Cysteine cathepsins play an important role in shaping the highly infiltrative growth pattern of human gliomas. We have previously demonstrated that the activity of cysteine cathepsins is elevated in invasive glioblastoma (GBM) cells in vitro, in part due to attenuation of their endogenous inhibitors, the cystatins. In this tudy we investigated this relationship in vivo In human GBM samples, all cathepsins were elevated at the tumor periphery compared to brain parenchyma. CatB was also typically associated with angiogenic endothelia and necrotic areas. StefB was mainly detected in the tumor core, whereas CysC and StefA were evenly distributed, reflecting the observations in the xenografts. In human tumors, cathepsin and stefin transcript levels correlated with CD68 and CXCR4 levels, but not with epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR). We reveal for the first time that an elevated StefA mRNA level is a highly significant prognostic factor for patient survival.
COBISS.SI-ID: 2542159
The influence of breaching the connective sheaths of the donor sural nerve on axonal sprouting into the end-to-side coapted peroneal nerve was examined in the rat. In parallel, the effect of these procedures on the donor nerve was assessed. In conclusion, myelinated sensory axons are able to penetrate the epiperineurium of donor nerves after end-to-side nerve coaption; however, their ingrowth into recipient nerves is significantly enhanced by breaching the epiperineurial sheets at the coaptation site. Breaching does not cause permanent injury to the donor nerve.
COBISS.SI-ID: 30497753
We explored the expression of synaptotagmin7 mRNA in the brains of rats with seizures triggered by the glutamatergic agonist kainate or by the muscarinic agonist pilocarpine in LiCl pre-treated rats, in a time-course experiment. After kainate-induced seizures, synaptotagmin7 mRNA levels were transiently and uniformly increased throughout the dorsal and ventral striatum (accumbens) at 8 and 12 h, but not at 24 h, followed at 24 h by somewhat variable upregulation within different parts of the cerebral cortex, amigdala and thalamic nuclei, the hippocampus and the lateral septum. By contrast, after LiCl/pilocarpine-induced seizures, there was a more prolonged increase of striatal Synaptotagmin7 mRNA levels (at 8, 12 and 24 h), but only in the ventromedial striatum, while in some other of the aforementioned brain regions there was a decline to below the basal levels. We conclude that here described differential time course and pattern of synaptotagmin7 mRNA expression imply regional differences of pathophysiological brain activation and plasticity in these two models of seizures.
COBISS.SI-ID: 2564687
In rat fast muscles, collagen Q (ColQ) expression is restricted to the neuromuscular junctions. In contrast, it is high also extrajunctionally in the slow soleus muscles. If the immature regenerating fast EDL muscles were indirectly or directly electrically stimulated immediately after innervation by chronic low-frequency impulse pattern for 8 days, no significant increase of the extrajunctional ColQ mRNA levels was observed in stimulated regenerates in comparison to non-stimulated ones. In contrast, the extrajunctional ColQ mRNA levels in the regenerates of the soleus muscles, trans-innervated by the EDL nerve at the time of muscle injury, increased 4- to 5-fold after 8 days of the same chronic low-frequency electrical stimulation in comparison to those in the stimulated EDL regenerates. Since both fast and slow muscles completely regenerated only from their own myogenic stem cells and were innervated by the same nerve and later activated by the same tonic pattern of impulses, these results demonstrated that the mechanism causing incapacity of regenerating fast muscles to increase their extrajunctional ColQ expression upon tonic activation is encoded in their satellite cells, which in this respect differ from those in the slow muscles.
COBISS.SI-ID: 30454745
Using gold plated electrodes, inserted into the ratćs head above the dura of the left and right parietal cortex, we recorded EEG during deep and shallow anesthesia with either pentobarbital (PB) or ketamine-xylazine (KX). The fluctuations in time series were then analyzed using wavelet transforms and the spectral power was determined within 7 frequency intervals (slow wave 2, S2, 0.0067-0.0167 Hz; slow wave 1, S1, 0.02-0.19 Hz; delta, 0.2-3.9 Hz; theta,4-7.9 Hz; alpha, 8-12.9 Hz; beta, 13-24.9 Hz and gamma, 25-34.9 Hz). In addition, the coupling strengths between individual oscillatory components during deep and shallow anesthesia were evaluated for both anesthetics. We show specific changes for both anesthetics indicating that during deep anesthesia PB reduces high and low frequency activity (0.2-35 Hz) and enhancescoupling especially between delta, theta and alpha waves, while KX reduces low frequency activity (0.005 to 0.2 Hz) and enhances coupling betweenfrequency waves alpha, beta and gamma. Our results, using two anesthetics known to block different ion channels, provide an insight into brain dynamics and could have wide implications in creating biomarkers for detecting various neurophysiological modifications, such as in Alzheimer and Parkinson's disease or autism spectrum disorder, as well as in providing more realistic models of brain dynamics.
COBISS.SI-ID: 29971417