The modular microarchitecture of human liver.

The morphological homogeneity of the liver parenchyma has represented a major obstacle in finding an acceptable definition of the structural/functional units of the liver. Concepts such as the "lobule," the "portal unit" and the "acinus" remain debatable. This study investigates the modular microarchitecture on the basis of the lobular concept.

Three-dimensional reconstruction of parenchymal units in the liver of the rat.

To investigate the parenchymal units in the liver of the rat three-dimensionally, 15 micrometer cryosections were used for the demonstration of glucose-6-phosphatase (G6Pase) activity to visualize the borders of the individual units. Together with the supplying and draining vessels, they were traced through a sequence of 146 sections and reconstructed. A cone-shaped secondary unit with a height of 2.

Purkinje cell lineage and the topographic organization of the cerebellar cortex: a view from X inactivation mosaics.

We utilized a strain of mice, derived from a radiation mutagenesis experiment and carrying an activity-attenuated allele of the X-linked enzyme glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase (G6PD), to analyze the development of the cell lineage leading to cerebellar Purkinje neurons. Due to random X inactivation during early embryonic development, X- linked genes can be used to distinguish between clonally related populations of cells in X inactivation mosaics. Following histochemical staining for G6PD activity, the numeric proportions of Purkinje cells expressing either the wild-type or the mutant enzyme and the spatial distribution of these cellular phenotypes and their relation to anatomically and genetically defined cerebellar compartments were analyzed.

Glucose levels and succinate and lactate dehydrogenase activity in EMT6/Ro tumor spheroids.

To evaluate the effects of glucose on the development of cell heterogeneity and the occurrence of necrotic areas in the center of tumor spheroids, a procedure (combining microdissection of small tissue samples from frozen-dried cryosections and microchemical analysis) was developed to measure glucose in distinct, concentrically arranged, microregions of tumor spheroids: the outermost area of proliferating cells, the area of nonproliferating cells and 2 central "necrotic" areas, with either abundant or little intercellular space. Since glucose levels, for analytical reasons, had to be expressed on a dry weight basis, and because of the morphological heterogeneity of the microregions of tumor spheroids, it was necessary to measure and take into account the regional differences in cell density (water content), in order to obtain adequate estimates of the glucose levels in the various microregions. At glucose concentrations of 5.

Characterization of recombinant plant cinnamate 4-hydroxylase produced in yeast. Kinetic and spectral properties of the major plant P450 of the phenylpropanoid pathway.

Helianthus tuberosus cinnamate 4-hydroxylase (CYP73 or CA4H), a member of the P450 superfamily which catalyses the first oxidative step of the phenylpropanoid pathway in higher plants by transforming cinnamate into p-coumarate, was expressed in the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae. The PCR-amplified CA4H open reading frame was inserted into pYeDP60 under the transcriptional control of a galactose-inducible artificial promoter. Engineered S.