BS, and plasma phosphorus increased (P < 0.01) and plasma calcium and alkaline phosphatase decreased (P < 0.01) with increasing dietary phosphorus regardless of source. The availability of phosphorus for each test phosphate was determined by slope ratio, with BW, BA, and BS regressed on phosphorus added within each phosphorus source. A relative biological value (RBV) was calculated based on BW, BA, and gain:feed ratio. Availability based on BW ranged from 97.07 to 110.41%. When BA was the criterion, values were 80.32 to 107.84% and for BS were 79.34 to 110.52%. The RBV ranged from 97.55 to 100.60%. Phosphate sources did not vary greatly in phosphorus availability. Overall phosphorus availability averages were higher for BW (103%) and RBV (99%) and lowest for BA (96%) and BS (94%).
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PMID:Biological evaluations of commercial dicalcium phosphates as sources of available phosphorus for broiler chicks. 943 86

We consider the role of polarization in the adsorption of Xe in zeolites of type A by direct comparative analysis of the adsorption isotherms, distributions of occupancies, and 129Xe NMR chemical shifts of Xe(n) in cages containing CaxNa12-2x ions per alpha cage (x = 0, 1, 2, 3, 5). We find that the qualitative trends in the adsorption isotherms, and in the progressions of Xe(n) chemical shifts (for n = 0-8 in cages with x = 0, 1 Ca2+ ions and for n = 0-5 in cages with x = 2, 3 Ca2+ ions) upon increasing the level of Ca2+ ion for Na+ ion substitution could only be accounted for by including polarization of the Xe atom by the zeolite framework and its ions. This system, which permits observation of individual Xe(n) peaks and of directly comparable adsorption isotherms in several cage types, provides a good model system for the interpretation of the more general case in which only the overall average 129Xe NMR chemical shift is observed in open network zeolites, arising from free exchange of Xe among cavities of variable occupancy and variable cation distribution.
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PMID:The role of polarization of Xe by di- and monovalent cations in 129Xe NMR studies in zeolite A. 947 56

To investigate the morphological changes of the parathyroid gland of the immobilized hamsters, we studied the ultrastructure of the parathyroid gland of golden hamsters kept in special small cage (Ballman cage II). All hamsters of the control group were kept in one ordinary cage. Each hamster of the isolated group was kept in ordinary cage individually. Each hamster of the immobilized group was kept in Ballman cage II individually. All hamsters were kept for 5 days. On the first and fifth day of the experiment, bone mineral content (BMC) and bone mineral density (BMD) of whole body were measured by dual energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA). In the control and isolated groups, BMD of the fifth day was significantly increased as compared to that of the first day. In the immobilized group BMC and body weight were significantly decreased. There was no significant difference among 3 groups concerning the mean serum calcium level. Volume density of the cell organelles and inclusions was estimated and compared among 3 groups. Volume density of the lysosomes and large vacuolar bodies of the isolated and immobilized groups was significantly higher than that of the control group. Much more lipid droplets were observed in the immobilized group than the control and isolated groups. No particular differences were observed as to the Golgi complex in the isolated and the immobilized groups compared to the control group. These findings suggest that the cellular activity of the parathyroid gland is suppressed with immobilization.
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PMID:Effect of immobilization on the ultrastructure of the golden hamster parathyroid gland. 958 17

Recoverin is a calcium-sensing protein which is involved in the transduction of light in vertebrate photoreceptors. It is also detected in other retina cell types in which its function is not yet elucidated, and is an autoantigen in a cancer-associated degenerative disease of the retina. Recently, hippocalcin, an homologous protein of recoverin, belonging to the same family of fatty acylated EF-hand calcium binding proteins was described in mammals. The immunohistochemical studies presented in this paper demonstrate, that, in the retina of the lamprey, an Agnathan considered the living ancestor of actual jawed vertebrates, recoverin was present in all photoreceptors and, to a lesser extent in subpopulations of amacrine and ganglion cells whereas hippocalcin was detected in numerous amacrine and ganglion cells and in the inner segments of long photoreceptors. The existence of these calcium-binding proteins shows that they have a high degree of conservation during evolution. Their presence in the same cells that in jawed vertebrates (photoreceptors and ganglion cells for recoverin; amacrine and ganglion cells for hippocalcin) suggests that some retinal functions are well conserved but because they were also found in different cell types than in other species (amacrine for recoverin; photoreceptors for hippocalcin), they may have functions more specific to the lamprey retina.
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PMID:Recoverin and hippocalcin distribution in the lamprey (Lampreta fluviatilis) retina. 965 18

Astrocytes exhibit a form of excitability and communication on the basis of intracellular Ca2+ variations (Cornell-Bell et al., 1990; Charles et al., 1991) that can be initiated by neuronal activity (Dani et al., 1992; Porter and McCarthy, 1996). A Ca2+ elevation in astrocytes induces the release of glutamate (Parpura et al., 1994; Pasti et al., 1997; Araque et al., 1998;Bezzi et al., 1998), which evokes a slow inward current in neurons and modulates action potential-evoked synaptic transmission between cultured hippocampal cells (Araque et al., 1998), suggesting that astrocytes and neurons may function as a network with bidirectional communication. Here we show that a Ca2+ elevation in astrocytes increases the frequency of excitatory as well as inhibitory miniature postsynaptic currents (mPSCs), without modifying their amplitudes. Thapsigargin incubation, microinjection of the Ca2+ chelator BAPTA, and photolysis of the Ca2+ cage NP-EGTA demonstrate that a Ca2+ elevation in astrocytes is both necessary and sufficient to modulate spontaneous transmitter release. This Ca2+-dependent release of glutamate from astrocytes enhances mPSC frequency by acting on NMDA glutamate receptors, because it is antagonized by D-2-amino-5-phosphonopentanoic acid (AP5) or extracellular Mg2+. These NMDA receptors are located extrasynaptically, because blockage specifically of synaptic NMDA receptors by synaptic activation in the presence of the open channel blocker MK-801 did not impair the AP5-sensitive astrocyte-induced increase of mPSC frequency. Therefore, astrocytes modulate spontaneous excitatory and inhibitory synaptic transmission by increasing the probability of transmitter release via the activation of NMDA receptors.
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PMID:Calcium elevation in astrocytes causes an NMDA receptor-dependent increase in the frequency of miniature synaptic currents in cultured hippocampal neurons. 971 53

Hypercalcemia represents one of the important paraneoplastic syndromes affecting morbidity and mortality of cancer patients. We and others have demonstrated that vitamin D analogs with little calcemic activities suppress the transcription of the parathyroid hormone-related peptide (PTHrP) gene, a major humor responsible for cancer hypercalcemia, and thereby prevent the development of hypercalcemic syndrome. The present study was undertaken: to compare the therapeutic efficacy of a vitamin D analog, 22-oxa-1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D3 (OCT), and a bisphosphonate (disodium 3-amino-1-hydroxypropylidene-1,1-bisphosphonate pentahydrate [AHPrBP]), an inhibitor of osteoclastic bone resorption, on cancer-induced hypercalcemia; and to see if the effect could be enhanced by combination treatment, using a nude mouse model implanted with a human pancreas carcinoma (FA-6). After a single intravenous administration, OCT (5 microg/kg of body weight [BW]) was as effective as AHPrBP (10 mg/kg of BW) in lowering blood ionized calcium levels in tumor-bearing nude mice, and their combination further enhanced the therapeutic effect. Although AHPrBP lost its efficacy after repeated injections, OCT was still effective after the third administration. The therapeutic effect of OCT in cancer hypercalcemia was observed in four other human tumors, including another pancreas carcinoma (PAN-7), two squamous cell carcinomas of the lung (KCC-C1 and LC-6), and a squamous carcinoma of the pharynx (PHA-1), all of which elaborated PTHrP into the circulation. Treatment with OCT resulted in a decrease in circulating PTHrP levels by approximately 50% in two representative models. However, the mechanism underlying the antihypercalcemic effect of OCT seemed complex, involving inhibition of PTHrP production, suppression of excessive bone resorption, and an antitumor activity. OCT also markedly inhibited the body weight loss with tumor growth, while AHPrBP, which exhibited a similar antihypercalcemic effect, was less effective than OCT in preventing cachexia. The anticachectic activity of their combination did not exceed that of OCT alone, suggesting a hypercalcemia-dependent as well as an independent mechanism of cancer cachexia. It is concluded that OCT may be useful, either as a single agent or in combination with bisphosphonates, for the treatment of cancer-associated hypercalcemia and cachexia.
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PMID:Effect of combination treatment with a vitamin D analog (OCT) and a bisphosphonate (AHPrBP) in a nude mouse model of cancer-associated hypercalcemia. 973 9

A new technique for the determination of the two-photon uncaging action cross section (deltau) of photolyzable calcium cages is described. This technique is potentially applicable to other caged species that can be chelated by a fluorescent indicator dye, as well as caged fluorescent compounds. The two-photon action cross sections of three calcium cages, DM-nitrophen, NP-EGTA, and azid-1, are studied in the range of excitation wavelengths between 700 and 800 nm. Azid-1 has a maximum deltau of approximately 1.4 GM at 700 nm, DM-nitrophen has a maximum deltau of approximately 0.013 GM at 730 nm, and NP-EGTA has no measurable uncaging yield. The equations necessary to predict the amount of cage photolyzed and the temporal behavior of the liberated calcium distribution under a variety of conditions are derived. These equations predict that by using 700-nm light from a Ti:sapphire laser focused with a 1.3-NA objective, essentially all of the azid-1 within the two-photon focal volume would be photolyzed with a 10-micros pulse train of approximately 7 mW average power. The initially localized distributions of free calcium will dissipate rapidly because of diffusion of free calcium and uptake by buffers. In buffer-free cytoplasm, the elevation of the calcium concentration at the center of the focal volume is expected to last for approximately 165 micros.
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PMID:Photolysis of caged calcium in femtoliter volumes using two-photon excitation. 987 62

1. When laying hens are stressed some retain their eggs in the shell gland beyond the normal time of laying and this can result in the deposition of extra-cuticular calcium which makes brown eggs appear paler. 2. Three different types of enriched modified cage were compared: the location where eggs were laid was recorded and shell colour was measured using a reflectometer. 3. In 2 types of cage with enclosed nest boxes more eggs (80%) were laid in the nests than in a design with nest hollows in the open part of the cage (41%). 4. The eggs from the cages with enclosed nests were darker (had less extraneous calcium) than those with open nest hollows. This implies that in the designs with nest boxes fewer eggs had been retained and the hens may have been less stressed. 5. The results support previous evidence that to reduce stress and improve welfare it is desirable to provide enclosed nest sites for caged laying hens.
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PMID:Egg shell colour is affected by laying cage design. 992 25


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