Controlling viscous fingering instabilities of complex fluids.

Despite their aesthetic elegance, wavy or fingering patterns emerge when a fluid of low viscosity pushes another immiscible fluid of high viscosity in a porous medium, producing an incomplete sweep and hampering several crucial technologies. Some examples include chromatography, printing, coating flows, oil-well cementing, as well as large-scale technologies of groundwater and enhanced oil recovery. Controlling such fingering instabilities is notoriously challenging and unresolved for complex fluids of varying viscosity because the fluids' mobility contrast is often predetermined and yet the predominant drive in determining a stable, flat or unstable, wavy interface.

Binding interactions of leukemia inhibitory factor and ciliary neurotrophic factor with the different subunits of their high affinity receptors.

Leukemia inhibitory factor (LIF) and ciliary neurotrophic factor (CNTF) share common components in their multimeric receptors. Both cytokine receptors contain gp130/interleukin-6-receptor transducer as well as gp190/low affinity LIF receptor. For CNTF, addition of a third subunit, or alpha subunit, defines the high-affinity CNTF receptor.

Expression and functionality of the trkA proto-oncogene product/NGF receptor in undifferentiated hematopoietic cells.

The expression of the low-affinity NGF receptor (p75) and the trkA proto-oncogene product was analyzed in a series of human hematopoietic cell lines at protein and RNA levels. We did not detect any form of NGF receptor in cell lines displaying a myelomonocytic phenotype (HL60 and U937). In contrast, cells displaying a more immature erythroleukemic phenotype (TF1 and K562) expressed TrkA in the absence of detectable p75.

Involvement of gp130/interleukin-6 receptor transducing component in interleukin-11 receptor.

The recently cloned interleukin (IL)-11 displays many biological properties in common with those reported for IL-6. In order to analyze the nature and the functionality of the IL-11 receptor we developed a proliferative assay using the human multifactor-dependent cell line TF1. We showed that a blocking monoclonal antibody GPX7 raised against the gp130/IL-6 receptor transducing subunit was also able to inhibit the IL-11-triggered TF1 line proliferation.