Awns in barley have different shapes including awnless, straight, hooded, crooked, and leafy awns. The hooded awns are characterized by an appendage of the lemma, which forms a trigonal or cap-shaped structure, and even blossoms and yields fruits on barley awn. In the lemma primordia of wild-type (straight awn), cells divide and elongate to form the straight awn.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThree-amino-loop-extension (TALE) family belongs to the homeobox gene superfamily and occurs widely in plants, playing a crucial role in regulating their growth and development. Currently, genome-wide analysis of the TALE family has been completed in many plants. However, the systematic identification and hormone response analysis of the TALE gene family in barley are still lacking.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFGlycyrrhiza uralensis Fisch is a widely cultivated traditional Chinese medicine plant. In the present study, culture-independent microbial diversity analysis and functional prediction of rhizosphere microbes associated with wild and cultivated G. uralensis Fisch plant (collected from two locations) were carried.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFLysozymes possess antibacterial activities, making them crucial defense proteins in innate immunity. In this study, a chicken-type (c-type) lysozyme (designated PcLyzc) was cloned and characterized from red swamp crayfish Procambarus clarkii. The full-length cDNA had an open reading frame of 435 base pairs encoding a polypeptide of 144 amino acid residues.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAm J Physiol Cell Physiol
October 2006
Secretion of Cl(-) and K(+) in the colonic epithelium operates through a cellular mechanism requiring K(+) channels in the basolateral and apical membranes. Transepithelial current [short-circuit current (I(sc))] and conductance (G(t)) were measured for isolated distal colonic mucosa during secretory activation by epinephrine (Epi) or PGE(2) and synergistically by PGE(2) and carbachol (PGE(2) + CCh). TRAM-34 at 0.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPurpose: To investigate the role of leukotriene B4 (LTB4) and its receptor BLT1 in the pathogenesis of mouse uveitis.
Methods: Experimental autoimmune uveitis (EAU) was induced in B10RIII mice by immunization of interphotoreceptor retinoid binding protein (IRBP; peptide sequence 161-180) or in C57BL/6 (B6) mice by transfer of activated T cells specific for IRBP1-20. The animals were then treated with and without the BLT1 receptor antagonist, CP105696, at the disease onset after immunization or at day 0 or day 6 after T-cell transfer.
Experimental autoimmune uveitis (EAU) can be induced in susceptible mice by immunization with retinal antigens. The response to uveitogens is genetically restricted. B10RIII and B10A mouse are highly susceptible to IRBP-induced uveitis, whereas B6 mouse is less susceptible.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFWe previously demonstrated that cultures of rat uveitogenic T cells rapidly become dominated by CD4+ cells, but activation of CD8+ autoreactive T cells also occurred during the in vitro culture of in vivo-primed T cells. In the present study, we show that the commonly used uveitogenic peptide, interphotoreceptor retinoid-binding protein (IRBP) 1-20, generated both CD4+ and CD8+ autoreactive T cells in the C57BL/6 (B6) mouse and that this 20-mer contains at least two distinct antigenic epitopes. To determine whether the CD8 response was Ag-specific and whether CD4+ and CD8+ IRBP1-20-specific T cells recognize distinct antigenic epitopes, we prepared highly purified CD4+ and CD8+ T cells from IRBP1-20-primed mice and tested their proliferative response to a large panel of truncated peptides derived from IRBP1-20.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe cellular mechanism for Cl(-) and K(+) secretion in the colonic epithelium requires K(+) channels in the basolateral and apical membranes. Colonic mucosa from guinea pig and rat were fixed, sectioned, and then probed with antibodies to the K(+) channel proteins K(V)LQT1 (Kcnq1) and minK-related peptide 2 (MiRP2, Kcne3). Immunofluorescence labeling for Kcnq1 was most prominent in the lateral membrane of crypt cells in rat colon.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPurpose: To explore the role of CD137 in the pathogenesis of experimental autoimmune uveitis (EAU) and to compare the inhibitory mechanism of anti-CD137 mAb with other costimulatory blockers.
Methods: EAU was induced in B10RIII mice, either by immunization with a uveitogenic peptide, IRBP161-180, derived from the interphotoreceptor retinoid-binding protein, or by adoptive transfer of IRBP161-180-specific T cells. The effect of an agonistic anti-CD137 mAb (2A) on the in vivo induction of disease was studied.