Association of sleep duration and insulin resistance in Taiwanese vegetarians.

Background: Short sleep duration has been reported to associate with increased insulin resistance. However, no studies have investigated whether such association exists in vegetarians. The aim of this study was to investigate the association between sleep duration and insulin resistance in Taiwanese vegetarians.

RU486-inducible recombination in the salivary glands of lactoferrin promoter-driven green fluorescent Cre transgenic mice.

When compared with the many tamoxifen-activated Cre mouse lines available for gene manipulation studies, relatively few RU486-inducible Cre mice are in use, due to leakiness issues. Here, we report the generation of an RU486-inducible triple fusion gene (GCrePR1e), consisting of green fluorescent protein, Cre, and the progesterone receptor ligand-binding domain (F642-L901). We sought to improve the GCrePR1e by selecting a truncated human lactoferrin (Lf) promoter to drive its expression, based on the promoter's low basal activity and innate sensitivity to RU486.

Detection of experimentally induced pulmonary granuloma inflammation in monocyte chemoattractant protein-1 reporter mice.

Purpose: Among different chemokines, monocyte chemoattractant protein-1 (MCP-1) plays an important role in inflammatory disorders of lung. In response to stimuli, MCP-1 increases its transcription as an immediate early gene. In this paper, we describe the MCP-1-enhanced green fluorescent protein(EGFP) transgenic mouse in which EGFP expression is driven by human MCP-1 promoter and mimics the MCP-1 expression in situ.

Myocyte protection by 10 kD heat shock protein (Hsp10) involves the mobile loop and attenuation of the Ras GTP-ase pathway.

Heat shock proteins (hsp), hsp60 and hsp10, are involved in the folding of imported mitochondrial proteins and the refolding of denatured proteins after stress. We examined whether hsp10 can reduce myocyte death by its mitochondrial function or by interacting with cytoplasmic signaling pathways. Overexpression of hsp10 by adenoviral infection decreased myocyte death induced by hydrogen peroxide, sodium cyanide, and simulated ischemia and reoxygenation (SI/RO).