Thyroid-Stimulating Hormone-Stimulated Human Adipocytes Express Thymic Stromal Lymphopoietin.

When recombinant human (rh) thyroid-stimulating hormone (TSH) is administered to thyroid cancer survivors, an acute extra-thyroidal effect raises pro-inflammatory cytokines and activates platelets. Thymic stromal lymphopoietin (TSLP) is a cytokine recently implicated in platelet activation. Our aim was to measure platelet microparticle levels after rhTSH stimulation in vivo, and to investigate TSLP expression in TSH-stimulated human adipocytes in culture.

Kinetics of nanopore fabrication during controlled breakdown of dielectric membranes in solution.

Nanopore fabrication by controlled breakdown (CBD) overcomes many of the challenges of traditional nanofabrication techniques, by reliably forming solid-state nanopores sub-2 nm in size in a low-cost and scalable way for nucleic acid analysis applications. Herein, the breakdown kinetics of thin dielectric membranes immersed in a liquid environment are investigated in order to gain deeper insights into the mechanism of solid-state nanopore formation by high electric fields. For various fabrication conditions, we demonstrate that nanopore fabrication time is Weibull-distributed, in support of the hypothesis that the fabrication mechanism is a stochastic process governed by the probability of forming a connected path across the membrane (i.