Nitric oxide-induced lipophagic defects contribute to testosterone deficiency in rats with spinal cord injury.

Introduction: Males with acute spinal cord injury (SCI) frequently exhibit testosterone deficiency and reproductive dysfunction. While such incidence rates are high in chronic patients, the underlying mechanisms remain elusive.

Methods And Results: Herein, we generated a rat SCI model, which recapitulated complications in human males, including low testosterone levels and spermatogenic disorders.

Notch Signaling Regulates the Function and Phenotype of Dendritic Cells in Infection.

Notch signaling manipulates the function and phenotype of dendritic cells (DCs), as well as the interaction between DCs and CD4 T cells. However, the role of Notch signaling in () infection remains elusive. Murine bone marrow-derived dendritic cells (BMDCs) were pretreated in the absence or presence of Notch signaling inhibitor DAPT prior to stimulation and the levels of Notch components, cytokines and surface markers as well as the differentiation of CD4 T cells in co-culture were measured using quantitative real-time PCR (qRT-PCR), Western blot, enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) and flow cytometry.