Publications by authors named "Irania Alarcon"

Purpose: Mechanisms determining epithelial resistance versus susceptibility to microbial traversal in vivo remain poorly understood. Here, a novel murine model was used to explore factors influencing the corneal epithelial barrier to Pseudomonas aeruginosa penetration.

Methods: Murine corneas were blotted with tissue paper before inoculation with green fluorescent protein-expressing P.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Pseudomonas aeruginosa can invade corneal epithelial cells and translocates multilayered corneal epithelia in vitro, but it does not penetrate the intact corneal epithelium in vivo. In healthy corneas, the epithelium is separated from the underlying stroma by a basement membrane containing extracellular matrix proteins and pores smaller than bacteria. Here we used in vivo and in vitro models to investigate the potential of the basement membrane to defend against P.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Purpose: The authors have shown that twitching motility, a pilus-mediated form of bacterial surface movement, is required for Pseudomonas aeruginosa virulence in a murine model of keratitis. To study the role of twitching motility in virulence, Pseudomonas traversal of multilayered corneal epithelia in vitro was investigated.

Methods: Translocation of multilayered corneal epithelia was investigated with the invasive strain PAK and isogenic twitching motility mutants.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

To catalog factors that may contribute to the completion of myogenesis, we have been looking for molecular differences between BC3H1 and C2C12 cells. Cells of the BC3H1 tumor line, though myogenic, are nonfusing, and withdraw from the cell cycle only reversibly, whereas cells of the C2C12 line fuse, differentiate terminally, and express several muscle-specific gene products that BC3H1 cells do not. Relative to C2C12 cells, BC3H1 cells underaccumulated cyclin-dependent kinase inhibitor p21 and underaccumulated transcripts for p21, GADD45, CDO, decorin, osteopontin, H19, fibronectin, and thrombospondin-1 (tsp-1).

View Article and Find Full Text PDF