Background/objectives: Innovative therapies are needed to reduce disability, facilitate activities of daily living, and improve the quality of life in patients with stroke. Non-invasive methods of stimulating the peripheral and central nervous system are increasingly being used to enhance the effects of existing therapies in stroke rehabilitation. One potentially relevant method for achieving greater improvement is repetitive peripheral magnetic stimulation (rPMS).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Hypoxic pulmonary vasoconstriction leads to an increase in pulmonary artery pressure (PAP) and potentially right heart failure in healthy individuals and patients with respiratory diseases. Previous studies in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) exposed to hypobaric hypoxia have shown an increase in PAP, while traditional echocardiographic parameters revealed only minimal changes at high altitude. Speckle-tracking-derived analysis is potentially more sensitive to assess right ventricular (RV) function and we used this method to investigate the impact on RV function of patients with COPD ascending to high altitude and compared the results with the traditional echocardiographic parameters.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFRetroviral gene transfer is the preferred method for stable, long-term integration of genetic material into cellular genomes, commonly used to generate chimeric antigen receptor (CAR)-T cells designed to target tumor antigens. However, the efficiency of retroviral gene transfer is often limited by low transduction rates due to low vector titers and electrostatic repulsion between viral particles and cellular membranes. To overcome these limitations, peptide nanofibrils (PNFs) can be applied as transduction enhancers.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMetabolic variation across pathogenic bacterial strains can impact their susceptibility to antibiotics and promote the evolution of antimicrobial resistance (AMR). However, little is known about how metabolic mutations influence metabolism and which pathways contribute to antibiotic susceptibility. Here, we measured the antibiotic susceptibility of 15,120 Escherichia coli mutants, each with a single amino acid change in one of 346 essential proteins.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMembers of the casein kinase 1 (CK1) family have emerged as key regulators of cellular signaling and as potential drug targets. Functional annotation of the 7 human isoforms would benefit from isoform-selective inhibitors, allowing studies on the role of these enzymes in normal physiology and disease pathogenesis. However, due to significant sequence homology within the catalytic domain, isoform selectivity is difficult to achieve with conventional small molecules.
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