text:
Atrial natriuretic peptide in bovine corpus luteum.
Atrial natriuretic peptide (ANP) has been demonstrated to exert endocrine functions, including the modulation of steroid synthesis. This prompted investigations to search for ANP receptors in the corpus luteum, a tissue that produces progesterone. The studies revealed a single binding site for [125I] ANP with similar characteristics (Kd, 122 pM; maximum binding, 18 fmol/mg protein) in all four stages of corpus luteum development. These receptors were demonstrated to stimulate cGMP production upon activation with synthetic ANP. Maximal cGMP synthesis was observed at 10(-7) M ANP, 5 min after activation of receptors. An acidic extract of corpus luteum contained immunoreactive ANP (approximately 220 fmol/g tissue), as indicated by gel chromatography, HPLC, and identification by means of a highly specific ANP antibody. The data do not permit definition of a specific endocrine role of ANP in the corpus luteum. PMID:2899502
Vollmar, A M; Mytzka, C; Arendt, R M; Schulz, R
Corpus Luteum: Animal Models of Possible Relevance to Reproductive Toxicology.
National Technical Information Service (NTIS)
The presence of a normally functioning corpus luteum is an essential requirement for the maintenance of gestation in mammals. The chief function of the corpus luteum in all species is to synthesize the steroid hormone progesterone that is necessary for im...
M. C. Rao G. Gibori
The presence of a normally functioning corpus luteum is an essential requirement for the maintenance of gestation in mammals. he chief function of the corpus luteum in all species is to synthesize the steroid hormone progesterone that is necessary for implantation and for the sub...
Cytokines and Angiogenesis in the Corpus Luteum
In adults, physiological angiogenesis is a rare event, with few exceptions as the vasculogenesis needed for tissue growth and function in female reproductive organs. Particularly in the corpus luteum (CL), regulation of angiogenic process seems to be tightly controlled by opposite actions resultant from the balance between pro- and antiangiogenic factors. It is the extremely rapid sequence of events that determines the dramatic changes on vascular and nonvascular structures, qualifying the CL as a great model for angiogenesis studies. Using the mare CL as a model, reports on locally produced cytokines, such as tumor necrosis factor ? (TNF), interferon gamma (IFNG), or Fas ligand (FASL), pointed out their role on angiogenic activity modulation throughout the luteal phase. Thus, the main purpose of this review is to highlight the interaction between immune, endothelial, and luteal steroidogenic cells, regarding vascular dynamics/changes during establishment and regression of the equine CL.
Galvao, Antonio M.; Ferreira-Dias, Graca; Skarzynski, Dariusz J.
Intercellular communication in the bovine corpus luteum.
There is a growing body of evidence that intercellular communication is important in the regulation of luteal function. Although the nature of the interactions between small and large luteal cells are not yet clear, it seems likely that they do exist. Many of the substances to which luteal cells respond, such as prostaglandins, growth factors, oxytocin and progesterone, are produced locally. These substances may act as paracrine factors to modulate the response of luteal cells to hormonal signals. Endothelial cells also produce factors that can modify steroidogenesis, and luteal cell-stimulation of endothelial cell proliferation is necessary for the extensive angiogenesis that occurs during luteinization Finally, bidirectional intercellular communication likely occurs between luteal cells and resident immune cells. Immune cells produce cytokines that can modify progesterone and prostaglandin synthesis by luteal cells. Cytokines may also have direct cytotoxic effects on luteal cells, and dead cells are then phagocytized by resident macrophages. Also, factors secreted by luteal cells can serve as chemoattractants for immune cells, and can enhance or suppress immune cell functions. There is little doubt that intercellular communication within the corpus luteum is very complex. One must remember, however, that nearly all evidence collected thus far is based on in vitro studies. Eventually, technology will allow for study of these interactions in vivo, and may lead to new methods for control of luteal function. PMID:16727887
Pate, J L
Corpus luteum hemorrhage in a patient with aplastic anemia.
Corpus luteum hemorrhage may lead to a life-threatening intraperitoneal hemorrhage in women with bleeding disorders. A 17-year-old girl with aplastic anemia presented to the emergency ward with complaints of severe abdominal pain for the last 24h. On examination, she was noted to be pale with circulatory compromise. Transabdominal pelvic ultrasonography revealed a left complex adnexal mass, 6.9�5.1�5.1cm(3) in size, with a large anechoic area of fluid in the abdomen. On laparoscopic exploration, there was a massive hemoperitoneum (2.6L) with a ruptured corpus luteum on the surface of the left ovary. Hemostatic electric coagulation was successfully applied to the bleeding surface. The patient recovered without incident and was transferred to a special hospital for blood disease treatment one week after surgery. We concluded that corpus luteum hemorrhage in women with aplastic anemia can cause therapeutic difficulties. Laparoscopy is feasible for the management of a massive intraperitoneal hemorrhage secondary to a ruptured corpus luteum in such patients. PMID:22640265
Sun, Wen-Chao; Li, Wei; Chen, Qi-Hui; Tong, Jin-Yi
Endocrine and Local Control of the Primate Corpus Luteum
The primate corpus luteum is a transient endocrine gland that differentiates from the ovulatory follicle midway through the ovarian (menstrual) cycle. Its formation and limited lifespan is critical for fertility, as luteal-derived progesterone is the essential steroid hormone required for embryo implantation and maintenance of intra-uterine pregnancy until the placenta develops. It is well-established that LH and the LH-like hormone, CG, are the vital luteotropic hormones during the menstrual cycle and early pregnancy, respectively. Recent advances, particularly through genome analyses and cellular studies, increased our understanding of various local factors and cellular processes associated with the development, maintenance and repression of the corpus luteum. These include paracrine or autocrine factors associated with angiogenesis (e.g., VEGF), and that mediate LH/CG actions (e.g., progesterone), or counteract luteotropic effects (i.e., local luteolysis; e.g., PGF2?). However, areas of mystery and controversy remain, particularly regarding the signals and events that initiate luteal regression in the non-fecund cycle. Novel approaches capable of gene �knockdown� or amplification�, in vivo as well as in vitro, should identify novel or underappreciated gene products that are regulated by or modulate LH/CG actions to control the functional lifespan of the primate corpus luteum. Further advances in our understanding of luteal physiology will help to improve or control fertility for purposes ranging from preservation of endangered primate species to designing novel ovary-based contraceptives and treating ovarian disorders in women. R01 HD020869, R01 HD042000, U54 HD018185, U54 HD055744, P51 OD011092, T32 HD007133, Bayer Schering Pharma AG.
Stouffer, Richard L.; Bishop, Cecily V.; Bogan, Randy L.; Xu, Fuhua; Hennebold, Jon D.
Macrophages regulate corpus luteum development during embryo implantation in mice.
Macrophages are prominent in the uterus and ovary at conception. Here we utilize the Cd11b-Dtr mouse model of acute macrophage depletion to define the essential role of macrophages in early pregnancy. Macrophage depletion after conception caused embryo implantation arrest associated with diminished plasma progesterone and poor uterine receptivity. Implantation failure was alleviated by administration of bone marrow-derived CD11b+F4/80+ monocytes/macrophages. In the ovaries of macrophage-depleted mice, corpora lutea were profoundly abnormal, with elevated Ptgs2, Hif1a, and other inflammation and apoptosis genes and with diminished expression of steroidogenesis genes Star, Cyp11a1, and Hsd3b1. Infertility was rescued by exogenous progesterone, which confirmed that uterine refractoriness was fully attributable to the underlying luteal defect. In normally developing corpora lutea, macrophages were intimately juxtaposed with endothelial cells and expressed the proangiogenic marker TIE2. After macrophage depletion, substantial disruption of the luteal microvascular network occurred and was associated with altered ovarian expression of genes that encode vascular endothelial growth factors. These data indicate a critical role for macrophages in supporting the extensive vascular network required for corpus luteum integrity and production of progesterone essential for establishing pregnancy. Our findings raise the prospect that disruption of macrophage-endothelial cell interactions underpinning corpus luteum development contributes to infertility in women in whom luteal insufficiency is implicated. PMID:23867505
Care, Alison S; Diener, Kerrilyn R; Jasper, Melinda J; Brown, Hannah M; Ingman, Wendy V; Robertson, Sarah A
Macrophages regulate corpus luteum development during embryo implantation in mice
Macrophages are prominent in the uterus and ovary at conception. Here we utilize the Cd11b-Dtr mouse model of acute macrophage depletion to define the essential role of macrophages in early pregnancy. Macrophage depletion after conception caused embryo implantation arrest associated with diminished plasma progesterone and poor uterine receptivity. Implantation failure was alleviated by administration of bone marrow�derived CD11b+F4/80+ monocytes/macrophages. In the ovaries of macrophage-depleted mice, corpora lutea were profoundly abnormal, with elevated Ptgs2, Hif1a, and other inflammation and apoptosis genes and with diminished expression of steroidogenesis genes Star, Cyp11a1, and Hsd3b1. Infertility was rescued by exogenous progesterone, which confirmed that uterine refractoriness was fully attributable to the underlying luteal defect. In normally developing corpora lutea, macrophages were intimately juxtaposed with endothelial cells and expressed the proangiogenic marker TIE2. After macrophage depletion, substantial disruption of the luteal microvascular network occurred and was associated with altered ovarian expression of genes that encode vascular endothelial growth factors. These data indicate a critical role for macrophages in supporting the extensive vascular network required for corpus luteum integrity and production of progesterone essential for establishing pregnancy. Our findings raise the prospect that disruption of macrophage-endothelial cell interactions underpinning corpus luteum development contributes to infertility in women in whom luteal insufficiency is implicated.
Care, Alison S.; Diener, Kerrilyn R.; Jasper, Melinda J.; Brown, Hannah M.; Ingman, Wendy V.; Robertson, Sarah A.
3D ultrasound imaging of the human corpus luteum.
The aim of this article was to present the extent to which the state-of-the art ultrasonographic imaging can be used to visualize the features of the human corpus luteum (CL). In the late 1970s, the first ultrasonographic images of human CLs were published. The advent of transvaginal, high-resolution transducers has greatly improved the quality of imaging as did the subsequent introduction of color Doppler and 3D ultrasonography. In the present technical note, the examples of the various technical and imaging modalities used to examine the human CLs are shown. CL is a short-lived structure with a highly variable morphological appearance and the 3D ultrasonographic technique is an ideal tool to perform standardized measurements on the CL. The introduction of new imaging techniques in clinical reproductive medicine can only be successful if operators are properly trained. PMID:24856469
Brezinka, Christoph
Isolation of endothelial cells and pericytes from swine corpus luteum.
From an angiogenesis perspective, the ovary offers a unique opportunity to study the physiological development of blood vessels. The first purpose of this work was to set up a protocol for the isolation of pig corpus luteum endothelial cells, which were characterized by both morphologic parameters and the expression of typical molecular markers; we also verified their ability to form capillary-like structures in a 3-dimensional matrix, their response to hypoxia and their migration in the presence of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF). The effectiveness of our isolation protocol was confirmed by the characteristic "cobblestone shape" of isolated cells at confluence as well as their expression of all the examined endothelial markers. Our data also showed a significant cell production of VEGF and nitric oxide. Isolated endothelial cells were also responsive to hypoxia by increasing the expression and production of VEGF and decreasing that of nitric oxide. In the angiogenesis bioassay, cells displayed the ability of forming capillary-like structures and also exhibited a significant migration in the scratch test. Our data suggest that the isolation of luteal endothelial cells represents a promising tool in experiments designed to clarify the biology of the angiogenic process. Furthermore, we have demonstrated that the isolated population comprises a subset of cells with a multidifferentiative capacity toward the chondrocytic and adipocytic phenotypes. These data suggest the presence of a perivascular or adventitial cell niche in the vascular wall of the corpus luteum populated with cells showing mesenchymal stem cell-like features, as already demonstrated for the adipose tissue and endometrium. PMID:24906935
Basini, G; Falasconi, I; Bussolati, S; Grolli, S; Ramoni, R; Grasselli, F
Estradiol-17beta is produced in bovine corpus luteum.
The aim of this study was to investigate the expression of cytochrome P450 aromatase (aromatase) mRNA, its activity, and estradiol-17beta (estradiol) secretion in bovine corpus luteum (CL) during the estrous cycle. Expression of aromatase mRNA was examined in CL at the early, mid, late, and regressed luteal stages by using a reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction. Aromatase mRNA was detected in all luteal stages examined, although aromatase expression was significantly lower during the early and regressed luteal phases compared to the mid and late luteal phases. Moreover, cultured midluteal cells clearly converted exogenous [(3)H]androstenedione into estradiol, and an aromatase inhibitor significantly inhibited this conversion. To characterize the local release of estradiol within the CL during the estrous cycle, an in vitro microdialysis system (MDS) of CL was conducted. Estradiol in MDS perfusate was confirmed by a reverse-phase high-performance liquid chromatography in combination with enzyme immunoassays. Basal release of estradiol from microdialyzed CL did not change during the estrous cycle. Additionally, when freshly prepared midluteal cells were exposed to estradiol (10(-14) to 10(-9) M), estradiol stimulated prostaglandin (PG) F(2alpha) secretion (P < 0.05), although it did not affect progesterone and oxytocin secretion. The overall results indicate that estradiol is produced locally in bovine CL throughout the estrous cycle, and they suggest that estradiol plays a role in regulating PGF(2alpha) production in CL as an autocrine/paracrine factor. PMID:11717122
Okuda, K; Uenoyama, Y; Berisha, B; Lange, I G; Taniguchi, H; Kobayashi, S; Kobayashi, S; Miyamoto, A; Schams, D
Regulation of Endothelial Permeability in the Corpus Luteum: A Review of the Literature
The development of the human corpus luteum (yellow body) is dictated by a strictly controlled system of mutually communicating cells, the luteal steroid hormone-producing cells and endothelial cells. This cell-to-cell communication facilitates control of neoangiogenesis which is a prerequisite for the development of the corpus luteum and its function, the rapid release of large amounts of progesterone into the blood-vascular system. Preconditions for this process are the hormonal regulation of endothelial cell proliferation as well as of vascular permeability through LH and hCG. The morphological correlates of endothelial permeability are cell-to-cell adhesion molecules such as adherens junctions (AJ) and tight junctions (TJ) that open and close the gaps between mutually interacting, neighbouring endothelial cells like a �zip fastener�. Various types of cell adhesion molecules have been detected in the corpus luteum such as occludin, claudin 1 and claudin 5 as well as VE-cadherin. It may be assumed that the regulation of AJ and TJ proteins is of particular importance for the permeability and thus for the function of the corpus luteum in early pregnancy since hCG treatment leads to a down-regulation of cell adhesion molecules in the luteal vessels. This effect is apparently mediated by VEGF. From a functional point of view, the hCG-dependent and VEGF-mediated down-regulation of cell adhesion molecules leads to a reduced transmissibility of cell-to-cell contacts and thus to an increased endothelial permeability. In this process the various cell adhesion molecules are not only directly regulated by VEGF but they also mutually interact and thus influence one another.
Herr, D.; Bekes, I.; Wulff, C.
Superoxide dismutase expression in the human corpus luteum during the menstrual cycle and in early pregnancy
To investigate the possible role of the superoxide radical and its scavenging system in the human corpus luteum, superoxide dismutase (SOD) values and lipid peroxide concentrations were analysed in the corpora lutea during the menstrual cycle and in early pregnancy. Copper-zinc SOD (Cu,Zn-SOD) activities increased from the early to mid-luteal phase, and gradually decreased thereafter and were the lowest in
Norihiro Sugino; Shuji Takiguchi; Shiro Kashida; Ayako Karube; Yasuhiko Nakamura; Hiroshi Kato
Superoxide dismutase expression in the human corpus luteum during the menstrual cycle and in early pregnancy.
To investigate the possible role of the superoxide radical and its scavenging system in the human corpus luteum, superoxide dismutase (SOD) values and lipid peroxide concentrations were analysed in the corpora lutea during the menstrual cycle and in early pregnancy. Copper-zinc SOD (Cu,Zn-SOD) activities increased from the early to mid-luteal phase, and gradually decreased thereafter and were the lowest in the regression phase. In pregnant corpus luteum, Cu,Zn-SOD activities were significantly higher than those in the mid-luteal phase. In contrast, manganese SOD (Mn-SOD) activities were low in the mid-luteal phase and increased toward the regression phase. Changes in mRNA expression of both types of SOD were similar to changes in their activities. Lipid peroxide concentrations were the highest in the regression phase whereas they were remarkably low in pregnant corpus luteum. The effects of human chorionic gonadotrophin (HCG) on luteal SOD were studied in vitro. HCG significantly increased Cu,Zn-SOD expression in mid-luteal phase corpora lutea, but not in late luteal phase corpora lutea. In conclusion, the present study suggests that the superoxide radical and its scavenging system, especially Cu,Zn-SOD, play important roles in the regulation of human luteal function. The stimulation of luteal Cu, Zn-SOD expression by HCG may be important in maintaining luteal cell integrity when pregnancy occurs. PMID:10611256
Sugino, N; Takiguchi, S; Kashida, S; Karube, A; Nakamura, Y; Kato, H
Secreted Protein, Acidic and Rich in Cysteine (SPARC) and Thrombospondin in the Developing Follicle and Corpus Luteum of the Rat
SUMMARY In adult mammals, growth of new vasculature from extant blood vessels (an- giogenesis) is rare in the absence of pathology. However, nonpathogenic angiogenesis oc- curs in the cycling ovary when the avascular postovulatory follicle transforms into a highly vascularized corpus luteum (CL). To improve our understanding of molecular mechanisms that regulate nonpathogenic vascular growth, we characterized the expression of
P. Bagavandoss; E. Helene Sage; Robert B. Vernon
Presence of the intermediate filaments cytokeratins and vimentin in the rat corpus luteum during luteal life-span
The presence of the intermediate filament (IF) proteins cytokeratins and vimentin in corpus luteum (CL) and other parts of the ovary from adult pseudopregnant rats was investigated using immunohistochemistry and immunoblot analysis. To induce pseudopregnancy, female rats were mated with sterile male rats. The mating procedure induces a prolonged luteal life-span of 13�1 days. Positive staining for cytokeratin could be
I. Nilsson; M.-O. Mattsson; G. Selstam
Effect of hCG administration during corpus luteum establishment on subsequent corpus luteum development and circulating progesterone concentrations in beef heifers.
This study examined the effect of a single administration of human chorionic gonadotrophin (hCG) on Day 1 to 4 after oestrus on corpus luteum (CL) development and circulating progesterone (P4). Oestrus-synchronized heifers (n=43) were administered a single intramuscular injection of saline on Day 1 (control) or 3000IU hCG on Day 1, 2, 3 or 4 after oestrus. Administration of hCG on Day 1 had no effect on CL area, on Day 2 increased CL area from Day 6 to 12 (P<0.05), on Day 3 increased CL area from Day 9 to 11, while on Day 4 increased CL size on Days 9 and 10 (P<0.05). Administration of hCG on Day 4 induced the formation of an accessory CL in 89% of heifers, resulting in a significant increase in total luteal tissue area on the ovaries compared with all other groups. Consistent with the effects on the CL, hCG on Day 1 did not affect P4 concentrations, on Day 2 significantly increased P4 compared with the control from Day 6 to 11 (P<0.05), on Day 3 resulted in a non-significant increase in P4 while hCG on Day 4 increased P4 from Day 8 to 13 compared with the control (P<0.05). In conclusion, administration of hCG as early as Day 2 after oestrus results in increased P4 in circulation from Day 6, which should have beneficial downstream effects in terms of uterine receptivity and conceptus elongation. PMID:23458081
Maillo, V; Duffy, P; O'Hara, L; de Frutos, C; Kelly, A K; Lonergan, P; Rizos, D
Ultrasound confirmation of ovulation in mares: a normal corpus luteum or a haemorrhagic anovulatory follicle?
The most common pathological anovulatory condition that occurs spontaneously during the breeding season in the mare is the haemorrhagic anovulatory follicle (HAF). A relatively high proportion of mares, soon after ovulation, develop a corpus haemorrhagicum (CH) with a central lacuna. This type of corpora lutea may resemble an HAF, which may complicate the accurate diagnosis of ovulation. The main objective of this study was to compare the ultrasound data of mares examined frequently with HAFs and CHs to elucidate whether it is possible to distinguish them from each other. A total of 135 ovulating mares were classified according to the morphology of the corpus luteum (CL) in mares with: a solid CL, a CH with small or with large central cavities. Ultrasound characteristics of the development of 11 HAF and 13 CHs with a large central cavity were compared. The pre-ovulatory follicular diameter of ovulatory mares was significantly correlated with the diameter of CH with large central cavities. The percentage of mares with post-ovulatory areas eligible to be mistaken with a CH was <25%. Although a predictive diagnosis of an HAF/CH can be made on the basis of several ultrasonographic endpoints, the only parameter that allows a definitive diagnosis is the thickness of the luteal border. This is <3 mm in HAFs in contrast to >5 mm in CHs. However, this only applies when the unidentified structure has non-organized contents. PMID:22594445
Cuervo-Arango, J; Newcombe, J R
Evidence that polymorphonuclear neutrophils infiltrate into the developing corpus luteum and promote angiogenesis with interleukin-8 in the cow
Background��After ovulation in the cow, the corpus luteum (CL) rapidly develops within a few days with angiogenesis and progesterone production.\\u000a CL formation resembles an inflammatory response due to the influx of immune cells. Neutrophils play a role in host defense\\u000a and inflammation, and secrete chemoattractants to stimulate angiogenesis. We therefore hypothesized that neutrophils infiltrate\\u000a in the developing CL from just
Sineenard Jiemtaweeboon; Koumei Shirasuna; Akane Nitta; Ayumi Kobayashi; Hans-Joachim Schuberth; Takashi Shimizu; Akio Miyamoto
Galectin-3 contributes to luteolysis by binding to Beta 1 integrin in the bovine corpus luteum.
Luteolysis is characterized by a reduction in progesterone (P4) production and tissue degeneration in the corpus luteum (CL). One of major events during luteolysis is luteal cell death. Galectin-3, a ubiquitously expressed protein involved in many cellular processes, serves as an antiapoptotic and/or proapoptotic factor in various cell types. Although galectin-3 is detected in the bovine CL, its role remains unclear. The expression of galectin-3 in the bovine CL was higher at the regressed stage than at the other luteal stages. Galectin-3 was localized on luteal steroidogenic cells (LSCs). When cultured LSCs were exposed to prostaglandin F2alpha (PGF) for 48 h, the expression and secretion of galectin-3 increased. When the cultured LSCs were treated with galectin-3 for 24 h, cleaved caspase-3 expression was increased, and the cell viability was decreased, whereas P4 production did not change. Beta 1 integrin, a target protein of galectin-3, was expressed in bovine CL and possessed glycans, which galectin-3 binds. Furthermore, galectin-3 bound to glycans of luteal beta 1 integrin. The decreased cell viability of cultured LSCs by galectin-3 was suppressed by beta 1 integrin antibody. The overall findings suggest that the secreted galectin-3 stimulated by PGF plays a role in structural luteolysis by binding to beta 1 integrin. PMID:24855102
Hashiba, Kazuhisa; Sano, Masahiro; Nio-Kobayashi, Junko; Hojo, Takuo; Skarzynski, Dariusz J; Okuda, Kiyoshi
Effect of endothelin-1 on the biological changes of the corpus luteum regression process.
The present study was conducted to evaluate whether apoptosis occurs during the corpus luteum (CL) regression process in rats, and, if so, to determine the effect of endothelin-1 (ET-1) in this process. In order to obtain CL cells, immature female rats were treated with pregnant mare serum gonadotropin (PMSG) and human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG) to cause hyperovulation. CL cells were treated with three different dosages of ET-1 (1.0 x 10(-5) M, 1.0 x 10(-7) M, and 1.0 x 10(-9) M). The occurrence of apoptosis, intracellular calcium concentrations, and progesterone production were measured to determine the biological changes in the CL cells. We found that apoptosis occurs during CL regression accompanied by an increase in intracellular calcium, while progesterone production was decreased. ET-1 promotes the apoptosis through an increase in the intracellular calcium in the CL cells and affects the physiological function of CL cells by inhibiting progesterone production. ET-1 was shown to be an important regulator of CL during its regression. PMID:10905504
Wang, P; Qin, D; Ni, J; Cheng, Z
Physiology and Endocrinology Symposium: role of immune cells in the corpus luteum.
The immune system is essential for optimal function of the reproductive system. The corpus luteum (CL) is an endocrine organ that secretes progesterone, which is responsible for regulating the length of the estrous cycle, and for the establishment and maintenance of pregnancy in mammals. This paper reviews literature that addresses 2 areas; i) how immune cells are recruited to the CL, and ii) how immune cells communicate with luteal cells to affect the formation, development, and regression of the CL. Immune cells, primarily recruited to the ovulatory follicle from lymphoid organs after the LH surge, facilitate ovulation and populate the developing CL. During the luteal phase, changes in the population of macrophages, eosinophils, neutrophils, and T lymphocytes occur at critical functional stages of the CL. In addition to their role in facilitating ovulation, immune cells may have an important role in luteal function. Evidence shows that cytokines secreted by immune cells modulate both luteotropic and luteolytic processes. However, the decision to pursue either function may depend on the environment provided by luteal cells. It is suggested that understanding the role immune cells play could lead to identification of new strategies to improve fertility in dairy cattle and other species. PMID:23422006
Walusimbi, S S; Pate, J L
Corpus luteum function and pregnancy outcome in buffaloes during the transition period from breeding to non-breeding season.
The aim in this study was to investigate corpus luteum function and embryonic loss in buffaloes mated by artificial inseminations (AI) during the transitional period from breeding to non-breeding season. The study was carried out using 288 multiparous Italian Mediterranean Buffalo cows at 110?�?4?days in milk. The buffaloes were mated by AI after synchronization of ovulation by the Ovsynch-TAI protocol 25?days after AI buffaloes underwent trans-rectal ultrasonography to assess embryonic development. Pregnancy diagnosis was confirmed on Days 45 and 70 after AI by rectal palpation. Buffaloes pregnant on Day 25 but not on Day 45 were considered to have undergone late embryonic mortality (LEM), whilst buffaloes pregnant on Day 45 but not on Day 70 were considered to have undergone foetal mortality (FM). Corpus luteum size and blood flow were determined by real-time B-mode/colour-Doppler on day 10 after AI in 122 buffaloes. The resistive index (RI) and pulsatility index (PI) were recorded at the time. Milk samples were collected on Days 10, 20 and 25 after AI in all inseminated buffaloes for the assay of whey P4 concentrations. Data were analysed by anova. Pregnancy rate on Day 25 after AI was 48.6% (140/288) and declined to 35.4% (102/288) and 30.6% (88/288) by Day 45 and Day 70 respectively. The incidences of LEM and FM were respectively 27.1% (38/140) and 13.7% (14/102). Pregnant buffaloes had greater (p?0.01) whey concentrations of P4 from Day 20 onwards than buffaloes which showed LEM, whilst P4 in buffaloes that showed FM did not differ from the other two groups on Day 10 and Day 20. Corpus luteum blood flow on Day 10 after AI showed higher RI (p?0.05) and PI (p?=?0.07) values in buffaloes that subsequently were not pregnant on Day 25 compared with pregnant buffaloes. Buffaloes that were not pregnant on Day 45 also had a higher (p?=?0.02) RI value on Day 10 than pregnant buffaloes, whilst PI values on Day 10 did not differ for the two groups of buffaloes. It was concluded that blood flow to the corpus luteum on Day 10 after AI influences corpus luteum function as judged by P4 secretion and also embryonic development and attachment in buffaloes. PMID:19473308
Russo, M; Vecchio, D; Neglia, G; Pacelli, C; Prandi, A; Gasparrini, B; Zicarelli, L; D'Occhio, M J; Campanile, G
Protein Profile in Corpus Luteum during Pregnancy in Korean Native Cows
Steroidogenesis requires coordination of the anabolic and catabolic pathways of lipid metabolism, but the profile of proteins associated with progesterone synthesis in cyclic and pregnant corpus luteum (CL) is not well-known in cattle. In Experiment 1, plasma progesterone level was monitored in cyclic cows (n = 5) and pregnant cows (n = 6; until d-90). A significant decline in the plasma progesterone level occurred at d-19 of cyclic cows. Progesterone level in abbatoir-derived luteal tissues was also determined at d 1 to 5, 6 to 13 and 14 to 20 of cyclic cows, and d-60 and -90 of pregnant cows (n = 5 each). Progesterone level in d-60 CL was not different from those in d 6 to 13 CL and d-90 CL, although the difference between d 6 to 13 and d-90 was significant. In Experiment 2, protein expression pattern in CL at d-90 (n = 4) was compared with that in CL of cyclic cows at d 6 to 13 (n = 5). Significant changes in the level of protein expression were detected in 32 protein spots by two-dimensional polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (2-DE), and 23 of them were identified by matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOF-MS). Six proteins were found only in pregnant CL, while the other 17 proteins were found only in cyclic CL. Among the above 6 proteins, vimentin which is involved in the regulation of post-implantation development was included. Thus, the protein expression pattern in CL was disorientated from cyclic luteal phase to mid pregnancy, and alterations in specific CL protein expression may contribute to the maintenance of pregnancy in Korean native cows.
Chung, H. J.; Kim, K. W.; Han, D. W.; Lee, H. C.; Yang, B. C.; Chung, H. K.; Shim, M. R.; Choi, M. S.; Jo, E. B.; Jo, Y. M.; Oh, M. Y.; Jo, S. J.; Hong, S. K.; Park, J. K.; Chang, W. K.
Expression of leptin and its receptor in corpus luteum during estrous cycle in buffalo (Bubalus bubalis).
Leptin is supposed to play a crucial role in ovarian luteal dynamics. The present study was aimed to investigate the importance of leptin and its receptors in buffalo corpus luteum (CL) obtained from different stages of the estrous cycle. Real-time RT-PCR (qPCR), western blot and immunohistochemistry techniques were applied to investigate mRNA expression, protein expression and localization of examined factors. Additionally to assess the contribution of leptin in progesterone production the expression profiles of StAR, P450scc and HSD were also investigated. In general, we demonstrated presence of leptin and its receptors in buffalo CL during the estrous cycle. The mRNA levels of leptin and its receptors were significantly up regulated in (P<0.05) in all the stages and highest levels were observed in mid and late luteal stages consistent with in vivo luteinization of buffalo CL and declined coincidental to luteal regression. The expression of StAR, P450scc and HSD factors maintained low in early luteal phase, after that level of expression increased steadily to show a significant rise (P<0.05) in mid luteal phase followed by gradual decline in late luteal phase and regressed CL and this correlates well with the Ob and ObR receptor activity, verifying their key role in progesterone and other steroids production in functional CL. As revealed by immunohistochemistry, leptin protein was localized predominantly in large luteal cells however leptin receptor (Ob-R) was localized in large luteal cells as well as in endothelial cells. It can be concluded from our study that leptin via its autocrine/paracrine effects play a significant role in promoting angiogenesis, steroidogenesis and also acts as key survival factor in bubaline CL. PMID:22959515
Kumar, Lalit; Panda, R P; Hyder, I; Yadav, V P; Sastry, K V H; Sharma, G T; Mahapatra, R K; Bag, S; Bhure, S K; Das, G K; Mitra, A; Sarkar, M
ATF3 expression in the corpus luteum: possible role in luteal regression{dagger}.
The present study investigated the induction and possible role of activating transcription factor 3 (ATF3) in the corpus luteum. Postpubertal cattle were treated at midcycle with prostaglandin F2?(PGF) for 0-4 hours. Luteal tissue was processed for immunohistochemistry, in situ hybridization, and isolation of protein and RNA. Ovaries were also collected from midluteal phase and first-trimester pregnant cows. Luteal cells were prepared and sorted by centrifugal elutriation to obtain purified small (SLCs) and large luteal cells (LLCs). Real-time PCR and in situ hybridization showed that ATF3 mRNA increased within 1 hour of PGF treatment in vivo. Western blot and immunohistochemistry demonstrated that ATF3 protein was expressed in the nuclei of LLC within 1 hour and was maintained for at least 4 hours. PGF treatment in vitro increased ATF3 expression only in LLC, whereas TNF induced ATF3 in both SLCs and LLCs. PGF stimulated concentration- and time-dependent increases in ATF3 and phosphorylation of MAPKs in LLCs. Combinations of MAPK inhibitors suppressed ATF3 expression in LLCs. Adenoviral-mediated expression of ATF3 inhibited LH-stimulated cAMP response element reporter luciferase activity and progesterone production in LLCs and SLCs but did not alter cell viability or change the expression or activity of key regulators of progesterone synthesis. In conclusion, the action of PGF in LLCs is associated with the rapid activation of stress-activated protein kinases and the induction of ATF3, which may contribute to the reduction in steroid synthesis during luteal regression. ATF3 appears to affect gonadotropin-stimulated progesterone secretion at a step or steps downstream of PKA signaling and before cholesterol conversion to progesterone. PMID:24196350
Mao, Dagan; Hou, Xiaoying; Talbott, Heather; Cushman, Robert; Cupp, Andrea; Davis, John S
Efficacy of PGF(2?) on pre-ovulatory follicle and corpus luteum blood flow.
The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of cloprostenol administration on the blood flow of pre-ovulatory follicle (PF) and corpus luteum (CL), progesterone secretion and pregnancy outcome in buffaloes subjected to AI. The trial was performed on 75 Italian buffaloes at 182 � 8 days in milk. Synchronized animals were randomly divided into two groups on the day of oestrus: Group T (n = 37) received a 0.524 mg intramuscular injection of cloprostenol and Group C (n = 38) received saline. Ultrasound examinations of the ovaries were performed 5 h after AI on the PF and 10 and 20 days after AI on the CL. Resistive (RI) and pulsatily index (PI) were calculated by colour-Doppler mode in each examination. Blood samples were collected on days 10, 20 and 25 after AI for progesterone assay and 25 days after AI, ultrasonography was performed to assess pregnancy, which was confirmed on day 45. Subjects pregnant on day 25 but not on day 45 were considered to have undergone late embryonic mortality (LEM). Statistical analysis was performed by anova. No differences were found in PF dimensions, CL size and blood flow on day 10 and 20 after AI between treated and control groups. Pre-ovulatory follicle area was higher in buffaloes that resulted pregnant on day 25 after AI compared to those that were non-pregnant (2.13 vs 1.66 cm in pregnant and non-pregnant buffaloes, respectively), while non-pregnant buffaloes showed higher values of RI (0.49 vs 0.30; p < 0.05) and PI (1.0 vs 0.37; p = 0.07) compared to pregnant subjects. Treatment by cloprostenol did not influence pregnancy rate both on day 25 (31/75; 41.3%) and 45 (27/75; 36.0%), progesterone levels and incidence of LEM (4/31; 12.9%). In conclusion, cloprostenol administration at the time of AI does not seem to affect PF and CL blood flow. PMID:21507081
Neglia, G; Vecchio, D; Russo, M; Di Palo, R; Pacelli, C; Comin, A; Gasparrini, B; Campanile, G
Specific non-genomic, membrane-localized binding sites for progesterone in the bovine corpus luteum.
Fractionation of bovine corpus luteum (CL) homogenates on continuous sucrose density gradients with and without preincubation with 3H-progesterone demonstrated high levels of tracer binding and high content of endogenous progesterone associated with particulate membrane fractions. Analysis of gradient fractions for a range of luteal plasma membrane and intracellular organelle marker enzyme activities indicated that endogenous progesterone content and 3H-progesterone-binding activity were associated with fractions enriched in luteal plasma membrane markers. This was confirmed by pretreatment of homogenates with the saponin, digitonin, prior to fractionation. Digitonin perturbed the buoyant density of luteal surface membrane markers and 3H-progesterone binding to a similar extent, but did not perturb the buoyant densities of other intracellular markers to the same degree. Interestingly, digitonin pretreatment also increased the proportion of progesterone tracer that entered the gradients. We consistently failed to demonstrate significant binding of 3H-progesterone to membrane fractions incubated with progesterone tracer in vitro. However, when digitonin was included in the in vitro binding assay, we observed a dramatic, dose-dependent stimulation of 3H-progesterone binding by digitonin. Other radiolabeled steroids tested (3H-cortisol, 3H-testosterone) bound poorly in the presence or absence of digitonin. 3H-Progesterone binding in the presence of optimal digitonin concentrations increased linearly with increasing luteal membrane concentration; was dependent on the pH, duration, and temperature of incubation; and low levels of progesterone (68 nM) competed for tracer binding. A range of other steroids tested (androgens, estrogens, corticosteroids, steroid precursors) competed at higher concentrations (10- to 100-fold) or did not compete at all for 3H-progesterone binding. There was no correlation between the hydrophobicity of various steroids and their ability to compete for binding. Moreover, a number of agonists and antagonists specific for the genomic progesterone receptor, agonists of peripheral benzodiazepine receptors, and inhibitors of a range of steroidogenic enzymes did not compete for 3H-progesterone binding. Western blots confirmed that detergent-solubilized progesterone-binding sites could be resolved from cytochrome P450 side-chain cleavage and 3beta-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase. Moreover, extraction of bound steroid from the binding site and HPLC demonstrated identity to progesterone, suggesting that no metabolism of the progesterone tracer had occurred during incubation. Progesterone binding to membranes of large luteal cells was higher compared with binding to small luteal cells, and levels were similar in membranes prepared from CL at all stages of the luteal phase. We suggest that bovine luteal progesterone-binding sites may play a role either in sequestration of newly synthesized progesterone or in the mediation of autocrine and/or paracrine actions of progesterone in the CL. PMID:9623598
Rae, M T; Menzies, G S; McNeilly, A S; Woad, K; Webb, R; Bramley, T A
Impaired corpus luteum function and other undesired results of pregnancies associated with inadvertent administration of a long-acting agonist of gonadotrophin-releasing hormone.
Spontaneous pregnancies associated with inadvertent periconceptional administration of long-acting gonadotrophin releasing-hormone agonist (GnRHa), in in-vitro fertilization, occurred in 11 of 161 patients with non-tubal infertility. All these cases exhibited impaired function of the corpus luteum in terms of declining progesterone levels, despite rising levels of human chorionic gonadotrophin. The patients were categorized according to the timing of GnRHa administration: periovulatory (three cases), midluteal (five cases) and late luteal (three cases). Altogether, of the 11 pregnancies, seven ended with a normal livebirth, three with a preclinical gestation and one with a blighted ovum. It appears that spontaneous pregnancies associated with inadvertent administration of GnRHa are not rare. Awareness for early diagnosis and close hormonal monitoring are recommended for the assessment of corpus luteum function and adequate supplementation. PMID:1325988
Herman, A; Ron-El, R; Golan, A; Nachum, H; Soffer, Y; Caspi, E
Stoichiometry of mitochondrial cytochromes P-450, adrenodoxin and adrenodoxin reductase in adrenal cortex and corpus luteum. Implications for membrane organization and gene regulation
We have estimated the concentrations of cytochromes P-450,,, and P-4501 1p and the electron-transfer proteins adrenodoxin reductase and adrenodoxin in the adrenal cortex and corpus luteum using specific antibodies against these enzymes. While in the adrenal cortex the concentrations of these enzymes are relatively constant in different animals and show no significant sex differences, in corpora lutea they vary considerably
Israel HANUKOGLU; Zelda HANUKOGLU
Titrating Luteinizing Hormone Replacement to Sustain the Structure and Function of the Corpus Luteum after Gonadotropin-Releasing Hormone Antagonist Treatment in Rhesus Monkeys
These studies were designed to identify 1) a regimen of a third generation GnRH antagonist that abolishes primate luteal function, and 2) the amount of LH replacement required to maintain the struc- ture and functional life span of the corpus luteum of the menstrual cycle after GnRH antagonist treatment. A single injection of antide at 3 or 5 mg\\/kg BW
Expression of Sex Hormone-Binding Globulin and Corticosteroid-Binding Globulin mRNAs in Corpus luteum of Human Subjects
To understand the biology of sex steroids in human ovarian corpus luteum, the expression of intracellular sex hormone-binding globulin (SHBG) and corticosteroid-binding globulin (CBG) mRNAs as a manifestation of intracellular SHBG and CBG expression was determined. The expression of SHBG and CBG mRNAs was detected in all samples analyzed. Luteal SHBG mRNA level showed no significant change during the endometrial
Ryou Misao; Yoshihito Nakanishi; Jiro Fujimoto; Satoshi Ichigo; Teruhiko Tamaya
Prostaglandin F2-alpha receptor (FPr) expression on porcine corpus luteum microvascular endothelial cells (pCL-MVECs)
Background The corpus luteum (CL) is a transient endocrine gland and prostaglandin F2-alpha is considered to be the principal luteolysin in pigs. In this species, the in vivo administration of prostaglandin F2-alpha induces apoptosis in large vessels as early as 6 hours after administration. The presence of the prostaglandin F2-alpha receptor (FPr) on the microvascular endothelial cells (pCL-MVECs) of the porcine corpus luteum has not yet been defined. The aim of the study was to assess FPr expression in pCL-MVECs in the early and mid-luteal phases (EL-p, ML-p), and during pregnancy (P-p). Moreover, the effectiveness of prostaglandin F2-alpha treatment in inducing pCL-MVEC apoptosis was tested. Methods Porcine CLs were collected in the EL and ML phases and during P-p. All CLs from each animal were minced together and the homogenates underwent enzymatic digestion. The pCL-MVECs were then positively selected by an immunomagnetic separation protocol using Dynabeads coated with anti-CD31 monoclonal antibody and seeded in flasks in the presence of EGM 2-MV (Microvascular Endothelial Cell Medium-2). After 4 days of culture, the cells underwent additional immunomagnetic selection and were seeded in flasks until the confluent stage. PCR Real time, western blot and immunodetection assays were utilized to assess the presence of FPr on pCL-MVEC primary cultures. Furthermore, the influence of culture time (freshly isolated, cultured overnight and at confluence) and hormonal treatment (P4 and E2) on FPr expression in pCL-MVECs was also investigated. Apoptosis was detected by TUNEL assay of pCL-MVECs exposed to prostaglandin F2-alpha. Results We obtained primary cultures of pCL-MVECs from all animals. FPr mRNA and protein levels showed the highest value (ANOVA) in CL-MVECs derived from the early-luteal phase. Moreover, freshly isolated MVECs showed a higher FPr mRNA value than those cultured overnight and confluent cells (ANOVA). prostaglandin F2-alpha treatment failed to induce an apoptotic response in all the pCL-MVEC cultures. Conclusion Our data showing the presence of FPr on MVECs and the inability of prostaglandin F2-alpha to evoke an in vitro apoptotic response suggest that other molecules or mechanisms must be considered in order to explain the in vivo direct pro-apoptotic effect of prostaglandin F2-alpha at the endothelial level.
Zannoni, Augusta; Bernardini, Chiara; Rada, Tommaso; Ribeiro, Luciana A; Forni, Monica; Bacci, Maria L
Influence of season on corpus luteum structure and function and AI outcome in the Italian Mediterranean buffalo (Bubalus bubalis).
The aim was to ascertain whether relationships between corpus luteum (CL) vascularization, CL function, and pregnancy outcome in AI in buffaloes were consistent across the breeding season and transition period to the nonbreeding season in a Mediterranean environment. Stage of the estrous cycle in Italian Mediterranean buffaloes was synchronized using the Ovsynch with timed AI program and buffaloes were mated by AI in both the breeding season (N = 131) and transition period (N = 125). Detailed investigation of CL structure and function was undertaken in 39 buffaloes at each of the respective times using realtime B-mode/color-Doppler ultrasonography on Days 10 and 20 after AI. Progesterone (P4) concentrations were determined by RIA in all buffaloes. Pregnancy rate on Day 45 after AI was greater (P < 0.05) during the breeding season (58.0%) than the transitional period (45.6%) and this was primarily the result of a lower (P < 0.05) late embryonic mortality during the breeding season (7.3%) compared with the transition period (23%). Circulating concentrations of P4 on Days 10 and 20 after AI were greater (P < 0.01) during the breeding season (4.6 � 0.3 and 3.4 � 0.2, respectively) than during the transition period (1.6 � 0.12 and 1.8 � 0.2, respectively), and this was independent of reproductive status as there was no interaction between pregnancy and season. Corpus luteum time average medium velocity at Day 10 after AI was greater (P < 0.01) during the breeding season (19.3 � 1.5) than in the transitional period (8.3 � 0.7). There were positive correlations in pregnant buffaloes between CL time average medium velocity and P4 concentrations on Day 10 (r = 0.722; P < 0.01) and Day 20 (r = 0.446; P < 0.01) after AI. The findings were interpreted to indicate that relationships between CL vascularization, CL function, and pregnancy outcome in AI in buffaloes are consistent across the breeding season and transition period to the nonbreeding season. The distinction between the breeding season and the transition period is the relatively low proportion of buffaloes that have CL function and P4 concentrations required to establish a pregnancy during the transition period, which is manifested in a greater incidence of embryonic mortality. PMID:22979961
Di Francesco, S; Neglia, G; Vecchio, D; Rossi, P; Russo, M; Zicarelli, L; D'Occhio, M J; Campanile, G
Androgen deficiency during mid- and late pregnancy alters progesterone production and metabolism in the porcine corpus luteum.
We determined whether androgen deficiency induced by flutamide treatment during mid- and late pregnancy affects the functions of the porcine corpus luteum (CL). Pregnant gilts were injected with flutamide between days 43 and 49 (gestation day [GD] 50F), days 83 and 89 (GD90F), or days 101 and 107 (GD108F) of gestation. Antiandrogen treatment increased the luteal progesterone concentration in the GD50F group and decreased progesterone content in the GD90F and GD108F groups. Luteal levels of side-chain cleavage cytochrome P450 (CYP11A1) mRNA and protein were significantly downregulated in the GD90F and GD108F groups as compared with the respective controls. The 3?-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase/?5-?4 isomerase (HSD3B) mRNA and protein expression were significantly reduced only in the GD108F group as compared with the control. Decreased luteal 20?-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase (AKR1C1) mRNA and protein levels were observed in the GD50F group. Thus, androgen deficiency during pregnancy in pigs led to CL dysfunction that is marked by decreased progesterone production. Furthermore, exposure to flutamide during late pregnancy downregulated steroidogenic enzymes (CYP11A1 and HSD3B) in pigs. We conclude that androgens are important regulators of CL function during pregnancy. PMID:24429677
Grzesiak, Malgorzata; Knapczyk-Stwora, Katarzyna; Ciereszko, Renata E; Golas, Aniela; Wieciech, Iwona; Slomczynska, Maria
Expression of Aldo-keto Reductase 1C23 in the Equine Corpus Luteum in Different Luteal Phases
Regression of the corpus luteum (CL) is characterized by a decay in progesterone (P4) production (functional luteolysis) and disappearance of luteal tissues (structural luteolysis). In mares, structural luteolysis is thought to be caused by apoptosis of luteal cells, but functional luteolysis is poorly understood. 20?-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase (20?-HSD) catabolizes P4 into its biologically inactive form, 20?-hydroxyprogesterone (20?-OHP). In mares, aldo-keto reductase (AKR) 1C23, which is a member of the AKR superfamily, has 20?-HSD activity. To clarify whether AKR1C23 is associated with functional luteolysis in mares, we investigated the expression of AKR1C23 in the CL in different luteal phases. The luteal P4 concentration and levels of 3?-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase (3?-HSD) mRNA were higher in the mid luteal phase than in the late and regressed luteal phases (P<0.05), but the level of 3?-HSD protein was higher in the late luteal phase than in the regressed luteal phase (P<0.05). The luteal 20?-OHP concentration and the level of AKR1C23 mRNA were higher in the late luteal phase than in the early and mid luteal phases (P<0.05), and the level of AKR1C23 protein was also highest in the late luteal phase. Taken together, these findings suggest that metabolism of P4 by AKR1C23 is one of the processes contributing to functional luteolysis in mares.
KOZAI, Keisuke; HOJO, Takuo; TOKUYAMA, Shota; SZOSTEK, Anna Z; TAKAHASHI, Masashi; SAKATANI, Miki; NAMBO, Yasuo; SKARZYNSKI, Dariusz J; OKUDA, Kiyoshi
Rapid Accumulation of Polymorphonuclear Neutrophils in the Corpus luteum during Prostaglandin F2?-Induced Luteolysis in the Cow
Prostaglandin F2? (PGF2?) induces luteolysis within a few days in cows, and immune cells increase in number in the regressing corpus luteum (CL), implying that luteolysis is an inflammatory-like immune response. We investigated the rapid change in polymorphonuclear neutrophil (PMN) numbers in response to PGF2? administration as the first cells recruited to inflammatory sites, together with mRNA of interleukin-8 (IL-8: neutrophil chemoattractant) and P-selectin (leukocyte adhesion molecule) in the bovine CL. CLs were collected by ovariectomy at various times after PGF2? injection. The number of PMNs was increased at 5 min after PGF2? administration, whereas IL-8 and P-selectin mRNA increased at 30 min and 2 h, respectively. PGF2? directly stimulated P-selectin protein expression at 5�30 min in luteal endothelial cells (LECs). Moreover, PGF2? enhanced PMN adhesion to LECs, and this enhancement by PGF2? was inhibited by anti-P-selectin antibody, suggesting that P-selectin expression by PGF2? is crucial in PMN migration. In conclusion, PGF2? rapidly induces the accumulation of PMNs into the bovine CL at 5 min and enhances PMN adhesion via P-selectin expression in LECs. It is suggested that luteolytic cascade by PGF2? may involve an acute inflammatory-like response due to rapidly infiltrated PMNs.
Shirasuna, Koumei; Jiemtaweeboon, Sineenard; Raddatz, Sybille; Nitta, Akane; Schuberth, Hans-Joachim; Bollwein, Heinrich; Shimizu, Takashi; Miyamoto, Akio
Ever-changing cell interactions during the life span of the corpus luteum: relevance to luteal regression.
The corpus luteum (CL) undergoes dramatic morphological and functional changes throughout its lifespan. It initially develops from cells that remain in the follicle following ovulation. Eventually the mature CL is composed of multiple, distinctive cell types including steroidogenic cells (small and large luteal cells) and other cell types (endothelial cells, pericytes, fibroblasts, and immune cells). Robust angiogenesis accompanies CL formation, establishing an elaborate blood vessel network at mid cycle. In the absence of embryonic signals, the CL will regress in a process triggered by prostaglandin F2? (PG). Luteal demise in the responsive gland is characterized by cessation of steroid production, angio-regression, and apoptotic cell death, brought about by leukocyte infiltration, inflammatory responses, and diminished angiogenic support. However, the young immature CL is resistant or refractory to the luteolytic actions of PG. Evidence based on functional genomics and other studies highlight the roles played by endothelial, immune, and steroidogenic luteal cells and their interactions in the PG-responsive vs. PG-refractory CL. PMID:24856465
Smith, George W; Meidan, Rina
Effect of progesterone from induced corpus luteum on the characteristics of a dominant follicle in dromedary camels (Camelus dromedarius).
The present study was carried out to elucidate the effect of progesterone (P4) from the induced corpus luteum (CL) on the characteristics of the dominant follicle (DF) in dromedary camels (Camelus dromedarius). Ovarian follicular and induced CL dynamics were monitored by transrectal ultrasonography in eight camels during the peak breeding season. The characteristics of the DF were monitored daily from the day of emergence into a wave, until it appeared to lose its dominance and the DF of a subsequent wave grew to a diameter of 13-17 mm. At this stage ovulation was induced by hCG and the DF was monitored every 8 h for 48 h. After ovulation, CL dynamics and follicular development (emergence of a new wave, growth and mature phase of the selected DF) were monitored daily. Blood samples were collected during each ultrasound examination to study the P4 profile in these animals. The CL developed to a maximum size (22.55 � 3.24 mm) with a peak concentration of P4 (4.60 � 2.57 ng/ml) 7 days after ovulation. The size of the CL was positively correlated with the P4 concentration (r = 0.612) during the different stages of the CL dynamics. The presence of CL did not affect the linear growth rate, duration of growth and mature phases of the DF. The development of the DF to its maximum size during its mature phase and inter-wave interval were not affected by the P4 secreted by the induced CL. In conclusion, there is no evidence from this study to suggest that P4 from induced CL altered the characteristics of a DF in dromedary camels. PMID:22727034
Manjunatha, B M; David, C G; Pratap, N; Al-Bulushi, Samir; Hago, B E
Intraovarian effect of dominant follicle and corpus luteum on number of follicles during a follicular wave in heifers.
The intraovarian relationships among dominant follicle (DF), corpus luteum (CL), and number of follicles between Days 0 to 5 (Day 0�=�ovulation) in wave 1 (n�=�65 waves) and Days 9 to 13 in wave 2 (n�=�62) were analyzed in separate experiments in Bos taurus heifers. Ovaries were grouped into intraovarian patterns of DF-CL, DF alone, CL alone, and neither DF nor CL. In wave 1, the pattern frequencies of DF-CL or neither DF nor CL (34% each) were greater (P�<�0.0004) than for DF alone or CL alone (16% each). The number of growing follicles ?5.0�mm, was greater (P�<�0.0001) in ovaries with the DF, even when the DF was removed from the tally (P�<�0.03). In a factorial analysis of wave 1, there was a positive main effect of DF (3.9���0.2 vs. 2.2���0.2 follicles; P�<�0.0001), but the main effect of CL and the interaction of DF and CL were not significant. In a factorial analysis of wave 2, there were more (P�<�0.0001) follicles greater than 6�mm in ovaries with a DF when the DF was included and an approaching difference (P�<�0.09) when the DF was excluded. The main effect of CL and the interaction of DF and CL were not significant. The hypothesis that both the DF and CL have a positive intraovarian effect on number of follicles in waves 1 and 2 was only partly supported; the DF, but not the CL, had an effect in the factorial analyses. Previous reports in cattle and sheep of a positive intraovarian effect of CL on number of follicles are questionable in that location of the DF was not considered. PMID:24768007
Ginther, O J; Hoffman, M M
Corpus luteum function and embryonic mortality in buffaloes treated with a GnRH agonist, hCG and progesterone.
The effect of treatment with a GnRH agonist, hCG or progesterone (P(4)) on corpus luteum function and embryonic mortality was investigated in buffaloes inseminated during mid-winter. Italian Mediterranean buffaloes (n=309) were synchronized using the Ovsynch with timed-AI program and mated by AI at 16 h (Day 0) and 40 h after the second injection of GnRH. On Day 5, buffaloes were randomly assigned to four groups: Control (no treatment, n=69), GnRH agonist (buserelin acetate, 12.6 microg, n=73), hCG (1500 IU, n=75) and P(4) (PRID without E(2) for 10 days, n=77). Progesterone (pg/ml) was determined in milk whey on Days 5, 10, 15 and 20 and pregnancy diagnosis was undertaken on Day 26 by ultrasound and Day 40 by rectal palpation. Treatment with buserelin and hCG increased (p<0.05) P(4) on Day 15 compared with controls (456+/-27, 451+/-24 and 346+/-28 pg/ml, respectively). Buffaloes treated with a PRID had intermediate P(4) concentrations (380+/-23 pg/ml). Embryonic mortality between Days 26 and 40 (22.9%) and pregnancies at Day 40 (48.9%) did not differ between treatments. A higher (p<0.01) P(4) concentration was found on Day 20 in pregnant animals compared with non-pregnant and embryonic mortality buffaloes, which did not differ. In summary, buserelin and hCG increased P(4) concentrations on Day 15 but this was not associated with a reduced incidence of embryonic mortality in buffaloes during mid-winter. PMID:17403533
Campanile, G; Di Palo, R; Neglia, G; Vecchio, D; Gasparrini, B; Prandi, A; Galiero, G; D'Occhio, M J
The microvasculature of the corpus luteum in pregnant rabbit. A scanning electron microscopy study of corrosion casts.
The vascular network of pregnant rabbit ovaries was studied by means of scanning electron microscopy (SEM) of corrosion casts, in order to evaluate the morphofunctional changes of the microcirculation of corpus luteum (CL). Pregnant rabbit ovary showed an overwhelming vascularization. Ovarian hilus displayed an increase in the arterial spirallisation. The arterial spiral pattern was present along the entire vessel course, up to CL tissues. The CL of pregnancy was supplied by wide vascular plexuses (2-5 plexuses were found in each pregnant ovary) whose major axis was about 2 mm. Luteal capillaries showed a tortuous course and were arranged in a three-dimensional, wide and rounded-meshed network. Postcapillary venoconstrictions were present. The venous drainage appeared more developed then the arterial supply. Tight artero-venous contacts in hilar, juxtamedullar and medullar regions of the ovary were observed. These results clearly show that the morphofunctional expression of CL of pregnancy is greatly dependent on its hemodynamic control. In particular, the increase of spirallisation exhibited by the arteries during pregnancy is likely to be considered a significant functional change. The spirallisation likely is a device for reducing the blood pressure through the CL. The artero-venous contacts, also previously described in hCG stimulated (pseudopregnant) ovaries, may support a counter-current like system that may allow a veno-arterial exchange of small molecules through the wall of the facing vessels. In addition, in 10-day pregnant rabbit CL the consolidation of a well-developed capillary network was revealed, which is a sign that the CL of pregnancy reached the full morphofunctional maturation. Furthermore, the CL of 10-day pregnant rabbit did not present significant capillary permeabilization and dilation or angiogenic processes, aspects that were previously found in stimulated periovulatory ovaries. Indeed, changes of the arterial supply and venous drainage of the CL of pregnancy were demonstrated. This suggests that the control of the blood flow through the CL of pregnancy may be transferred from the local capillary microcirculation to the regional artero/venous circulation. This may be probably related to the significant increase of the ovarian blood flow necessary for the maintenance of CL endocrine functions during pregnancy. PMID:11315950
Macchiarelli, G; Nottola, S A; Picucci, K; Stallone, T; Motta, P M
Corpus luteum development and function and relationship to pregnancy during the breeding season in the Mediterranean buffalo.
The aim of this study was to ascertain corpus luteum (CL) development and function in buffaloes synchronized and mated by artificial insemination (AI) during the breeding season. Italian Mediterranean buffalo cows (n = 43) at 86.5 � 2.7 days postpartum were synchronized by the Ovsynch-TAI Program and inseminated using frozen thawed semen at 20 and 44 h after the second injection of GnRH. The CL dimensions (diameter and area) and blood flow were examined on Days 5, 10, 15, 20, and 25 after AI by realtime B-mode/colour-Doppler ultrasonography. The resistive index (RI), pulsatility index (PI) and time average medium velocity (TAMV) were recorded at each time, together with CL dimensions. Blood samples were taken on the days of ultrasonography for progesterone (P4) assay by RIA. Data were grouped into pregnant or non-pregnant and retrospectively analyzed by repeated measure ANOVA and correlation analyses. Dimensions of the CL on Days 10, 20, and 25 after AI were greater (P < 0.01) in buffaloes pregnant on Day 45 (n = 18) compared with non-pregnant buffaloes (n = 25). The former buffaloes also showed a greater (P < 0.01) rate of CL growth between Days 5 and 10 after AI. Blood flow to the CL on Day 10 after AI showed a higher TAMV (P < 0.01) and lower RI (P < 0.05) in pregnant buffaloes compared with non-pregnant buffaloes. Negative correlations were observed on Day 10 after AI between CL diameter and RI (r = -0.61; P < 0.01) and PI (r = -0.60; P < 0.01); P4 concentrations and RI (r = -0.46; P < 0.02); and RI and pregnancy (r = 0.45; P < 0.02). Positive correlations were observed between pregnancy and CL size (r = 0.54; P < 0.01), ?CL diameter between Days 5 and 10 (r = 0.52; P < 0.01), ?CL area between Days 5 and 10 (r = 0.48; P < 0.015), and ?P4 between Days 5 and 10 (r = 0.50; P < 0.01). Based on these findings it is concluded that the period between Day 5 and 10 is very important for CL growth and crucial in evaluating pregnancy. Accordingly, the assessment of CL parameters during the period from Day 5 to Day 10 after AI might be used to predict the likelihood of an ongoing pregnancy. PMID:22365703
Vecchio, D; Neglia, G; Gasparrini, B; Russo, M; Pacelli, C; Prandi, A; D'Occhio, M J; Campanile, G
Morphological and functional characteristics of the dominant follicle and corpus luteum in cattle and their influence on ovarian function.
Predicting the functional activity of a dominant follicle (DF) and corpus luteum (CL) might be important before starting a superovulation regime or a synchronization program. The DF and CL were characterized morphologically by using ultrasonography and were characterized functionally by estimating the estradiol-17beta/progesterone (E2/P4) ratio. Their influence on ovarian function was estimated through their ability to ovulate at different stages of development in response to PGF2alpha-application. A total of 47 Holstein Friesian (35 cows and 12 heifers) were used in two experiments. In Experiment 1, 25 animals were examined by daily transrectal palpation and ultrasonography to follow the morphological development of the DF. The status of the DF was categorized into 3 groups (A1, B1, C1). The A1 group (n=7) contained animals with DF in the growing phase or in early static growth phase for less than 3 days. Group B1 (n=13) included animals with DF in static growth phase for 3 to 4 days, while Group C1 (n=5) comprised animals with DF keeping a plateau for more than 4 days or animals with DF in the regression phase. The DF were aspirated transvaginally and the follicular fluid (FF) was analyzed for E2 and P4. In Experiment 2, 22 animals were included. As in Experiment 1, the animals were classified into three groups (A2, n=10; B2, n=5; C2, n=7). They were treated by a single dose of PGF2alpha (25 mg, i.m.) between Days 8 and 12 of the cycle. Results showed that luteolyses occurred in all animals. The DF, which were in growing or in early static growth phase < 3 days were always E2-dominant (E2 > P4) and ovulated after PGF2alpha-application in 6/8 of cases and persisted in 2 (Group A2). The DF persisting > 4 days or that had been in regression were always P4-dominant. This type of DF regressed after PGF2alpha-application (Group C2). The DF in early static growth phase for 3 to 4 days in 5/13 cases were E2-dominant and in 8/13 cases were P4-dominant. This type of DF ovulated in 3/5 cases and regressed in 2/5 cases after PGF2alpha-application (Group B2). These results suggest that the DF is morphologically and functionally defined as long as the DF is in the growing or early static growth phase (A1, A2) for at least 2 days or if the DF is in regression (C1, C2). However, when the DF is in the static growth phase for 3 or 4 days (B1, B2), their morphological and functional characteristics are different. The CL controlls ovulation in the A and C groups and plays an abettor's roll in the B-group. PMID:11572438
Ali, A; Lange, A; Gilles, M; Glatzel, P S
Characterization of recombinant DNA derived-human luteinizing hormone in vitro and in vivo: efficacy in ovulation induction and corpus luteum support
The present data are the first, to the authors knowledge, to demonstrate the production feasibility of a commercially available medication of pure human luteinizing hormone from recombinant DNA technology (rechLH). The rechLH preparation achieved ovulation induction and corpus luteum support in the primate menstrual cycle. The observations described herein indicate the opportunity for significant improvement in the treatment of infertile women and men who require gonadal stimulation. Recombinant DNA-derived gonadotropin products, rechLH in this case, will have several therapeutic advantages compared with current medications extracted from urine. These advantages include (1) better reliability of an available supply of hormone and (2) improved treatment flexibility in determining the optimal dose ratio of follicle-stimulating hormone and luteinizing hormone or avoidance of the long-acting effects of human chorionic gonadotropin, as the needs of individual patients may dictate.
Simon, J.A.; Danforth, D.R.; Hutchison, J.S.; Hodgen, G.D.
Corpus luteum activity, fertility, and adrenal cortex response in lactating Carora cows during rainy and dry seasons in the tropics of Venezuela.
The effect of the rainy (RS) and the dry season (DS) on fertility, corpus luteum activity, and adrenal cortex response relationships were evaluated after first service (49 +/- 6 d postpartum) in Carora cows, a dairy cattle of Venezuela raised in tropical conditions. Cows (n = 84 in RS and n = 98 in DS) were kept semistabled, had two or three calvings, body condition score 3.5 on a 5-point scale and similar milk yield (2450 +/- 560 kg of milk during the previous lactation). Cows were grouped retrospectively according to pregnancy status. A split-plot model with repeated measures over Days 5, 7, 10, 14, and 15 after insemination was used to analyze the effects of season, pregnancy status, and their interaction involving the day on: 1) serum concentration of progesterone in four treatments: RS pregnant (n = 26), RS nonpregnant (n = 24), DS pregnant (n = 24), and DS nonpregnant (n = 20) cows; 2) serum concentration of cortisol at Days 0, 10, 14, 15, and 16 postservice in the previous treatments (n = 9, 7, 6, and 8, respectively); and 3) concentrations of cortisol after 0.1 mg of adrenocorticotropin in these last four groups of cows at Day 14 postinsemination. Breeding during the DS decreased (P < 0.05) conception rate to first service and increased (P < 0.01) days in service. In addition, the DS decreased (P < 0.05) the percentages of cows with normal interestrous interval (20-22 d), expression of estrus, and (P < 0.01) luteal phase progesterone; but DS increased (P < 0.05) percentages of short and long estrous cycles, anovulatory estrus, and repeat breeding rate. Mean serum concentration of progesterone was lower (P < 0.05) at Days 10, 14, and 15 in DS nonpregnant than in DS pregnant cows, and lower during luteal phase (P < 0.05) in DS nonpregnant than RS nonpregnant cows. Serum cortisol concentration was greater (P < 0.05) at Days 10, 14, and 16 in DS nonpregnant than DS pregnant cows. A significant (P < 0.05) negative correlation (r = -0.78) between serum concentrations of progesterone and cortisol was found within DS nonpregnant cows. Concentrations of cortisol after adrenocorticotropin were greater (P < 0.05) in DS nonpregnant cows than in other groups. These results indicate that elevated concentrations of cortisol associated with the DS may decrease progesterone secreted by the corpus luteum and therefore mediate the negative effect of the DS on fertility. PMID:8839624
Leyva-Ocariz, H; Querales, G; Saavedra, J; Hern�ndez, A
Relationship between different stages of the corpus luteum and the expression of the peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor gamma protein in bovine large lutein cells.
Lutein cells produce progestins that support pregnancy. Steroidogenesis requires coordination of the anabolic and catabolic pathways of lipid metabolism. Peroxisome proliferator-activated receptors (PPAR) are transcription factors that are central in the regulation of lipid metabolism. Hence, they may play a role in regulation of the development and regression of the corpus luteum. The present study investigated the expression of PPAR-gamma, n during different stages of the corpus luteum. Lutein cells were isolated mechanically from non-pregnant and pregnant heifers on days 5, 12 and 20 of the oestrous cycle (n = 3 for each day). PPAR-gamma in single cells was analysed by flow cytometry. PPAR-gamma 1 and PPAR-gamma 2 isoforms were distinguished by immunoblotting. The cell cycle of the lutein cells was measured by the flow cytometric quantification of DNA in single cells, using propidium iodide staining after ethanol fixation and RNAse treatment, and by the detection of the proliferating cell nuclear antigen (PCNA). The response of the cells to PPAR-gamma agonist 15-deoxy-delta 12,14 prostaglandin J2 (15dPGJ2, 200 and 490 nmol l-1) with and without changing the cell cycle by the anti-apoptogenic drug aurintricarboxylic acid (ATA, 10 mumol l-1) was used as an in vitro model to study the relationship between the cell cycle and PPAR-gamma. The concentration of PPAR-gamma per cell from non-pregnant heifers was significantly higher on day 5 (3.40 +/- 0.30 fmol) compared with that on day 12 (1.34 +/- 0.18 fmol, P < 0.05) and day 20 (0.55 +/- 0.2 fmol, P < 0.05). In pregnant heifers, the concentration of PPAR-gamma was significantly (P < 0.01) higher than in non-pregnant heifers. A decrease in the PPAR-gamma 1 isoform relative to PPAR-gamma 2 was observed in cells on day 12 of the oestrous cycle compared with day 5. The cell cycle (S phase portion in cells on days 5, 12 and 20: 16 +/- 4%, 6 +/- 4% and 4 +/- 3%, respectively) and the portion of cells with PCNA correlated with the amount of PPAR-gamma in non-pregnant heifers. ATA promoted the S phase in cells of non-pregnant heifers (day 12) and the endogenous agonist of PPAR-gamma, 15dPGJ2, inhibited the response to ATA in a dose-dependent manner, indicating that PPAR-gamma plays a role in the arrest of the cell cycle in lutein cells to maintain their differentiated state. PMID:10793637
Viergutz, T; Loehrke, B; Poehland, R; Becker, F; Kanitz, W
Impairment of uterine smooth muscle contractions and prostaglandin secretion from cattle myometrium and corpus luteum in vitro is influenced by DDT, DDE and HCH.
The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane(DDT), dichlorodiphenyldichloroethylene (DDE) and ?-hexachlorocyclohexane (HCH) (10ng/ml) on myometrial motility and the secretory function of the myometrium and corpus luteum (CL) collected from cows on days 8-12 of the estrous cycle. All of the xenobiotics increased (P<0.05) myometrial contractility. Moreover, the xenobiotics stimulated the secretion of the following prostaglandins (PGs) from myometrial strips: PGF2?, PGE2 and PGI2. DDT and DDE also increased (P<0.05) the release of PGF2? from CL strips, and HCH had the same effect (P<0.05) on the secretion of PGE2 and PGI2. The studied xenobiotics did not affect (P>0.05) PG synthesis, but DDT and DDE increased the mRNA expression levels of leukemia inhibitor factor (LIF), which can stimulate PG production. In summary, the xenobiotics affected PG secretion from cow myometrium and CL, which may contribute to the mechanism of uterine contraction disturbance. PMID:24742728
Wrobel, Michal H; Bedziechowski, Pawel; Mlynarczuk, Jaroslaw; Kotwica, Jan
Effect of follicular aspiration just before ovulation on corpus luteum characteristics, circulating progesterone concentrations and uterine receptivity in single-ovulating and superstimulated heifers.
The aim of this study was to investigate, in unstimulated and superstimulated heifers, the effect of follicle aspiration just before ovulation on corpus luteum (CL) development, circulating progesterone (P(4)) concentrations and the ability of the uterus to support embryo development. Following follicle aspiration or ovulation timed from GNRH administration, CL development was assessed by daily ultrasonography, and CL function was assessed in terms of the capacity to produce P(4) and the expression of genes involved in steroidogenesis in luteal tissue. The capacity of the uterine environment to support conceptus development was assessed following transfer and recovery of in vitro-produced embryos. Follicular aspiration just before the expected time of ovulation leads to a significant reduction in CL diameter, CL area and area of luteal tissue. This was associated with a decrease in circulating P(4) in both unstimulated and superstimulated heifers. Follicle aspiration leads to a reduction in conceptus length and area on day 14 in unstimulated heifers only. Follicle aspiration leads to a reduction in the expression of LHCGR in luteal tissue from unstimulated heifers compared with those in which the CL formed after ovulation. Superstimulation significantly reduced the expression of STAR in luteal tissue in both ovulated and follicle-aspirated heifers. In conclusion, in stimulated and unstimulated heifers, aspiration of the preovulatory dominant follicle(s) just before expected ovulation interferes with the subsequent formation and function of the CL, in terms of size and P(4) output and this, in turn, is associated with a reduced capacity of the uterus to support conceptus elongation in unstimulated heifers. PMID:22367589
O'Hara, L; Scully, S; Maillo, V; Kelly, A K; Duffy, P; Carter, F; Forde, N; Rizos, D; Lonergan, P
Expression of vascular endothelial growth factor and its receptors in the human corpus luteum during the menstrual cycle and in early pregnancy.
To investigate the possible role of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) and its receptors in the human corpus luteum (CL), expression of VEGF and its receptors, the fms-like tyrosine kinase and the kinase insert domain-containing region (KDR), was analyzed in the CL during the menstrual cycle and in early pregnancy. Immunohistochemistry revealed that VEGF was localized in luteal cells and both flt-1 and KDR were also localized in luteal cells, in addition to vascular endothelial cells. Messenger RNA (mRNA) expression of VEGF, flt-1, and KDR remained constant in the CL during the luteal phase and was lower in the regression phase. In the pregnant CL, VEGF mRNA expression was higher compared with that in the midluteal phase, and mRNA expression of both flt-1 and KDR was the same as that in the midluteal phase. Western blot analyses revealed that the change in protein expression of VEGF, flt-1, and KDR was similar to that in their mRNA expression. To study the effect of human CG (hCG) on VEGF expression in the CL, corpora lutea obtained from the midluteal phase were incubated with hCG (1 IU/ml) for 6 h. hCG increased the expression of mRNA and protein of VEGF. In conclusion, VEGF and its receptors may play important roles in development and function of the CL, and VEGF may exert a paracrine-autocrine role in regulating luteal function. hCG may act to prolong the life span of the CL by stimulating VEGF expression when pregnancy occurs. PMID:11061557
Sugino, N; Kashida, S; Takiguchi, S; Karube, A; Kato, H
CELL BIOLOGY SYMPOSIUM: Perspectives: Possible roles of polymorphonuclear neutrophils in angiogenesis and lymphangiogenesis in the corpus luteum during development and early pregnancy in ruminants.
The establishment of pregnancy requires well-balanced regulation of the endocrine and immune systems and involves interactions among the conceptus, oviduct-uterus, and corpus luteum (CL). In particular, a rapid increase in plasma progesterone during the first week after ovulation is critical for the growth of the conceptus and successful pregnancy in cattle. Events involved in maternal recognition of pregnancy (MRP) may commence within 1 wk from AI, when interferon-stimulated gene expression in circulating polymorphonuclear neutrophils (PMN) increases in pregnant cows. To regulate optimal endocrine conditions within this time, the CL must develop rapidly, with active angiogenesis and lymphangiogenesis. The major angiogenic factors, vascular endothelial growth factor and fibroblast growth factor 2, contribute to the development of the CL but may also act as chemoattractants for PMN. Indeed, the number of PMN is greatest in the new CL, where PMN together with IL-8 induce active angiogenesis and lymphangiogenesis. During MRP, the conceptus secretes interferon tau (IFNT), which prevents CL regression by inhibiting luteolytic release of PGF2? from uterine endometrium. In addition, IFNT and PGE2 reach the CL and may contribute to desensitizing the CL to the luteolytic effects of PGF2?. In the bovine CL, lymphangiogenesis, stimulated by IFNT, may occur during MRP, and thus a shift of local immunity might occur at this timing. The aforementioned evidence supports the possible involvement of PMN in the establishment of pregnancy via CL regulation. Further investigation could expand our understanding of the communication between zygotes, PMN, and reproductive organs during early pregnancy. This should provide new insight into the contribution of neutrophils to CL function and immune tolerance during early pregnancy in ruminants. PMID:24663155
Miyamoto, A; Shirasuna, K; Haneda, S; Shimizu, T; Matsui, M
Gonadotropin receptors in plasma membranes of bovine corpus luteum. I. Effect of phospholipases on the binding of 125I-choriogonadotropin by membrane-associated and solubilized receptors.
The ability of bovine corpus luteum plasma membranes to bind 125I-choriogonadotropin has been examined after prior treatment of the membranes with phospholipases A, C, and D. Treatment of the purified membranes with low concentrations of phospholipases A and C resulted in the inhibition of the binding of 125I-choriogonadotropin to its receptors, whereas phospholipase D had no effect. Receptor activity was decreased by low concentrations of phospholipase A from either bee venom, Vipera russelli or Crotalus terrificus terrificus. Similarly, low concentrations of phospholipase C from Clostridium perfringens and Clostridium welchii also inhibited the binding activity while comparatively higher concentrations of phospholipase C from Bacillus cereus were required to achieve comparable inhibition. The time required to produce 50% inhibition of in vitro binding by phospholipases A and C was found to be 6 and 23 min, respectively. Upon either removal or chelation of calcium ions by ethylene glycol bis(beta-aminoethyl ether)-N,N'-tetraacetic acid (EGTA) both enzymes were completely inhibited as evidenced by the complete retention of the membrane binding activity. The decrease in the specific binding of choriogonadotropin to membranes after phospholipase digestion resulted in a decrease in the number of binding sites and was not accompanied by a change in the affinity of the hormone-receptor complex. The rates of association and dissociation of the 125I-choriogonadotropin-receptor complex and the equilibrium dissociation constant (Kd) were nearly identical in untreated and phospholipase-treated membranes. Phospholipases did not have any effect on the preformed hormone-receptor complex or on solubilized receptor. Filtration through Sepharose 6B of solubilized 125I-choriogonadotropin-receptor complex from untreated membranes or membranes which had been pretreated with phospholipase C prior to carrying out hormone binding did not alter the profile (Kav 0.38). Gel filtration of membranes treated with phospholipase A showed two peaks of bound radioactivity with distribution coefficients (Kav) of 0.08 and 0.35, respectively. PMID:187585
Azhar, S; Menon, K M
Binding characteristics of the ovine membrane progesterone receptor alpha and expression of the receptor during the estrous cycle
Background Classically, progesterone has been thought to act only through the well-known genomic pathway involving hormone binding to nuclear receptors and subsequent modulation of gene expression. However, there is increasing evidence for rapid, non-genomic effects of progesterone in a variety of mammalian tissues and it is possible that a membrane PR (mPR) is causing these events. We recently isolated and characterized an ovine mPR referred to as mPR-alpha, distinct from the nuclear PR. Based on predicted structural analysis, the ovine mPR-alpha possesses seven transmembrane domains typical of G protein-coupled receptors. Despite the homology to other reported mPRs, information pertaining to the steroid binding characteristics of the ovine mPR-alpha was lacking. Additionally, the ovine mPR-alpha transcript has been identified in the hypothalamus, pituitary, uterus, ovary and corpus luteum, yet changes in expression of the ovine mPR-alpha in these tissues were not known. Consequently, the purpose of this work was to determine the steroid binding characteristics of the ovine mPR-alpha and to investigate possible changes in expression of the ovine mPR-alpha in reproductive tissues throughout the estrous cycle. Methods Binding studies were performed using crude membrane fractions from CHO cells expressing the mPR-alpha. Using quantitative Real-time PCR we determined the expression pattern of mRNA for the ovine mPR-alpha during the ovine estrous cycle in tissues known to express the mPR-alpha. Jugular blood samples were also collected and analyzed for serum concentrations of P4 to ensure ewes were at the appropriate stage of their cycle. Results Only progesterone, 20alpha-hydroxyprogesterone and 17alpha-hydroxyprogesterone were able to displace binding of 3H-P4 (P < 0.001) to membrane fractions from CHO cells expressing ovine mPR-alpha. The average B-max and Kd values for three separate experiments were 624 +/- 119 fmol/micro gram protein and 122 +/- 50 nM, respectively. Significant changes in expression of mRNA for the mPR-alpha during the estrous cycle were noted in the corpus luteum and uterus. Conclusion The mPR-alpha specifically binds progestins and its expression was correlated to progesterone secretion during the ovine estrous cycle. Results from the present studies suggest that mPR-alpha may have an important physiological role during the ovine estrous cycle.
Ashley, Ryan L; Arreguin-Arevalo, J Alejandro; Nett, Terry M
Expression and localization of ghrelin and its functional receptor in�corpus luteum during different stages of estrous cycle and the modulatory role of ghrelin on progesterone production in cultured luteal�cells in buffalo.
Evidence obtained during recent years provided has insight into the regulation of corpus luteum (CL) development, function, and regression by locally produced ghrelin. The present study was carried out to evaluate the expression and localization of ghrelin and its receptor (GHS-R1a) in bubaline CL during different stages of the estrous cycle and investigate the role of ghrelin on progesterone (P4) production along with messenger RNA (mRNA) expression of P4 synthesis intermediates. The mRNA and protein expression of ghrelin and GHS-R1a was significantly greater in mid- and late luteal phases. Both factors were localized in luteal cells, exclusively in the cytoplasm. Immunoreactivity of ghrelin and GHS-R1a was greater during mid- and late luteal phases. Luteal cells were cultured in�vitro and treated with ghrelin each at 1, 10, and 100�ng/mL concentrations for 48�h after obtaining 75% to 80% confluence. At a dose of 1�ng/mL, there was no significant difference in P4 secretion between control and treatment group. At 10 and 100�ng/mL, there was a decrease (P < 0.05) in P4 concentration, cytochrome P45011A1 (CYP11A1), and 3-beta-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase mRNA expression and localization. There was no difference in mRNA expression of steroidogenic acute regulatory protein between control and treatment group. In summary, the present study provided evidence that ghrelin and its receptor are expressed in bubaline CL and are localized exclusively in the cell cytoplasm and ghrelin has an inhibitory effect on P4 production in buffalo. PMID:24906925
Gupta, M; Dangi, S S; Chouhan, V S; Hyder, I; Babitha, V; Yadav, V P; Khan, F A; Sonwane, A; Singh, G; Das, G K; Mitra, A; Bag, S; Sarkar, M
Differential gene expression in the bovine corpus luteum during transition from early phase to midphase and its potential role in acquisition of luteolytic sensitivity to prostaglandin F2 alpha.
Prostaglandin F2 alpha (PGF(2alpha)) brings about regression of the bovine corpus luteum (CL). This luteolytic property of PGF(2alpha) is used in beef and dairy cattle to synchronize estrus. A limitation of this protocol is insensitivity of the early CL to luteolytic actions of PGF(2alpha). The mechanisms underlying this differential luteal sensitivity are poorly understood. The developing CL has a maximum number of PGF(2alpha) receptors; therefore, differences in signaling events may be responsible for luteal insensitivity. Hence, differential gene expression at two developmental stages of CL, Day 4 (D-4) and D-10 after estrus, might account for differences in signal transduction pathways associated with luteal sensitivity. This possibility was examined in these studies. Microarray analysis (n = 3 cows per stage) identified 167 genes that were differentially expressed (P < 0.05). These were categorized into genes involved in protein biosynthesis and modification (18.5%), transcription regulation and DNA biosynthesis (18.5%), miscellaneous (17.0%), cell signaling (12.0%), steroidogenesis and metabolism (10.2%), extracellular matrix and cytoskeletal proteins (9.5%), unknown functions (6.0%), protein degradation (5.3%), and antioxidant property (3.0%). Real-time PCR confirmed the differential expression of nine selected genes, including tyrosine 3-monooxygenase/tryptophan 5-monooxygense activation protein zeta polypeptide (YWHAZ) and regulator of G protein signaling 2 24-kDa (RGS2), observed in microarray. Furthermore, the in vivo effect of exogenous PGF(2alpha) (n = 3 cows per stage) on selected genes that were found to be differentially expressed during this developmental transition was examined. PGF(2alpha) increased the expression of a guanine nucleotide-binding protein (G protein) beta polypeptide 1 (GNB1) in D-4 CL and calcium/calmodulin-dependent kinase kinase 2 beta (CAMKK2) in D-10 CL. Therefore, GNB1, CAMKK2, YWHAZ, and RGS2 are candidate genes that may have a significant role in acquisition of luteal sensitivity to PGF(2alpha). Additional evidence supporting the significance of the microarray data was obtained from the observation that the amount of CAMKK2 paralleled the differential mRNA expression observed for this gene when examined by microarray analysis and by real-time RT-PCR. Furthermore, the two types of luteal steroidogenic cells known to be targets for PGF(2alpha) actions were demonstrated to be a cellular source for CAMKK2. PMID:19164179
Goravanahally, Madhusudan P; Salem, Mohamed; Yao, Jianbo; Inskeep, E Keith; Flores, Jorge A
The ultrastructure of human corpora lutea obtained during the 6th, 10th, 16th, and 35th week of pregnancy is reported. Differences between the established luteal cell of pregnancy and the transitory luteal cell of the menstrual cycle are noted. In pregnancy the luteal cell is more compartmentalized into a peripheral mass of ER (endoplasmic reticulum) and a central area where mitochondria and Golgi complexes are concentrated. The latter area extends to a cell surface where microvilli face on a perivascular space. Long bundles of filaments are prominent within the luteal cell cytoplasm and, in contiguous cells, appear to arise from adjacent desmosomal regions. Bilateral subsurface cisternae of granular ER at lateral cell borders appear to be areas of specialized junctional surfaces. Certain luteal cells with irregular nuclear membranes are also characterized by vesicular aggregates enclosed within a single membrane. These aggregates are found within the peripheral nucleoplasm or the perinuclear cytoplasm. Their single limiting membrane often appears continuous with either the inner or outer leaflet of the nuclear membrane.
Adams, Eleanor C.; Hertig, Arthur T.
Pregnancy and interferon tau regulate N-myc interactor in the ovine uterus.
In ruminants, interferon tau (IFNT) is synthesized and secreted by the mononuclear trophectoderm cells of the conceptus and maintains the corpus luteum and its secretion of progesterone for successful implantation and maintenance of pregnancy. In this study, we examined regulation of the expression of N-myc interactor (NMI) gene by IFNT in the ovine uterus based on results of microarray data from a study that compared gene expression by human 2fTGH and U3A (STAT1-null 2fTGH) cell lines in response to treatment with IFNT or vehicle. In the present study, semiquantitative reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction analyses verified that IFNT stimulated expression of NMI mRNA in 2fTGH (ie, in a STAT1-dependent manner), but not in U3A (STAT1-null) cells. Furthermore, results of western blot analyses indicated that immunoreactive NMI proteins in 2fTGH and U3A cell lines increased in a time-dependent manner only in response to IFNT. In ovine endometria, steady-state levels of NMI mRNA increased between days 14 and 16 of pregnancy and then decreased slightly by day 20, but there was no effect of day of the estrous cycle. Expression of NMI mRNA was most abundant in endometrial stromal cells, glandular epithelium, and conceptus trophectoderm. Intrauterine infusion of IFNT in cyclic ewes increased expression of NMI in the endometrium. Expression of NMI in ovine and bovine uterine cell lines increased in response to IFNT. Collectively, the results of the present study indicate that IFNT regulates expression of NMI mRNA and protein in ovine endometria during pregnancy via a STAT1-dependent cell signaling pathway. PMID:21067885
Song, G; Fleming, J-A G W; Kim, J; Spencer, T E; Bazer, F W
Effect of DHEA and metformin on corpus luteum in mice.
We evaluated the effect of hyperandrogenism in ovaries with functional and regressing corpora lutea (CL) and the action of metformin in preventing these possible alterations using a mouse model. To obtain a CL functional for 9+/-1 days, immature female mice of the BALB/c strain were injected i.p. with 10 IU/mouse of pregnant mare's serum gonadotropin (PMSG). DHEA (60 mg/kg body weight s.c., 24 and 48 h prior to kill) decreased both serum progesterone (P) and estradiol (E(2)) levels and increased the activity of superoxide dismutase (SOD) from ovaries with functional CL (on day 5 after PMSG). It increased P and E(2) and the activities of SOD and catalase (CAT) and decreased lipoperoxidation of ovaries with regressing CL (on day 9 after PMSG). Treatment with DHEA did not affect the production of prostaglandin F(2alpha) (PGF(2alpha)) or PGE by ovaries with functional CL, whereas DHEA decreased PGF(2alpha) and increased PGE production by ovaries with regressing CL. Metformin (50 mg/kg body weight, orally) given together with DHEA restored E(2) levels from mice with ovaries with functional CL and serum P, PGF(2alpha) and PGE levels, and oxidative balance in mice with ovaries with regressing CL. Metformin alone was able to modulate serum P and E(2) levels, lipoperoxidation, SOD and CAT, and the 5,5-dimethyl-1-pyrroline N-oxide/(*)OH signal. These findings suggest that hyperandrogenism is able to induce or to rescue CL from luteolysis and metformin treatment is able to prevent these effects. PMID:19502455
Sander, Valeria A; Facorro, Graciela B; Piehl, Lidia; Rub�n de Celis, Emilio; Motta, Alicia B
Cellular composition of the cyclic corpus luteum of the cow.
The cellular composition of CL from 6 cows on approximately Day 12 of the oestrous cycle, after synchronization with cloprostenol, was studied by ultrastructural morphometry. Point-count measurements of volume density (mean +/- s.d.) showed that large luteal cells occupied 40.2 +/- 7.0% of the luteal tissue, and small luteal cells 27.7 +/- 6.3%. Of the total of 393.4 +/- 52.0 x 10(3) cells per mm3 of luteal tissue, large luteal cells made up only 3.5% and small luteal cells 26.7%, a ratio of 1:7.6. Endothelial cells/pericytes, at 52.3%, were the most numerous cell type. The mean volume per large luteal cell was 29.6 +/- 6.3 x 10(3) microns 3, while that of small luteal cells was 2.7 +/- 0.4 x 10(3) microns 3. In spherical form, these volumes would represent mean diameters of 38.4 microns and 17.2 microns respectively, and are consistent with published measurements on dispersed luteal cells. However, the values for cell numbers are much higher than published values based on luteal tissue dispersion, suggesting that dispersion may result in substantial and possibly selective losses of luteal cells. PMID:2703988
O'Shea, J D; Rodgers, R J; D'Occhio, M J
Ultrastructural cytology of the cyclic corpus luteum of the cow.
Corpora lutea (CL) from cows on day 12 of the oestrous cycle were studied by electron microscopy to investigate whether, and how, different subpopulations of luteal cells can be identified in tissue sections. Tissues from 6 CL were examined, and nucleated profiles of luteal cells were classified as large, medium or small on the basis of their areas in electron micrographs. Cut-off points for area categories for large, medium and small-sized cells were based on diameters of greater than 25, 20-25 and less than 20 microns, respectively, if the measured areas were converted to a circular shape after correction for shrinkage. The only qualitative features which distinguished cells of large size from those of small size were the presence of clusters of secretory granules, and of exocytosis of these granules, in large cells only. However, these features were observed in only 59% of large cells, probably primarily due to sampling limitations in single sections. Other qualitative features which have been regarded as diagnostic of large or small luteal cells were observed in cells in all size categories. It was concluded that large and small luteal cells in the cyclic CL of the cow are distinguishable by their ultrastructural features. However, these data do not support the recent suggestion that the mid-cycle CL of the cow contain two subpopulations of large luteal cells in approximately equal numbers. PMID:2368607
O'Shea, J D; Rodgers, R J; McCoy, K; D'Occhio, M J
Identification of endometrial genes regulated by early pregnancy, progesterone, and interferon tau in the ovine uterus.
During early pregnancy in ruminants, progesterone (P4) from the corpus luteum and interferon tau (IFNT) from the conceptus act on the endometrium to regulate genes important for uterine receptivity and conceptus growth. The use of the uterine gland knockout (UGKO) ewe has demonstrated the critical role of epithelial secretions in regulation of conceptus survival and growth. A custom ovine cDNA array was used to identify alterations in gene expression of endometria from Day 14 cyclic, pregnant, and UGKO ewes (study 1) and from cyclic ewes treated with P4 or P4 with ZK 136,317 antiprogestin and control proteins or IFNT (study 2). In study 1, expression of 47 genes was more than 2-fold different between Day 14 pregnant and cyclic endometria, whereas 23 genes was different between Day 14 cyclic and UGKO endometria. In study 2, 70 genes were different due to P4 alone, 74 genes were affected by IFNT in a P4-dependent manner, and 180 genes were regulated by IFNT in a P4-independent manner. In each study, an approximately equal number of genes were found to be activated or repressed in each group. Endometrial genes increased by pregnancy and P4 and/or IFNT include B2M, CTSL, CXCL10, G1P3, GRP, IFI27, IFIT1, IFITM3, LGALS15, MX1, POSTN, RSAD2, and STAT5A. Transcripts decreased by pregnancy and P4 and/or IFNT include COL3A1, LUM, PTMA, PUM1, RPL9, SPARC, and VIM. Identification and analysis of these hormonally responsive genes will help define endometrial pathways critical for uterine support of peri-implantation conceptus survival, growth, and implantation. PMID:16251498
Gray, C Allison; Abbey, Colette A; Beremand, Phillip D; Choi, Youngsok; Farmer, Jennifer L; Adelson, David L; Thomas, Terry L; Bazer, Fuller W; Spencer, Thomas E
Differential effects of intrauterine and subcutaneous administration of recombinant ovine interferon tau on the endometrium of cyclic ewes.
Interferon tau (IFNtau) is the antiluteolytic signal produced by the conceptus of ruminants. Intrauterine administration of recombinant ovine IFNtau suppresses expression of endometrial estrogen receptor (ER) and oxytocin receptor (OTR) in the luminal and superficial glandular epithelia to abrogate the production of luteolytic prostaglandin F(2alpha) (PGF(2alpha)) pulses. Subcutaneous (s.c.) injections of recombinant ovine (o) IFNtau appear to extend the interestrous interval by altering uterine PGF(2alpha) response to oxytocin. The present study tested the hypothesis that antiluteolytic effects of roIFNtau injected into the uterine lumen (paracrine) or s.c. (endocrine) are equivalent in suppressing expression of endometrial ER and OTR and inducing uterine expression of type I IFN-regulated Mx and ubiquitin cross-reactive proteins (UCRP). Sixteen cyclic ewes were fitted with uterine catheters on Day 5 (Day 0 = estrus), were assigned randomly to receive treatment with control proteins or roIFNtau (2 x 10(7) antiviral units/day) by either intrauterine or s.c. injections from Days 11 to 15, and were ovariohysterectomized on Day 16. Results indicated that expression of ER and OTR mRNAs in endometrial epithelium was suppressed by intrauterine but not by s.c. injections of roIFNtau. Intrauterine injections of roIFNtau increased expression of Mx and UCRP mRNA in the endometrium. Subcutaneous injections of roIFNtau increased endometrial Mx mRNA levels but not UCRP mRNA. Unexpectedly, intrauterine and s.c. injections of roIFNtau were equally effective in inducing expression of Mx and UCRP mRNA in the corpus luteum. Although s.c. injections of roIFNtau induced Mx mRNA in the endometrial epithelium, s.c. injections of roIFNtau did not abrogate activation of the uterine luteolytic mechanism by suppressing epithelial ER and OTR expression. Therefore, results of this study failed to support the assumption that endocrine roIFNtau mimics antiluteolytic effects of paracrine IFNtau to improve pregnancy rates in sheep. PMID:10411528
Spencer, T E; Stagg, A G; Ott, T L; Johnson, G A; Ramsey, W S; Bazer, F W
Maintenance of the corpus luteum after uterine transfer of trophoblastic vesicles to cyclic cows and ewes.
One or two trophoblastic vesicles (0.4-2 mm diam.) from cow (Day 14) or ewe (Day 11-13) embryos without their disc were transferred, after culture for 24 h, into recipients. Each vesicle was transferred into the uterine horn ipsilateral to the CL by the cervical route in heifers and surgically in ewes on Day 12 of the oestrous cycle. In cows, daily measurements of plasma progesterone concentrations and checks for return to oestrus showed that the CL was maintained in 8 out of 12 recipients. These 8 cows had 25- to 37-day cycles while 4 recipient heifers returned to oestrus normally. Three recipients with an extended cycle were slaughtered. The dissected uterus showed that trophoblastic vesicles had developed in the uterine horns. In ewes, the serum progesterone curve, determined in each recipient, showed that the CL was maintained in 7 out of 12 recipients. These 7 ewes had 20- to 54-day cycles and the other 5 ewes had a normal cycle of 15-19 days comparable to that of 17.0 +/- 0.5 days for the 6 control ewes. Whenever the CL was maintained, high blood progesterone levels were followed by rapid luteolysis. In cattle and sheep, therefore, a trophoblastic vesicle transferred into the uterus can develop in vivo, secreting the embryonic signals when there is no embryonic disc control and transforming the cyclic CL into a CL of pregnancy in about 60% of the cases.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS) PMID:6699815
Heyman, Y; Camous, S; F�vre, J; M�ziou, W; Martal, J
Control of ovarian follicular and corpus luteum development for the synchronization of ovulation in cattle.
The objective of this review is to integrate strategies to optimize an ovulatory control program which then serves as a platform to improve the reproductive performance of lactating dairy cows. Programmed management of follicle growth, regression of the CL and induction of ovulation led to development of the Ovsynch program. Pre-synchronization of estrous cycles followed 12 to 14 days later with the Ovsynch program increased pregnancy rates to timed inseminations. Initiation of the Ovsynch program on day 3 of the estrous cycle reduced ovulation to GnRH and resulted in a smaller proportion of excellent and good quality embryos following timed insemination. The pregnancy rate to a timed insemination of Ovsynch was greater when cows ovulated to the first injection of GnRH. The Presynch-Ovsynch program provided a platform to identify factors regulating reproductive performance; such as, parity, body condition score and anovulation. Treatment with hCG at day 5 after insemination increased pregnancy rate in lactating dairy cows. Injection of bovine somatotropin at insemination increased pregnancy rate, conceptus length and interferon-tau content in uterine luminal flushings and altered endometrial gene expression at day 17 of pregnancy. During heat stress, timed embryo transfer increased pregnancy rate and using embryos cultured with IGF-I and transferred fresh resulted in a greater pregnancy rate. Induction of ovulation with estradiol cypionate, as a component of a timed insemination program, increased fertility. Manipulation of the estrous cycle to improve follicle/oocyte competence and management of the post-ovulatory dialogue between embryonic and uterine tissues should enhance embryo development and survival. PMID:17491141
Thatcher, W W; Santos, J E P
Regulation of angiotensin II production and angiotensin receptors in microvascular endothelial cells from bovine corpus luteum.
Recent findings suggest that the ovarian renin-angiotensin system regulates ovarian function through the paracrine/autocrine actions of angiotensin (Ang) II. The aims of this study were to investigate 1) the endothelial cell capacity to convert Ang I to Ang II, 2) the effects of endocrine and paracrine/autocrine factors on Ang II production in microvascular endothelial cells (MVE) derived from the developing corpora lutea (CL), and 3) the relationship between Ang II peptide concentration and expression of mRNA for angiotensin type 1 and 2 receptors (ATR1 and AT2R) in the bovine CL at different stages of the estrous cycle. When Ang I was added to the MVE at a concentration of 10(-9) M, it was converted to Ang II (21%). The production of Ang II from Ang I time-dependently rose for 24 h. Addition of captopril (an inhibitor of Ang-converting enzyme [ACE]) to the MVE cultures significantly inhibited Ang II production from 6 h to 24 h (P < 0.05). Addition of estradiol-17beta (E(2)) + vascular endothelial growth factor and E(2) + basic fibroblast growth factor to MVE cultures increased Ang II production, whereas E(2) or growth factors alone had no effect. Specific transcription for AT1R and AT2R was detected in bovine CL and MVE. There were no significant changes in Ang II tissue concentration or AT1R mRNA expression using reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction during the estrous cycle. In contrast, AT2R mRNA expression decreased during the midluteal phase (P < 0.05) and increased to the highest level during the late luteal phase (P < 0.05). Results demonstrated that Ang II is generated from Ang I in MVE isolated from the developing bovine CL, indicating that MVE have ACE activity. In addition, mRNA expression for Ang II receptors was detected in the bovine CL and the luteal MVE. These results suggest that Ang II is produced by actions of the local renin-angiotensin system, at least in part, on MVE in the bovine CL, and that this peptide may be involved in the regulation of luteal function during early development and luteolysis. PMID:10611081
Hayashi, K; Miyamoto, A; Berisha, B; Kosmann, M R; Okuda, K; Schams, D
Role of dopamine in the secretory function of corpus luteum in cattle.
To investigate the role of dopamine (DA) in the secretion of progesterone and ovarian oxytocin (OT) in cattle in vivo and in vitro studies were performed. Luteal slices (middle stage of the luteal phase) were incubated-with five different amounts of DA (10(-3)-10(-7) M) and after 1, 2 and 4 h medium was collected for the progesterone and OT determination. The only 10(-5) M of DA enhanced OT medium concentrations (P < 0.05-0.001) and this response increased within duration of the incubation. The same dose of DA affected (P < 0.05-0.001) progesterone release during the incubation period. Next we wanted to study whether this mechanism will operate in conscious cattle. Mature heifers had cannulae inserted into the aorta abdominalis through the coccygeal artery for local infusion of saline or drugs, and into the jugular vein and the cava vena caudalis for the blood sample collection. In Experiment 2 six heifers on days 10-12 of the cycle received in Latin square design DA (8.4 micrograms/kg/min) for 2h, and they were pre-treated for 2 h with saline or for 1 h with droperidol (DROP; 1 microgram/kg/min) or with 4 micrograms/kg/min of beta-blocker, propranolol (PROP). DA increased (P < 0.05) OT plasma concentrations in all groups but secretion of progesterone was not changed (P > 0.05). DA decreased prolactin concentrations if pre-infused with saline and PROP and DROP diminished this effect of DA. Data suggest that DA affected OT release from both pituitary and from the ovary. Hence in Experiment 3 we wanted to elucidate whether DA caused those effects itself of after its conversion to the noradrenaline (NA). DA was given in six heifers as in Experiment 2 and blood samples were taken simultaneously from the vena cava and from the jugular vein. Within a few minutes from the start of DA infusion, large amount of DOPAC was measured by HPLC in blood. Next NA increase (P < 0.01) was observed in both veins but it was always higher (P < 0.05) in the vena cava. However, OT concentration in blood samples from both veins was not different (P > 0.05). Data indicate that DA can stimulate the secretory function of CL in cyclic heifers supposedly after its conversion to NA. PMID:8877903
Kotwica, J; Skarzy?ski, D; Bogacki, M; Jaroszewski, J
NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)
This near vertical view of the south Texas coast shows the city of Corpus Christi (28.0N, 97.0W) and Corpus Christi Bay. Mustang Island and the Gulf of Mexico are seen in the Southeast corner of the view. The Nueces River flows into the bay from the west. The light toned squiggly lines in Corpus Christi Bay are mud trails caused by shrimp boats dragging their nets along the shallow bottom of the bay.
Bilingual Corpus Callosum Variability
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Magnetic resonance imaging was used to produce midsagittal images of the corpus callosum of 19 right-handed adult male and female subjects. The preliminary findings of this study indicate that significant adaptation in the anterior midbody of the corpus callosum has occurred to accommodate multiple language capacity in bilingual individuals�
Coggins, Porter E., III.; Kennedy, Teresa J.; Armstrong, Terry A.
Extraventricular corpus callosotomy.
Corpus callosotomy offers useful palliation for selected patients with medically intractable seizures, particularly those with uncontrolled and disabling drop attacks. Here the authors present their technique for performing a corpus callosotomy that allows for complete sectioning of the callosum while avoiding entry into the lateral ventricles. The anatomical basis for the technique is the presence of a definable cleft just ventral to the corpus callosum in the midline, formed by the fusion of the two laminae of the septum pellucidum. This small cleft is typically present even in the absence of a cavum septum pellucidum on MR imaging. The authors have found that dividing the body of the corpus callosum by exploiting the cleft of the septum pellucidum in the absolute midline is a simple and expeditious way to perform a callosotomy without entering the lateral ventricles. PMID:21332292
Joseph, Jacob R; Viswanathan, Ashwin; Yoshor, Daniel
Corpus callosotomy in children
Introduction��For children of medical resistant epilepsy without resectable epileptogenic zone, corpus callosotomy and vagus nerve stimulation (VNS) therapy are the two commonly used palliative epilepsy surgeries that can be considered. Although their routes and mechanisms to control epilepsy are different, both surgeries have shown their efficacy in selected candidates. The most common candidates for palliative surgery are in infants and
Tai-Tong Wong; Shang-Yeong Kwan; Kai-Ping Chang; Wu Hsiu-Mei; Tsui-Fen Yang; Ying-Sheue Chen; Lee Yi-Yen
Hemoperitoneum from Corpus Luteal Cyst Rupture: A Practical Approach in Emergency Room
Corpus luteum cyst rupture with consequent hemoperitoneum is a common disorder in women in their reproductive age. This condition should be promptly recognized and treated because a delayed diagnosis may significantly reduce women's fertility and intra-abdominal bleeding may be life-threatening. Many imaging modalities play a key role in the diagnosis of acute pelvic pain from gynecological causes. Ultrasound study (USS) is usually the first imaging technique for initial evaluation. USS is used to confirm or to exclude the presence of intraperitoneal fluid but it has some limitations in the identification of the bleeding source. Contrast-enhanced computed tomography (CT) is the imaging modality which could be used in the acute setting in order to recognize gynecological emergencies and to establish a correct management. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) nowadays is the most useful technique for studying the pelvis but its low availability and the long acquisition time of the images limit its usefulness in characterization of acute gynecological complications. We report a case of a young patient with hemoperitoneum from hemorrhagic corpus luteum correctly identified by transabdominal USS and contrast-enhanced CT.
Fiaschetti, Valeria; Ricci, Aurora; Scarano, Angela Lia; Arduini, Silvia; Sorrenti, Giuseppe; Simonetti, Giovanni
Agenesis of the Corpus Callosum
... of the Corpus Callosum Information Page Publications Organizations News Research literature Other related groups Organizations Professional Societies Government Resources NINDS Clinical Trials En Espa�ol Order ...
Habeas Corpus and "Enemy Combatants"
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
The writ of habeas corpus has been a critical tool for balancing the rights of individuals with the government's responsibility to protect the nation's welfare. In this article, the authors discuss the writ of habeas corpus and how it affects the federal government and hundreds of prisoners who are held as enemy combatants. Elementary, middle, and�
Pereira, Carolyn; Chavkin, Nisan
The mRNA expression of the members of the IGF-system in bovine corpus luteum during induced luteolysis
The components of the IGF-system were shown to be differentially regulated in bovine antral follicles and corpora lutea (CL) during different stages of the estrous cycle, and to have important functions for specific stages. The aim of this study was to investigate the detailed pattern of mRNA expression of most constituents of the IGF-system and their possible involvement in prostaglandin
T. P. Neuvians; M. W. Pfaffl; B. Berisha; D. Schams
Effect of environmental pollutants on oxytocin synthesis and secretion from corpus luteum and on contractions of uterus from pregnant cows
Chloro-organic compounds are persistent environmental pollutants and affect many reproductive processes. Oxytocin (OT) synthesized in luteal cells is a local regulator of ovarian activity and uterine contractions. Therefore the effect of xenobiotics on the OT prohormone synthesis, secretion of OT and progesterone (P4) from luteal cells and on myometrial contractions during early pregnancy in cows was investigated. Luteal cells and myometrial strips from a cow at early pregnancy were treated with polychlorinated biphenyl 77 (PCB 77), dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT), dichlorodiphenyldichloroethylene (DDE) and hexachlorocyclohexane (HCH) (1 or 10 ng/ml). The mRNA expression of neurophysin-I/oxytocin (NP-I/OT) and peptidyl-glycine-{alpha}-amidating mono-oxygenase (PGA) and concentration of OT and P4 were determined by RT-PCR and EIA, respectively. Moreover, the effect of xenobiotics given with P4 (12 ng/ml) on the basal and OT (10{sup -7} M) stimulated contractions of myometrial strips was studied. Xenobiotics increased (P < 0.05) OT secretion but DDE only stimulated P4 secretion. The ratio of P4 to OT in culture medium was decreased by all xenobiotics during 9-12 weeks of pregnancy. All xenobiotics, except HCH, increased (P < 0.05) mRNA expression of NP-I/OT during all stages of pregnancy and all treatments decreased (P < 0.05) expression of mRNA for PGA during 9-12 weeks of pregnancy. Myometrial strips were relaxed (P < 0.01) after pre-incubation with P4, while each of the xenobiotics jointly with P4 increased (P < 0.01) myometrial contractions. In conclusion, the xenobiotics used increased both expression of mRNA for genes involved in OT synthesis and secretion of OT from luteal cells. This decreases the ratio of P4 to OT and presumably, in this manner, the chloro-organic compounds can influence uterine contractions and enhance risk of abortions in pregnant females.
Mlynarczuk, Jaroslaw; Wrobel, Michal H.; Kotwica, Jan, E-mail: email@example.com
[Corpus Hermeticum in history].
The originator and founder of hermetism was the mythical Hermes Trismegistos, a deity of the syncretic Hellenistic religion that came into being through the identification of the Greek god Hermes with the Egyptian god Thot. In later Hellenistsic times various hermetic writers considered Hermes Trismegistos to have been a historical personage, a king, prophet and philosopher (physician), as well as author of many widely disseminated writings that made up the so-called Corpus Hermeticum (eighteen separate treatises from the 2nd-4th centuries AD) and the so-called Emerald Table (Tabula Smaragdina). The Corpus Hermeticum is a collection of treatises of a philosophical, religious, theological as well as theosophical nature. The collection played an important role in the development of the philosophy of alchemy and hermetism, and formed the basis for an alchemist philosophy of nature. There are currently two views among scholars on the origins of hermetism. According to one, hermetism derived directly from Egypt, while according to the other it orginated in Greece. In the years 1945-46 a number of hermetic texts forming part of the now famous gnostic "library" were discovered in Nag-Hammadi (Chenosboskion) in Upper Egypt. The Coptic texts from Nag-Hammadi date from the middle of the 4th century AD, and according to experts are translations from the Greek. Some authors (R. Reitzenstein and T. Zieli?ski) have suggested that along with the appearance in Egypt of the Hermetic Books, attributed to Hermes Trismegistos, there also appeared a new god in Egypt, Poimandres, and a new religion was established, hermetism, which competed for influence with Christianity. The present article discusses the main of the hermetic treatises, including Poimandres, which contains an account of the creation of the world. The article also discusses the reasons for the decline of hermetism as a religion and stresses that in spite of this decline the doctrine managed to survive in the form of alchemic hermetism, which played an important role in the culture of the Renaissance. The article also cites the voluminous work by W. Scott and A. S. Ferguson (1924-1936), and A. D. Nock and A. -J. Festugi�re (1945-1964), which contains contemporary, English and French, commentaries on and translations of the Corpus Hermeticum texts. PMID:12030267
Bugaj, R
Characteristics of ovine cytotoxic lymphocytes
Experiments were conducted to examine characteristics of the effector cells responsible for cell-mediated cytotoxicity in the sheep. Conditions for the production and assay of ovine T cell growth factor (TCGF) activity were evaluated. Peripheral blood leukocytes (PBL) were stimulated with concanavalin A (Con A) in the presence of 2% autologous serum or serum-free media. A 28 h proliferation assay with 2.5 x 10/sup 4/ h Con A blasts per well was optimal for detection of TCGF. Peak TCGF activity occurred with a 30-37kD molecular weight fraction. Ovine PBL were used for in vitro generation of genetically-restricted cytotoxic T lymphocytes (CTL). Peripheral blood leukocytes from sheep that had been previously inoculated with live vaccinia virus were stimulated by being cultured in vitro on glutaraldehyde-fixed vaccinia-infected autologous skin fibroblasts. Cytotoxic T lymphocyte activity was assessed in a 6 h /sup 51/Cr-release assay on autologous and allogeneic fibroblasts targets. Killing was restricted to virus-infected autologous targets. In vitro generation of both anti-vaccinia and anti-TNP CTL activity could be enhanced by the addition of TCGF containing media from ConA-stimulated PBL.
Knisley, K.A.
Agenesis of the corpus callosum
Attention is drawn to the neonata ultrasound appearances in agenesis of the corpus callosum. Although rare, such appearances are highly characteristic, and, if seen, the diagnosis should be easy. ImagesFig. 1Fig. 2
Skeffington, F Sheehy
Hematogenous Dissemination in Corpus Cancer
Objective.The aim of this study was to assess the predictors of hematogenous dissemination (HD) in corpus cancer.Methods. In 612 corpus cancer patients managed surgically, we defined HD as tumor spread to the lung, liver, or other sites via hematogenous routes.Results. We observed 142 instances of tumor spread�71 nonhematogenous and 42 hematogenous to the lung, 9 to the liver, 5 to
Andrea Mariani; Maurice J. Webb; Gary L. Keeney; Giliola Calori; Karl C. Podratz
Pharmacology and Physiology of Ovine Corticosteroid Receptors
The aim of these studies was to characterize the ovine corticosteroid receptors (MR, mineralocorticoid receptors and GR, glucocorticoid receptors) in ovine hippocampus and brainstem. Adrenal-intact and adrenalectomized ewes were studied; adrenalectomized ewes were killed 47 � 9 h after steroid withdrawal, when symptoms of hypotension and\\/or hyperkalemia became evident. RT-PCR, immunoblotting and pharmacologic studies indicated the presence of both MR
Elaine M. Richards; Yi Hua; Maureen Keller-Wood
Corpus gastritis is protective against reflux oesophagitis
BACKGROUNDGastric acid is important in the pathogenesis of reflux oesophagitis. Acid production by the gastric corpus is reduced in corpus gastritis.AIMSTo determine whether corpus gastritis protects against reflux oesophagitis.METHODSPatients presenting for elective oesophagogastroduodenoscopy were studied. Two biopsy specimens were taken from the antrum, corpus, and cardia and stained with haematoxylin\\/eosin and Diff-Quick II stains. The presence and severity of gastritis
H B El-Serag; A Sonnenberg; M M Jamal; J M Inadomi; L A Crooks; R M Feddersen
Russian Corpus of the 19th Century
\\u000a The paper deals with a corpus of the Russian language of the 19th century. The corpus offers the opportunity to accomplish\\u000a some essential tasks of modern Russian linguistics like getting various linguistic and statistical information, investigating\\u000a dynamic processes in the vocabulary, analyzing grammatical changes in the lexicon. To make the corpus representative, some\\u000a special criteria should be determined. The corpus
Victor Zakharov
Flow Cytometric Assays for Quantifying Activated Ovine Platelets
Ovines are a common animal model for preclinical evaluation of cardiovascular devices including heart valves, endovascular grafts, and ventricular assist devices. Biocompatibility is essential to the success of these devices; however, tools to assess biocompatibility in ovines are limited. To address this need, antibodies that bind to activated human and bovine platelets and annexin V protein were evaluated for potential cross-reactivity to activated ovine platelets. These candidate markers were incubated with stimulated and quiescent ovine whole blood, and binding to platelets was quantified by flow cytometry. Several antihuman CD62P antibodies including one polyclonal antibody, three monoclonal antibodies, and annexin V selectively bound to activated ovine platelets. An assay to quantify platelet microaggregates was also developed. The availability of assays to quantify ovine platelet activation can increase the quality of biocompatibility data obtainable during preclinical development of artificial organs in the ovine model, potentially aiding in the evaluation of design refinements to enhance device biocompatibility.
Johnson, Carl A.; Snyder, Trevor A.; Woolley, Joshua R.; Wagner, William R.
Medication against ovine coccidiosis�A review
Data published since 1940 on the use of drugs to prevent or treat ovine coccidiosis are presented in the form of tables. These highlight the differences in conditions of husbandry and mode of administration. Such differences partly account for the variability of response to medication. Drugs that have proved useful under certain conditions include amprolium, monensin and lasalacid for prevention,
M W Gregory; L P Joyner; J Catchpole
Ovine Mastitis Due to Histophilus ovis
The clinical, pathological and bacteriological findings related to ovine mastitis caused by Histophilus ovis are described. A high proportion of the ewes belonging to a flock were infected, but the source of the contamination could not be determined. ImagesFigure 1.Figure 2.
Beauregard, M.; Higgins, R.
Das Parallelenproblem im Corpus Aristotelicum
\\u000a Summary��In the Corpus Aristotelicum are numerous items suggesting that the assertion of the fifth postulate in Euclid's\\u000a Elements had been preceded by attempts to demonstrate this postulate itself, or some equivalent fundamental proposition, within the\\u000a rigorous frame of Absolute Geometry in Bolyai's sense. Thus geometers contemporary with Aristotle tried to solve the problem which became known commonly in later centuries
Imre T�th
Corpus gastritis is protective against reflux oesophagitis
BACKGROUND�Gastric acid is important in the pathogenesis of reflux oesophagitis. Acid production by the gastric corpus is reduced in corpus gastritis.?AIMS�To determine whether corpus gastritis protects against reflux oesophagitis.?METHODS�Patients presenting for elective oesophagogastroduodenoscopy were studied. Two biopsy specimens were taken from the antrum, corpus, and cardia and stained with haematoxylin/eosin and Diff-Quick II stains. The presence and severity of gastritis were graded according to a modified updated Sydney classification.?RESULTS�Of 302�patients, 154�had endoscopic signs of reflux oesophagitis. There was no difference between patients with and controls without oesophagitis in the overall infection rates with Helicobacter pylori. Acute or chronic corpus gastritis occurred less often in patients with than those without reflux oesophagitis. Compared with controls, corpus gastritis was less severe in patients with reflux oesophagitis. The presence of acute or chronic gastritis in the corpus was significantly correlated with either type of gastritis in other areas of the stomach. In a multivariate logistic regression, age, sex, smoking status, and the presence of chronic corpus gastritis all exerted a significant influence on the presence of reflux oesophagitis. Chronic corpus gastritis was associated with a 54% reduced risk for reflux oesophagitis.?CONCLUSIONS�While infection with H pylori alone may not affect the occurrence of reflux oesophagitis, the development of chronic corpus gastritis seems to be protective.???Keywords: acid secretion; gastritis; gastro-oesophageal reflux disease; Helicobacter pylori; reflux oesophagitis; Sydney system
El-Serag, H; Sonnenberg, A; Jamal, M; Inadomi, J; Crooks, L; Feddersen, R
33 CFR 165.808 - Corpus Christi Ship Channel, Corpus Christi, TX, safety zone.
Code of Federal Regulations, 2013 CFR
...Christi Ship Channel, Corpus Christi, TX, safety zone. 165.808 Section 165.808...SECURITY (CONTINUED) PORTS AND WATERWAYS SAFETY REGULATED NAVIGATION AREAS AND LIMITED...Christi Ship Channel, Corpus Christi, TX, safety zone. (a) The following areas...
77 FR 2448 - Special Local Regulation; HITS Triathlon; Corpus Christi Bayfront, Corpus Christi, TX
Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013
...1625-AA08 Special Local Regulation; HITS Triathlon; Corpus Christi Bayfront, Corpus...Corpus Christi Bayfront area during the HITS Triathlon on February 18th and 19th, 2012...Regulation is necessary to ensure the safety of HITS Triathlon participants and protect...
Variation in the ovine WFIKKN2 gene.
WFIKKN2 may play a role in the regulation of muscle growth and development through its interaction with growth and differentiation factor 8 (GDF8) and growth and differentiation factor 11 (GDF11), but to date research into the function of the protein has been focused on mice, even though the WFIKKN2 gene (WFIKKN2) was first identified in humans in 2001. In this study two regions (intron 1 and the 3' UTR) of ovine WFIKKN2 were investigated, using Polymerase Chain Reaction-Single Stranded Conformational Polymorphism (PCR-SSCP). Two different PCR-SSCP patterns, representing two unique DNA sequences (designated a and b) were detected in a 399-bp amplicon derived from the 3' UTR, with sequence analysis revealing one single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP). In a 421-bp amplicon from intron 1, five different PCR-SSCP patterns (designated A-E) were observed and twelve SNPs were detected. Either one or two different sequences were detected in individual sheep and all the sequences identified shared homology with the WFIKKN2 sequences from cattle and other animal species, suggesting that these sequences represent variants of the ovine WFIKKN2 gene. In intron 1 of 487 sheep from eight breeds, variants B and C were the most common, followed by A, D and E. These results indicate that ovine WFIKKN2 is polymorphic and suggest that further analysis is required to see if variation in the gene is associated with variation in growth and muscle traits in sheep. PMID:24704001
Wang, Jiqing; Zhou, Huitong; Fang, Qian; Luo, Yuzhu; Hickford, Jon G H
A multimedia corpus of driving behaviors
In this paper we present our multimedia corpus of real-world driving data (NUDrive), built with the primary objective of firming foundations for applying digital signal processing technologies in the vehicular environment. NUDrive is a content rich corpus composed of driving, speech, video, and physiological signals. So far, we have collected data from 250 drivers, who drove an instrumented vehicle under
Lucas Malta; Akira Ozaki; Chiyomi Miyajima; Norihide Kitaoka; Kazuya Takeda
Enriching Language Learning through a Multimedia Corpus
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Until recently, use has been made almost exclusively of text-based concordancers in the analysis of spoken corpora. This article discusses research being carried out on Padua University's Multimedia English Corpus (Padova MEC) using the multimodal concordancer "MCA "("Multimodal Corpus Authoring System," Baldry, 2005). This highly innovative�
Ackerley, Katherine; Coccetta, Francesca
Partial segmental thrombosis of the corpus cavernosum
The case of a 32-year-old man with perineal pain and local swelling is presented. Partial segmental thrombosis of the corpus cavernosum was diagnosed and treated conservatively with systemic anticoagulants. Conservative management proved to be a safe and successful therapeutic option in partial thrombosis of the corpus cavernosum.
Blawat, Adam; Kordasz, Janusz; Jelinski, Artur; Lazarczyk, Anna
Judicial Policy Making and Habeas Corpus Reform
After Chief Justice William Rehnquist failed in his efforts to persuade Congress to reform habeas corpus procedures, a majority of justices on the Rehnquist Court used judicial decisions to reshape habeas procedures in a manner that made it more difficult for convicted offenders to have their cases successfully reviewed by federal judges. A purported justification for habeas corpus reform is
Christopher E. Smith
Modulation of ovine SBD-1 expression by 17beta-estradiol in ovine oviduct epithelial cells
Background Mucosal epithelia, including those of the oviduct, secrete antimicrobial innate immune molecules (AIIMS). These have bactericidal/bacteriostatic functions against a variety of pathogens. Among the AIIMs, sheep ?-defensin-1 (SBD-1) is one of the most potent. Even though the SBD-1 is an important AIIM and it is regulated closely by estrogenic hormone, the regulation mechanism of 17?-estradiol has not been clearly established. We investigated the effects of E2 and agonist or inhibitor on ovine oviduct epithelial cells in regard to SBD-1 expression using reverse transcription quantitative PCR (RT-qPCR). In addition, three different pathways were inhibited separately or simultaneously to confirm the effect of different inhibitors in the regulation mechanism. Results 17beta-estradiol (E2) induced release of SBD-1 in ovine oviduct epithelial cells. SBD-1 expression was mediated through G-protein-coupled receptor 30 (GPR30) and Estrogen Receptors (ERs) activation in ovine oviduct epithelial cell. Inhibition of gene expression of protein kinase A (PKA), protein kinase C (PKC), and nuclear factor kappa-light-chain-enhancer of activated B cells (NF-?B) led to a decreased SBD-1 expression. Conclusions Taken together, E2-induced up-regulation of SBD-1 expressions were GPR30-dependent during prophase and ERs-dependent during later-stage in ovine oviduct epithelial cells, and we assume that the effect was completed by the PKA, PKC, and NF-?B pathways simultaneous.
Corpus of Electronic Texts (CELT)
NSDL National Science Digital Library
Developed at University College Cork, the Corpus of Electronic Texts project is intended "to bring the wealth of Irish literary and historical culture (in Irish, Latin, Anglo-Norman French, and English) to the Internet in a rigorously scholarly project." Additionally, the project is designed to be utilized by a wide group of interested parties, including students, academics, and the general public. Visitors may peruse the documents by language of original publication, or by viewing a complete list of all the works currently available (many in HTML or pdf format) from the project's website. Some of the rather compelling works available here include the complete works of Oscar Wilde, the political writings of Michael Collins, and various historical documents regarding the struggle for Irish independence. [KMG
An ovine transgenic Huntington's disease model
Huntington's disease (HD) is an inherited autosomal dominant neurodegenerative disorder caused by an expansion of a CAG trinucleotide repeat in the huntingtin (HTT) gene [Huntington's Disease Collaborative Research Group (1993) A novel gene containing a trinucleotide repeat that is expanded and unstable on Huntington's disease chromosomes. The Huntington's Disease Collaborative Research Group. Cell, 72, 971�983]. Despite identification of the gene in 1993, the underlying life-long disease process and effective treatments to prevent or delay it remain elusive. In an effort to fast-track treatment strategies for HD into clinical trials, we have developed a new large-animal HD transgenic ovine model. Sheep, Ovis aries L., were selected because the developmental pattern of the ovine basal ganglia and cortex (the regions primarily affected in HD) is similar to the analogous regions of the human brain. Microinjection of a full-length human HTT cDNA containing 73 polyglutamine repeats under the control of the human promotor resulted in six transgenic founders varying in copy number of the transgene. Analysis of offspring (at 1 and 7 months of age) from one of the founders showed robust expression of the full-length human HTT protein in both CNS and non-CNS tissue. Further, preliminary immunohistochemical analysis demonstrated the organization of the caudate nucleus and putamen and revealed decreased expression of medium size spiny neuron marker DARPP-32 at 7 months of age. It is anticipated that this novel transgenic animal will represent a practical model for drug/clinical trials and surgical interventions especially aimed at delaying or preventing HD initiation. New sequence accession number for ovine HTT mRNA: FJ457100.
Jacobsen, Jessie C.; Bawden, C. Simon; Rudiger, Skye R.; McLaughlan, Clive J.; Reid, Suzanne J.; Waldvogel, Henry J.; MacDonald, Marcy E.; Gusella, James F.; Walker, Simon K.; Kelly, Jennifer M.; Webb, Graham C.; Faull, Richard L.M.; Rees, Mark I.; Snell, Russell G.
An ovine transgenic Huntington's disease model.
Huntington's disease (HD) is an inherited autosomal dominant neurodegenerative disorder caused by an expansion of a CAG trinucleotide repeat in the huntingtin (HTT) gene [Huntington's Disease Collaborative Research Group (1993) A novel gene containing a trinucleotide repeat that is expanded and unstable on Huntington's disease chromosomes. The Huntington's Disease Collaborative Research Group. Cell, 72, 971-983]. Despite identification of the gene in 1993, the underlying life-long disease process and effective treatments to prevent or delay it remain elusive. In an effort to fast-track treatment strategies for HD into clinical trials, we have developed a new large-animal HD transgenic ovine model. Sheep, Ovis aries L., were selected because the developmental pattern of the ovine basal ganglia and cortex (the regions primarily affected in HD) is similar to the analogous regions of the human brain. Microinjection of a full-length human HTT cDNA containing 73 polyglutamine repeats under the control of the human promotor resulted in six transgenic founders varying in copy number of the transgene. Analysis of offspring (at 1 and 7 months of age) from one of the founders showed robust expression of the full-length human HTT protein in both CNS and non-CNS tissue. Further, preliminary immunohistochemical analysis demonstrated the organization of the caudate nucleus and putamen and revealed decreased expression of medium size spiny neuron marker DARPP-32 at 7 months of age. It is anticipated that this novel transgenic animal will represent a practical model for drug/clinical trials and surgical interventions especially aimed at delaying or preventing HD initiation. New sequence accession number for ovine HTT mRNA: FJ457100. PMID:20154343
Jacobsen, Jessie C; Bawden, C Simon; Rudiger, Skye R; McLaughlan, Clive J; Reid, Suzanne J; Waldvogel, Henry J; MacDonald, Marcy E; Gusella, James F; Walker, Simon K; Kelly, Jennifer M; Webb, Graham C; Faull, Richard L M; Rees, Mark I; Snell, Russell G
[Medicine and astrology in Arnau's corpus].
The role of astrology in Arnau de Vilanova's medical work is revisited with special attention to the problems of authorship posed by the astrological writings of Arnau's corpus and to their hypothetical chronology. PMID:17214132
Giralt, Sebasti�
Syntactic Priming: A Corpus-based Approach
The present study is a corpus-based investigation of syntactic priming, i.e. the tendency to reuse syntactic constructions. On the basis of data from the ICE-GB corpus, I analyze two different pairs of syntactic patterns, the so-called dative alternation and particle placement of transitive phrasal verbs. Although it has sometimes been argued that only experimental data can contribute to studies of
Stefan Th. Gries
Administration of a gonadotropin-releasing hormone agonist affects corpus luteum vascular stability and development and induces luteal apoptosis in a rat model of ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome
Ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome (OHSS) is a complication of ovarian stimulation with gonadotropins followed by the administration of human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG) to trigger the final steps of oocyte maturation. Gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH) analogs are thought to be effective in preventing this complication and a clinical trial has found a lower incidence of OHSS in patients treated with these molecules. Our
Leopoldina Scotti; Griselda Irusta; Dalhia Abramovich; Marta Tesone; Fernanda Parborell
Placental lactogen and somatotropin: hormone binding to the corpus luteum and effects on the growth and functions of the ovary in heifers.
The effects of recombinant bovine placental lactogen (rbPL) and recombinant bovine somatotropin (rbST) on development of ovarian follicles and CL were tested in heifers. Estrus (day = 0) was synchronized and heifers were treated (Days 0-21) with either saline (control; n = 7), rbST (25 mg/day; n = 6), or rbPL. (50 mg/day; n = 8). Blood was collected daily for analyses of progesterone, estradiol, ST, PL, and insulin-like growth factor (IGF)-I; ultrasound was performed daily for measurement of follicles and CL. PL in plasma (mean +/- SE; ng/ml) averaged 4.1 +/- 0.2 for rbPL-treated heifers, and ST in plasma (ng/ml) averaged 2.7 +/- 0.3 for rbST-treated heifers. IGF-I in plasma (ng/ml) was increased for rbST-treated (198 +/- 10; p < 0.001) and rbPL-treated (143 +/- 9; p < 0.06) heifers compared to controls (117 +/- 9). After Day 9 of the estrous cycle, heifers treated with rbPL had larger CL (p < 0.001) and more progesterone in plasma (p < 0.001) than controls, whereas rbST-treated heifers were intermediate for these measures. Largest follicles were decreased in size (mm) throughout the estrous cycle for rbPL-treated heifers (12.9 +/- 0.4) compared to controls (14.2 +/- 0.5; p < 0.06) or heifers given rbST (14.0 +/- 0.5; p < 0.11). After Day 17 (preovulatory period), concentrations of estradiol in serum (pg/ml) were decreased for rbST-treated (2.7 +/- 0.3; p < 0.01) and rbPL-treated (2.9 +/- 0.2; p < 0.02) heifers compared to controls (3.8 +/- 0.3).(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS) PMID:8025170
Lucy, M C; Byatt, J C; Curran, T L; Curran, D F; Collier, R J
WNTs in the Ovine Uterus: Potential Regulation of Periimplantation Ovine Conceptus Development
WNTs (Wingless-type MMTV integration site family member) are involved in critical developmental and growth processes in animals. These studies investigated WNT pathways in the ovine uterus and conceptus during the periimplantation pe- riodofpregnancy.WNT2andWNT2BmRNAsweredetectedin endometrial stroma. WNT5A and WNT5B mRNAs were most abundant in the stroma and less so in the luminal epithelium, whereas WNT11 mRNA was detected primarily in the
K. Hayashi; R. C. Burghardt; F. W. Bazer; T. E. Spencer
78 FR 68327 - Importation of Ovine Meat From Uruguay
Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013
...rulemaking. Goat Meat One commenter expressed concern that inspectors may not know the difference between a goat kid carcass and a lamb kid carcass. Establishments in Uruguay that prepare ovine meat for export slaughter the sheep. Live sheep are...
Ovine TRIM5? Can Restrict Visna/Maedi Virus
The restrictive properties of tripartite motif-containing 5 alpha (TRIM5?) from small ruminant species have not been explored. Here, we identify highly similar TRIM5? sequences in sheep and goats. Cells transduced with ovine TRIM5? effectively restricted the lentivirus visna/maedi virus DNA synthesis. Proteasome inhibition in cells transduced with ovine TRIM5? restored restricted viral DNA synthesis, suggesting a conserved mechanism of restriction. Identification of TRIM5? active molecular species may open new prophylactic strategies against lentiviral infections.
Jauregui, P.; Crespo, H.; Glaria, I.; Lujan, L.; Contreras, A.; Rosati, S.; de Andres, D.; Amorena, B.; Towers, G. J.
Analysis of C3 and C4 in ovine plasma.
The distributions of plasma concentrations of complement proteins C3 and C4 were studied in sample populations of merino and Suffolk sheep. No differences between the breeds or the sexes were observed. The distribution for ovine C4 was polymodal and very disperse relative to that for C3. It was found, however, that C3 concentrations were elevated in specimens from 20 merino sheep bred as high responders to a Trichostrongylus vaccine. Significantly decreased plasma C4 concentrations were observed in representatives of both merino and merino X Border Leicester cross-bred sheep affected with congenital progressive ovine muscular dystrophy. Agarose gel electrophoretic variants of ovine C3 were not detected. Evidence for electrophoretic variants of ovine C4 in agarose gels was found although individual allotypes could not be reliably identified. Sodium dodecyl sulphate polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (SDS-PAGE) did not reveal size heterogeneity for the alpha and beta chains of immunoprecipitated ovine C3. Analysis of reduced immunoprecipitated ovine C4 by SDS-PAGE revealed considerable size heterogeneity in the alpha chain consistent with isotypic and/or allotypic variability. The data presented strongly suggest the presence of two C4 loci in sheep, each of which exhibits polymorphism. PMID:3568628
Groth, D M; Wetherall, J D; Outteridge, P M; Windon, R G; Richards, B; Lee, I R
LC-MS-SPE-NMR for the Isolation and Characterization of neo-Clerodane Diterpenoids from Teucrium luteum subsp. flavovirens
neo-Clerodane diterpenes of plant origin are molecules difficult to monitor due to their nonspecific UV\\/vis absorption. The present work describes for the first time the application of the LC-MS-SPE-NMR technique for the isolation and characterization of three new neo-clerodane diterpenes, 3?-hydroxyteucroxylepin and teuluteumin A and teuluteumin B, from Teucrium luteum subsp. flavovirens, harvested from two different locations
A. Castro; S. I. A. Moco; J. Coll; J. J. M. Vervoort
Obsessive Patient with Agenesis of the Corpus Callosum
Agenesis of the corpus callosum is an uncommon congenital anomaly. The following is a report of a patient with agenesis of the corpus callosum with cavum septum pellucidum and colpocephaly. This patient has also been diagnosed with anankastic personality disorder.
DWH Tam
A General-Purpose Monitor Corpus of Written Pashto
This paper provides an overview of the development of a general-purpose reference corpus for Pashto. It is an open-ended (monitor) corpus. The corpus currently contains 10,000 words. It has two cells, one containing essays and the other letters. This corpus represents Yousafzai group of dialects and the data for it has been provided by the Pashto Academy, Peshawar University. The
Mohammad Abid Khan; Fatima Tuz Zuhra
Halorubrum luteum sp. nov., isolated from Lake Chagannor, Inner Mongolia, China.
A novel halophilic archaeon, strain CGSA15(T), was isolated from water of Lake Chagannor in China. The strain grew optimally at 33-37 degrees C, pH 9.5-10.0 and 4.0-4.3 M NaCl. The major polar lipids were phosphatidylglycerol and phosphatidylglycerol phosphate methyl ester. The genomic DNA G+C content of strain CGSA15(T) was 60.2 mol%. Phylogenetic analysis based on 16S rRNA gene sequences revealed that strain CGSA15(T) was a member of the genus Halorubrum and was related most closely to Halorubrum alkaliphilum AS 1.3528(T) (96.1 % similarity) and Halorubrum tibetense AS 1.3239(T) (96.9 %). Levels of DNA-DNA relatedness between strain CGSA15(T) and Hrr. alkaliphilum AS 1.3528(T) and Hrr. tibetense AS 1.3239(T) were 36.7 and 28.9 %, respectively. According to the phenotypic and genotypic data presented, strain CGSA15(T) is considered to represent a novel species of the genus Halorubrum, for which the name Halorubrum luteum sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain is CGSA15(T) (=CGMCC 1.6783(T) =CECT 7303(T)). PMID:18599720
Hu, Lingfei; Pan, Hailian; Xue, Yanfen; Ventosa, A; Cowan, D A; Jones, B E; Grant, W D; Ma, Yanhe
Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) anatomy of the ovine lumbar spine.
Although the ovine spine is a useful research model for intervertebral disc pathology and vertebral surgery, there is little peer-reviewed information regarding the MRI anatomy of the ovine spine. To describe the lumbar spine MRI anatomy, 10 lumbar segments of cadaver ewes were imaged by 1.5-Tesla MR. Sagittal and transverse sequences were performed in T1 and T2 weighting (T1W, T2W), and the images were compared to gross anatomic sagittal and transverse sections performed through frozen spines. MRI was able to define most anatomic structures of the ovine spine in a similar way as can be imaged in humans. In both T1W and T2W, the signals of ovine IVDs were similar to those observed in humans. Salient anatomic features were identified: (1) a 2- to 3-mm linear zone of hypersignal was noticed on both extremities of the vertebral body parallel to the vertebral plates in sagittal planes; (2) the tendon of the crura of the diaphragm appeared as a hypointense circular structure between hypaxial muscles and the aorta and caudal vena cava; (3) dorsal and ventral longitudinal ligaments and ligamentum flavum were poorly imaged; (4) no ilio-lumbar ligament was present; (5) the spinal cord ended between S1-S2 level, and the peripheral white matter and central grey matter were easily distinguished on T1W and T2W images. This study provides useful reference images to researchers working with ovine models. PMID:23668479
Nisolle, J F; Wang, X Q; Squ�lart, M; Hontoir, F; Kirschvink, N; Clegg, P; Vandeweerd, J M
Toward a Knowledge Representation Corpus of Historical Events
Research communities need a large corpus of representative, rel- evant and interesting problems to evaluate their proposed solutions; unfortunately the KR&R community lacks such a corpus. We there- fore propose to construct a large corpus of knowledge representation and reasoning problems, drawing upon readily available historical real- world events for contents, in a highly expressive representation lan- guage such as
Robert C. Kahlert; Jennifer Sullivan
Czech-Sign Speech Corpus for Semantic Based Machine Translation
This paper describes progress in a development of the human-human dialogue corpus for machine translation of spoken lan- guage. We have chosen a semantically annotated corpus of phone calls to a train timetable information center. The phone calls consist of inquiries regarding their train traveler plans. Corpus dialogue act tags incorporate abstract semantic meaning. We have enriched a part of
Jakub Kanis; Jir� Zahradil; Filip Jurc�cek; Ludek M�ller
Corpus Callosum Area in Children and Adults with Autism
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Despite repeated findings of abnormal corpus callosum structure in autism, the developmental trajectories of corpus callosum growth in the disorder have not yet been reported. In this study, we examined corpus callosum size from a developmental perspective across a 30-year age range in a large cross-sectional sample of individuals with autism�
Prigge, Molly B. D.; Lange, Nicholas; Bigler, Erin D.; Merkley, Tricia L.; Neeley, E. Shannon; Abildskov, Tracy J.; Froehlich, Alyson L.; Nielsen, Jared A.; Cooperrider, Jason R.; Cariello, Annahir N.; Ravichandran, Caitlin; Alexander, Andrew L.; Lainhart, Janet E.
Marine Traffic Data of Corpus Christi, Texas.
National Technical Information Service (NTIS)
Data were recorded on the marine traffic and VHF-FM marine communications channel usage at Corpus Christi, Texas. The marine traffic data were recorded by means of time-lapse photography of a radar display at Sun Oil Pipeline Dock, Ingleside, Texas. Recor...
B. H. Charters D. E. Watson J. J. Cherny R. A. Silva
Federal Habeas Corpus Reform: The State's Perspective
Utilizing a national survey of assistant state attorneys general, this article examines the effects of the Rehnquist Court's judicially initiated habeas corpus reforms upon the justice system. Although the Court's initiatives were directed at the branch of government about which the justices presumably possess their greatest knowledge and expertise, the reforms generated unanticipated consequences. Contrary to the justices' goal of
Christopher E. Smith
Cloning and expression of ovine placental lactogen.
Ovine placental lactogen (oPL) is active in a wide range of GH and PRL assays, a property that it shares with human GH (hGH). In addition, oPL is one of a small number of hormones that bind the human GH receptor with high affinity. In order to compare the sequence of oPL to the sequences of other members of the GH family, full-length cDNA clones have been isolated. These clones predict that the full sequence of oPL contains 198 amino acids preceded by a 38 amino acid signal sequence. The mature oPL sequence includes six cysteine and two tryptophan residues and shows substantially more identity to bovine PL (67%) and oPL (49%) than to mouse (31%) or human (25%) PL or to oGH (28%) or (26%) hGH. Like the natural hormone, oPL expressed in mammalian tissue cells binds with high affinity to a soluble form of the recombinant hGH receptor. Thus, oPL binds to the human receptor in spite of having a sequence that is considerably divergent from hGH. Interestingly, the sequence of oPL differs from hGH at most of the amino acids recently found by mutagenesis studies to be important residues in the binding of hGH to the human receptor. PMID:2608069
Colosi, P; Thordarson, G; Hellmiss, R; Singh, K; Forsyth, I A; Gluckman, P; Wood, W I
Melatonin deprival modifies follicular and corpus luteal growth dynamics in a sheep model.
This study assessed the effect of melatonin deprival on ovarian status and function in sheep. Experimental procedures were carried out within two consecutive breeding seasons. Animals were divided into two groups: pinealectomised (n=6) and sham-operated (n=6). The completeness of the pineal gland removal was confirmed by the plasma concentration of melatonin. Ovarian status was monitored by ovarian ultrasonography for 1 year to study reproductive seasonality. Follicular and corpus luteal growth dynamics were assessed during an induced oestrous cycle. As the effects of melatonin on the ovary may also be mediated by its antioxidant properties, plasma Trolox equivalent antioxidant capacity (TEAC) was determined monthly for 1 year. Pinealectomy significantly extended the breeding season (310�24.7 vs 217.5�24.7 days in controls; P<0.05). Both pinealectomised and sham-operated ewes showed a well-defined wave-like pattern of follicle dynamics; however, melatonin deficiency caused fewer waves during the oestrous cycle (4.3�0.2 vs 5.2�0.2; P<0.05), because waves were 1 day longer when compared with the controls (7.2�0.3 vs 6.1�0.3; P<0.05). The mean area of the corpora lutea (105.4�5.9 vs 65.4�5.9?mm(2); P<0.05) and plasma progesterone levels (7.1�0.7 vs 4.9�0.6?ng/ml; P<0.05) were significantly higher in sham-operated ewes compared with pinealectomised ewes. In addition, TEAC values were significantly lower in pinealectomised ewes compared with control ones. These data suggest that melatonin, besides exerting its well-known role in the synchronisation of seasonal reproductive fluctuations, influences the growth pattern of the follicles and the steroidogenic capacity of the corpus luteum.FREE ITALIAN ABSTRACT: An Italian translation of this abstract is freely available at http://www.reproduction-online.org/content/147/6/885/suppl/DC1. PMID:24570480
Manca, Maria Elena; Manunta, Maria Lucia; Spezzigu, Antonio; Torres-Rovira, Laura; Gonzalez-Bulnes, Antonio; Pasciu, Valeria; Piu, Peter; Leoni, Giovanni G; Succu, Sara; Chesneau, Didier; Naitana, Salvatore; Berlinguer, Fiammetta
Ictal EEG changes with corpus callosum section.
Corpus callosum section diminishes but does not completely abolish secondary bilaterally synchronous interictal EEG discharges, yet often causes cessation of generalized seizures. The effects of corpus callosum section on ictal EEG patterns have not been described. We contrasted ictal EEG patterns before and after anterior callosotomy in 18 patients and before and after total callosotomy in 10 patients. Bilaterally synchronous seizure onset was disrupted in 5 of 11 anterior section patients and 5 of 5 total section patients. Seven of 18 anterior section patients and 5 of 10 total section patients had more localized seizure onset after the procedure; localization to the frontal lobe was observed after anterior or total section, but only total section patients had newly demonstrated posterior locations of seizure onset. These data suggest that the mechanisms by which bilaterally synchronous interictal and ictal discharges are generated differ. Although brainstem or diencephalic structures may contribute to formation of interictal bilateral synchrony, the corpus callosum may be the only pathway used in producing apparent bilateral synchronous seizure onset in patients with secondarily generalized seizures. PMID:8504788
Spencer, S S; Katz, A; Ebersole, J; Novotny, E; Mattson, R
Milk whey induction of agglutination in ovine and bovine mastitis Staphylococcus aureus.
A total of 59 mastitis staphylococcic strains were tested for growth agglutination upon supplementation of growth media with ovine and bovine milk whey and mammary secretions from dry cows. Differences were observed when comparing bacterial species or origins (ovine vs. bovine) of bacteria and whey. All of the ovine and bovine S. aureus strains tested, but only 4 among 22 other ovine mastitis staphylococcic strains, showed growth agglutination in Todd Hewitt broth (THB) supplemented with greater than or equal to 30% (v/v) ovine milk whey. None of the strains agglutinated during growth in regular THB medium. Ovine whey had an agglutination induction capacity higher than bovine whey (P less than 0.005), concerning the number of responsive ovine and bovine S. aureus strains. There were no differences between whey samples from different ewes with regard to their capacity to induce agglutination. Ovine S. aureus strains were more responsive than bovine strains of this bacterial species, concerning the number of responsive strains (P less than 0.001) to bovine whey (greater than or equal to 30% in THB), the proportion of responsive strains at low (10%) ovine whey concentration (P less than 0.001), and the strength of reaction (precipitation timing and clump size). Secretions from dry cows systematically induced agglutination in all of the bovine and ovine S. aureus strains tested. PMID:2220190
Baselga, R; Amorena, B
Immunomodulatory effects of ovine serum immunoglobulin in the growing rat.
This study aimed to determine whether orally administered ovine serum immunoglobulin (Ig) modulates aspects of immunity such as phagocytosis, lymphocyte proliferation, cytokine production, intestinal and plasma Ig concentrations in growing rats. Forty-five male Sprague-Dawley rats (n = 15/group) were used in the 21-day study, and fed a basal control diet (BD; no Ig) or two test diets: freeze-dried ovine Ig (FDOI) and inactivated ovine Ig (IOI). Phagocytic activity of peripheral blood leukocytes and lymphocyte proliferation in the presence of the mitogen concanavalin A (ConA) was greater (P < 0.05) for the FDOI-fed rats than for the BD- and IOI-fed groups. ConA-stimulated and unstimulated spleen cell culture produced higher (P < 0.05) interferon-? and interleukin-4, respectively, from rats fed the FDOI than rats fed the BD diet. In the jejunum, ileum and plasma, rats fed FDOI produced higher (P < 0.05) concentrations of secretory IgA (sIgA) than rats fed IOI or BD. Rats fed the FDOI diet had greater jejunal (P = 0.037) and lower plasma (P = 0.025) rat IgG concentrations than rats fed either BD or IOI. In conclusion, an ovine Ig fraction selectively modulated various indices of immune function. PMID:22445124
Balan, P; Han, K S; Rutherfurd-Markwick, K; Singh, H; Moughan, P J
Ovine pestiviruses: their taxonomic status revealed by palindromic nucleotide substitutions
We examined previously identified border disease virus (BDV) strains by using a newly proposed genotyping procedure based on palindromic nucleotide substitutions (PNS) in the 5?-untranslated region (UTR), and found 22 (41.5%) out of 53 strains of BDV in the nucleotide sequence databases are not of BDV. All the 22 ovine pestivirus strains were allocated to the BVDV species according to
Massimo Giangaspero; Ry� Harasawa
Collagen fibril orientation and tear strength across ovine skins.
Variability of physical properties across hides and skins requires careful consideration when manufacturing goods from leather. Therefore, an understanding of the extent of this variation and its nanostructural basis is useful. Tear strength tests were performed on ovine leather from a grid of 81 positions on skins. Synchrotron small-angle X-ray scattering measurements were made from three positions on the skin, from 26 skins. The X-ray structural measurements are compared with tear strengths of the samples. It is found that the thickness normalized tear strength does not vary greatly between different positions on the skin, in contrast to bovine hides. There is more variation between different skins than within the same skin. The collagen fibril orientation and orientation index, which has previously been shown to be correlated with tear strength, do not vary significantly between the different sampling positions in ovine skins. The collagen fibril orientation varies through the thickness of the skin in a consistent way. The consistency of collagen orientation in ovine leather between different positions on the skin is in marked contrast to bovine hides and informs the use of ovine leather for manufacturing applications. PMID:24274620
Basil-Jones, M M; Edmonds, R L; Cooper, S M; Kirby, Nigel; Hawley, Adrian; Haverkamp, R G
Building a large annotated corpus of English: the penn treebank
this paper, we review our experience with constructing one such large annotated corpus--the Penn Treebank, a corpus consisting of over 4.5 million words of American English. During the first three-year phase of the Penn Treebank Project (1989-1992), this corpus has been annotated for part-of-speech (POS) information. In addition, over half of it has been annotated for skeletal syntactic structure. These
Mitchell P. Marcus; Mary Ann Marcin-kiewicz; Beatrice Santorini
Selective gene expression by rat gastric corpus epithelium
The gastrointestinal (GI) tract is divided into several segments that have distinct functional properties, largely absorptive. The gastric corpus is the only segment thought of as largely secretory. Microarray hybridization of the gastric corpus mucosal epithelial cells was used to compare gene expression with other segments of the columnar GI tract followed by statistical data subtraction to identify genes selectively expressed by the rat gastric corpus mucosa. This provides a means of identifying less obvious specific functions of the corpus in addition to its secretion-related genes. For example, important properties found by this GI tract comparative transcriptome reflect the energy demand of acid secretion, a role in lipid metabolism, the large variety of resident neuroendocrine cells, responses to damaging agents and transcription factors defining differentiation of its epithelium. In terms of overlap of gastric corpus genes with the rest of the GI tract, the distal small bowel appears to express many of the gastric corpus genes in contrast to proximal small and large bowel. This differential map of gene expression by the gastric corpus epithelium will allow a more detailed description of major properties of the gastric corpus and may lead to the discovery of gastric corpus cell differentiation genes and those mis-regulated in gastric carcinomas.
Goebel, M.; Stengel, A.; Sachs, G.
Characterization and Genetic Study of the Ovine ? S2 Casein ( CSN1S2 ) Allele B
An interesting and quite complex protein pattern has been described at ovine milk proteins but the genetic control of the\\u000a variation observed was assessed only in few cases. The aim of this work was to characterize the ovine ?\\u000a \\u000a s2\\u000a -casein (CSN1S2) B variant, first observed in the Italian Gentile di Puglia, a fine-wooled ovine breed, and to investigate its
G. Picariello; D. Rignanese; S. Chessa; G. Ceriotti; A. Trani; A. Caroli; A. Di Luccia
Corpus-Assisted Creative Writing: Introducing Intermediate Italian Learners to a Corpus as a Reference Resource
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
In much of the literature on the exploitation of corpora for language learning, the learners are viewed as researchers, who formulate and test their own hypotheses about language use. Having identified difficulties encountered in corpus investigations by our intermediate-level students of Italian in a previous study, we have designed a�
Kennedy, Claire; Miceli, Tiziana
Corpus cavernosum abscess after Winter procedure performance.
A 23-year-old male patient with sickle-cell disease reported his third episode of priapism complicated by the presence of a corpus cavernosum abscess after the performance of a Winter procedure 20 days prior to his presentation. While in hospital for 11 days, two penile needle aspirations and three surgical drainages were performed with associated antibiotic therapy. He evolved with erectile dysfunction refractory to drug therapy and his infectious condition improved. An early penile prosthesis implantation followed after the use of a vacuum pump in an attempt to decrease the fibrotic process of the corpora cavernosa. Final results were positive. PMID:24515231
Paladino, Joao Roberto; Nascimento, Fabio Jose; Gromatsky, Celso; Pompeo, Antonio Carlos Lima
78 FR 76276 - Notice of Request for Extension of Approval of an Information Collection; Importation of Ovine...
Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013
...AGRICULTURE Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service...Importation of Ovine Meat From Uruguay AGENCY: Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service...announces the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service's...importation of ovine meat from Uruguay into...
40 CFR 81.136 - Corpus Christi-Victoria Intrastate Air Quality Control Region.
Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR
...2010-07-01 false Corpus Christi-Victoria Intrastate Air Quality Control Region...Regions § 81.136 Corpus Christi-Victoria Intrastate Air Quality Control Region. The Corpus Christi-Victoria Intrastate Air Quality...
The Corpus of English as Lingua Franca in Academic Settings.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Describes a project to make a corpus of English spoken as a lingua franca in university settings in Finland. This corpus is one of the first to address the need for corpora that show the target for English-as-a-Foreign-Language learners whose goal is not to speak with native speakers but to interact in communities where English is a lingua franca.�
Mauranen, Anna
Statistical prosodic modeling: from corpus design to parameter estimation
The increasing availability of carefully designed and collected speech corpora opens up new possibilities for the statistical estimation of formal multivariate prosodic models. At Apple Computer, statistical prosodic modeling exploits the Victoria corpus, created to broadly support ongoing speech synthesis research and development. This corpus is composed of five constituent parts, each designed to cover a specific aspect of speech
Jerome R. Bellegarda; Kim E. A. Silverman; Kevin Lenzo; Victoria Anderson
38 CFR 3.263 - Corpus of estate; net worth.
Code of Federal Regulations, 2011 CFR
...2011-07-01 false Corpus of estate; net worth. 3.263 Section 3.263 Pensions...Estate � 3.263 Corpus of estate; net worth. (a) General. The following...dependency is a factor under � 3.250, and the net worth of a veteran, surviving...
38 CFR 3.263 - Corpus of estate; net worth.
Code of Federal Regulations, 2012 CFR
...2012-07-01 false Corpus of estate; net worth. 3.263 Section 3.263 Pensions...Estate � 3.263 Corpus of estate; net worth. (a) General. The following...dependency is a factor under � 3.250, and the net worth of a veteran, surviving...
Syntactische annotatie voor het Corpus Gesproken Nederlands (CGN)
The paper discusses the syntactic annotation for the Spoken Dutch Corpus, a Dutch\\/Flemish cooperation project to build an annotated corpus of about one thousand hours of continuous speech, which amounts to 10 million words. After a brief introduction to the project, we discuss the kind of syntactic annotations we envisage (dependency structures) and the way they are created (semi-automatically). We
Ton van der Wouden; Heleen Hoekstra; Michael Moortgat
A Speaker Verification System Using SVM over a Spanish Corpus
This paper presents a description of the principal aspects employed in the development of a speaker verification system based on a Spanish corpus. The main goal is to obtain classification results and behavior using Support Vector Machines (SVM) as the classifier technique. The most relevant aspects involved in developing a Spanish corpus are given. For the front end processing a
J. G. P. Bernal; A. P. Guerrero; J. G. Close
Agenesis and lipoma of corpus callosum. Case report.
The agenesis and lipoma of the corpus callosum is a very rare association. We report the case of a 18-years old woman with rare epileptic seizures since the age of 6 years, normal neurological examination, as well as normal electroencephalogram. The brain computed tomography scanning and the magnetic resonance showed the lipoma and the agenesis of the corpus callosum. PMID:8585829
Silva, D F; Lima, M M; Oliveira, C O; Oliveira, W N; Anghinah, R; Lima, J G
Semantic Similarity Based on Corpus Statistics and Lexical Taxonomy
This paper presents a new approach for measuring semantic similarity\\/distance between words and concepts. It combines a lexical taxonomy structure with corpus statistical information so that the semantic distance between nodes in the semantic space constructed by the taxonomy can be better quantified with the computational evidence derived from a distributional analysis of corpus data. Specifically, the proposed measure is
Jay J. Jiang; David W. Conrath
Treatment of ulcerated necrobiosis lipoidica with ovine forestomach matrix.
Necrobiosis lipoidica (NL) results from degradation of the collagen extracellular matrix; these recurring ulcerated lesions are an especially challenging condition to treat. Ovine forestomach matrix (OFM) is a decellularised extracellular matrix and was used to successfully close a pretibial ulcer resulting from NL. Complete closure of the wound was achieved in 22 weeks, after four applications of OFM. This suggests OFM may be considered for the treatment of these challenging wounds. PMID:24159661
Simcock, J W; Than, M; Ward, B R; May, B C H
Odorous Constituents of Ovine Milk in Relationship to Diet
ABSTRACT The neutral volatile compounds,of ovine milk from ewes fed. on natural pasture, grass meadow, and on mixed,grain rations were isolated by distillation un- der vacuum,and then,collected in traps that were cooled with,liquid nitrogen. The distillate was,ex- tracted with dichloromethane, and the extract ob- tained was,analyzed,using high resolution gas chro- matography,and high resolution gas chromatography coupled,to mass,spectrometry. Seventy compounds were,identified
L. Moio; L. Rillo; A. Ledda; F. Addeo
The corpus callosum: white matter or terra incognita
The corpus callosum is the largest white matter structure in the brain, consisting of 200�250 million contralateral axonal projections and the major commissural pathway connecting the hemispheres of the human brain. The pathology of the corpus callosum includes a wide variety of entities that arise from different causes such as congenital, inflammatory, tumoural, degenerative, infectious, metabolic, traumatic, vascular and toxic agents. The corpus callosum, or a specific part of it, can be affected selectively. Numerous pathologies of the corpus callosum are encountered during CT and MRI. The aim of this study is to facilitate a better understanding and thus treatment of the pathological entities of the corpus callosum by categorising them according to their causes and their manifestations in MR and CT imaging. Familiarity with its anatomy and pathology is important to the radiologist in order to recognise its disease at an early stage and help the clinician establish the optimal therapeutic approach.
Fitsiori, A; Nguyen, D; Karentzos, A; Delavelle, J; Vargas, M I
Ovine Fetal Immune Response to Cache Valley Virus Infection
Cache Valley virus (CVV)-induced malformations have been previously reproduced in ovine fetuses. To evaluate the development of the antiviral response by the early, infected fetus, before the development of immunocompetency, ovine fetuses at 35 days of gestation were inoculated in utero with CVV and euthanized at 7, 10, 14, 21, and 28 days postinfection. The antiviral immune response in immature fetuses infected with CVV was evaluated. Gene expression associated with an innate, immune response was quantified by real-time quantitative PCR. The upregulated genes in infected fetuses included ISG15, Mx1, Mx2, IL-1, IL-6, TNF-?, TLR-7, and TLR-8. The amount of Mx1 protein, an interferon-stimulated GTPase capable of restricting growth of bunyaviruses, was elevated in the allantoic and amniotic fluid in infected fetuses. ISG15 protein expression was significantly increased in target tissues of infected animals. B lymphocytes and immunoglobulin-positive cells were detected in lymphoid tissues and in the meninges of infected animals. These results demonstrated that the infected ovine fetus is able to initiate an innate and adaptive immune response much earlier than previously known, which presumably contributes to viral clearance in infected animals.
Dorniak, Piotr; Filant, Justyna; Dunlap, Kathrin A.; Bazer, Fuller W.; de la Concha-Bermejillo, Andres; Welsh, Christabel Jane; Varner, Patricia
Purification and structural characterization of ovine placental lactogen.
Discrepancies exist in the reported purity and biological activity of ovine placental lactogen (oPL), and little structural characterization has been reported. Ovine PL was purified from fetal cotyledonary tissue (day 100 of gestation) by monitoring activity with a recombinant bovine GH (bGH) liver radioreceptor assay. Two hundred grams of tissue yielded 4.2 mg of oPL, with an approximately 1000-fold purification of oPL specific activity following initial tissue extraction. The oPL was radioiodinated and used in an ovine fetal liver (day 100 of gestation) radioreceptor assay to examine competitive displacement of oPL, ovine GH (oGH) and ovine prolactin (oPRL). The potency of oPL (ED50 = 0.18 nmol/l; ED50 is the quantity of ligand necessary to displace 50% of specifically bound 125I-labelled oPL) was greater than that of oGH (ED50 = 4.1 nmol/l) and oPRL (ED50 = 1.1 mumol/l) in competing for 125I-labelled oPL-binding sites. Attempts to sequence the NH2 terminus of oPL by vapour-phase sequencing indicated that the NH2 terminus was blocked. Purified oPL was subjected to trypsin and CnBr digestion, and two CnBr and six tryptic peptides were sequenced. The peptide sequences were compared with other PLs, oPRL and bGH for sequence similarity, and found to be most similar to bovine PL (bPL; 68% overall identity) and oPRL (47% overall identity). Complementary DNA (cDNA) clones were isolated for oPL by screening a lambda ZAP cDNA library with a cDNA coding for bPL. Three cDNAs were nucleotide sequenced, and their combined sequence included 41 nucleotides of 5'-untranslated region, the complete coding region of pre-oPL (708 nucleotides) and a portion of the 3' untranslated region (158 nucleotides).(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS) PMID:2380652
Warren, W C; Liang, R; Krivi, G G; Siegel, N R; Anthony, R V
Immunohistochemical demonstration of cytoskeletal proteins in the ovine testis during postnatal development
The distribution pattern of actin, desmin, vimentin and tubulin in the ovine testis during postnatal development was investigated by means of immunohistochemical methods. The postnatal development of the ovine testis can be divided into five phases. Phases I through III represent the prepubertal period, phase IV puberty and phase V the postpubertal adult stage. In peritubular cells a-smooth muscle actin
Klaus Steger; Karl-Heinz Wrobel
Orally Administered Ovine Serum Immunoglobulins Influence Growth Performance, Organ Weights, and Gut Morphology in Growing Rats
In this study, our aim was to determine whether orally administered ovine serum Ig improved growth performance, organ weights, and gut morphology in growing rats and whether the method of manufacture of ovine serum Ig affected its bioactivity. Ninety Sprague-Dawley male rats were used in a 21-d growth study and were fed a basal control diet (BD; no Ig) and
Prabhu Balan; Kyoung-Sik Han; Shane M. Rutherfurd; Harjinder Singh; Paul J. Moughan
Characterization of Lactogenic Hormone Binding to Membranes from Ovine and Bovine Mammary Gland and Liver
Binding of radiolabeled human growth hormone, bovine prolactin, and ovine prolactin to membranes prepared from ovine and bovine mammary gland and liver was studied. Of these lactogenic hor- mones, human growth hormone exhibited the greatest total and specific binding capacity to either liver or mammary membranes. Characterization of binding assay conditions of human growth hor- mone indicated: 1) that divalent
R. Michael Akers; John E. Keys
Performance of Blue-Yellow Screening Test for Antimicrobial Detection in Ovine Milk
Drugresiduesinmilkareimportantbecauseofpublic health and industrial implications. The detection limits of 25 antimicrobialagents were determined bythe blue- yellow screening method in ovine milk. For each drug, 8 concentrations were tested on 20 ovine milk samples from individual ewes in midlactation. Detection limits determined by means of logistic regression were below European Union maximum residue limits (EU-MRL) for penicillin G (3 to 4
B. Linage; C. Gonzalo; J. A. Carriedo; J. A. Asensio; M. A. Blanco; L. F. De La Fuente; F. San Primitivo
Corpus callosum agenesis and rehabilitative treatment
Corpus callosum agenesis is a relatively common brain malformation. It can be isolated or included in a complex alteration of brain (or sometimes even whole body) morphology. It has been associated with a number of neuropsychiatric disorders, from subtle neuropsychological deficits to Pervasive Developmental Disorders. Etiology and pathogenetic mechanisms have been better understood in recent years, due to the availability of more adequate animal models and the relevant progresses in developmental neurosciences. These recent findings are reviewed (through a MedLine search including papers published in the last 5 years and most relevant previously published papers) in view of the potential impact on children's global functioning and on the possible rehabilitative treatment, with an emphasis on the possibility to exploit brain plasticity and on the use of the ICF-CY framework.
Corpus callosum agenesis and rehabilitative treatment.
Corpus callosum agenesis is a relatively common brain malformation. It can be isolated or included in a complex alteration of brain (or sometimes even whole body) morphology. It has been associated with a number of neuropsychiatric disorders, from subtle neuropsychological deficits to Pervasive Developmental Disorders.Etiology and pathogenetic mechanisms have been better understood in recent years, due to the availability of more adequate animal models and the relevant progresses in developmental neurosciences. These recent findings are reviewed (through a MedLine search including papers published in the last 5 years and most relevant previously published papers) in view of the potential impact on children's global functioning and on the possible rehabilitative treatment, with an emphasis on the possibility to exploit brain plasticity and on the use of the ICF-CY framework. PMID:20849621
Chiappedi, Matteo; Bejor, Maurizio
[Epidermoid cyst of the corpus callosum].
Epidermoid cysts are most commonly located in the cerebellopontine angle and the parasellar regions. The authors report a case of an epidermoid cyst of unusual location: it arises in the midline and involves the body of the corpus callosum with interhemispheric exophytic growth. Reviewing the literature they did not find any similar report. C.T. scan and M.R.I. are the methods of choice for establishing the diagnosis and differentiating between epidermoid cyst, dermoid cyst, lipoma and arachnoid cyst. M.R.I. is highly sensitive and is especially useful in determining tumour extension, particularly in the sagittal and coronal planes, essential for surgical treatment planning. Treatment should be complete surgical resection in order to avoid recurrence and chemical meningitis. PMID:1299776
Urculo, E; Arrazola, M
Corpus Linguistics and the Design of a Response Message
NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)
Most research related to SETI, the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence, is focussed on techniques for detection of possible incoming signals from extra-terrestrial intelligent sources (e.g. Turnbull et al. 1999), and algorithms for analysis of these signals to identify intelligent language-like characteristics (e.g. Elliott and Atwell 1999, 2000). However, another issue for research and debate is the nature of our response, should a signal arrive and be detected. The design of potentially the most significant communicative act in history should not be decided solely by astrophysicists; the Corpus Linguistics research community has a contribution to make to what is essentially a Corpus design and implementation project. (Vakoch 1998) advocated that the message constructed to transmit to extraterrestrials should include a broad, representative collection of perspectives rather than a single viewpoint or genre; this should strike a chord with Corpus Linguists for whom a central principle is that a corpus must be "balanced" to be representative (Meyer 2001). One idea favoured by SETI researchers is to transmit an encyclopaedia summarising human knowledge, such as the Encyclopaedia Britannica, to give ET communicators an overview and "training set" key to analysis of subsequent messages. Furthermore, this should be sent in several versions in parallel: the text; page-images, to include illustrations left out of the text-file and perhaps some sort of abstract linguistic representation of the text, using a functional or logic language (Ollongren 1999, Freudenthal 1960). The idea of "enriching" the message corpus with annotations at several levels should also strike a chord with Corpus Linguists who have long known that Natural language exhibits highly complex multi-layering sequencing, structural and functional patterns, as difficult to model as sequences and structures found in more traditional physical and biological sciences. Some corpora have been annotated with several levels or layers of linguistic knowledge, for example the SEC corpus (Taylor and Knowles 1988), the ISLE corpus (Menzel et al. 2000). Tagged and parsed corpus can be used by corpus linguists as a testbed to guide their development of grammars (e.g. Souter and Atwell 1994); and they can be used to train Natural Language Learning or data-mining models of complex sequence data (e.g. Brill 1993, Hughes 1993, Atwell 1996). Corpus linguists have a range of standards and tools for design and annotation of representative corpus resources, and experience of which annotation types are more amenable to Natural Language Learning algorithms. An Advisory panel of corpus linguists could help design and implement an extended Multi-annotated Interstellar Corpus of English, incorporating ideas from Corpus Linguistics such as: - Augment the Encyclopaedia Britannica with a collection of samples representing the diversity of language in real use. - As an additional "key", transmit a dictionary aimed at language learners which has also been a rich source for NLP - Supply our ET communicators with several levels of linguistic annotation, to give them a richer training set for their - Add translations of the English text into other human languages: Humanity should not be represented by English alone, This calls for a large-scale corpus annotation project, requiring an Interstellar Corpus Advisory Panel, analogous to the BNC or MATE advisory panels, to include experts in English grammar and semantics, English language learning, computational Natural language Learning algorithms, and corpus design, implementation, annotation, standardisation, and analysis.
Atwell, E.
Cavernous Angioma of the Corpus Callosum Presenting with Acute Psychosis
Psychiatric symptoms may occasionally be related to anatomic alterations of brain structures. Particularly, corpus callosum lesions seem to play a role in the change of patients' behavior. We present a case of a sudden psychotic attack presumably due to a hemorrhagic cavernous angioma of the corpus callosum, which was surgically removed with complete resolution of symptoms. Although a developmental defect like agenesis or lipoma is present in the majority of these cases, a growing lesion of the corpus callosum can rarely be the primary cause. Since it is potentially possible to cure these patients, clinicians should be aware of this association.
Pavesi, Giacomo; Causin, Francesco; Feletti, Alberto
Development and characterization of immortalized ovine endometrial cell lines.
The objective of this study was to generate immortalized endometrial epithelial and stromal cell lines from the ovine uterus. Luminal (LE) and glandular epithelial (GE) cells and stromal (ST) cells were enzymatically isolated from the uterus of a Day 5 cyclic ewe (estrus on Day 0), and primary cultures were immortalized by transduction with a retroviral vector (LXSN-16E6E7) packaged by the amphotropic fibroblast line PA-317. Cells having integrated the vector were selected by resistance to the neomycin analogue G418 (0.6-0.8 mg/ml). Surviving cells were maintained in complete culture medium containing G418 (0.1 mg/ml) and subcultured for more than 40 passages. Phase-contrast microscopy revealed that LE and GE cells exhibited a cobblestone morphology whereas immortalized ST cells were spindle shaped. The epithelial origin of LE and GE was confirmed by positive cytokeratin immunostaining, and ST cells were vimentin positive. All cell lines were negative for smooth muscle alpha-actin staining. Western blot analyses of cell extracts revealed the presence of signal transducers and activators of transcription (STAT) proteins 1, 2, and 3. In the LE cells, interferon tau (IFNtau) induced nuclear translocation of STAT proteins 1 and 2 and up-regulated several IFN-inducible genes, including STATs 1, 2, and 3 and ubiquitin cross-reactive protein (UCRP/ISG17). In the LE cell line, IFN regulatory factor one was transiently up-regulated and then down-regulated by IFNtau. Immunostaining revealed the presence of nuclear estrogen receptor and progesterone receptor in all cell lines. These ovine endometrial cell lines provide useful in vitro model systems for the study of hormone and cytokine action, signal transduction pathways, cell-cell interactions, and gene expression in specific cell types of the ovine endometrium. PMID:10529281
Johnson, G A; Burghardt, R C; Newton, G R; Bazer, F W; Spencer, T E
Epidemiological study of Toxoplasma gondii infection in ovine breeding.
An outbreak of toxoplasmosis occurring in a typical farm of 524 ovines was monitored for 1 year after the occurrence of 31 abortions. Abortion events involved 7.2% of 430 pregnant sheep. Presence of antibodies to Toxoplasma gondii in sheep sera was investigated by the indirect fluorescence antibody test (IFAT). A total of 422 ewes were bled four times during the year, and an epidemiological analysis was performed on all serology data collected in this subgroup. The prevalence of IgG positives ranged from 31.52% (133/422) at the first sampling to 62.56% (264/422) at the fourth sampling. Incidence of IgG antibodies was 38.75% at the second sampling, 14.92% at the third and 29.28% at the fourth sampling. At the beginning of the study, prevalence was 70.7% in primiparous sheep and 20.9% in sheep older than 5 years; at the third sampling, prevalence was stable at 70% in pluriparous sheep. The mean prevalence of IgM antibodies was 14.87%. A total of 147 out of all 524 ovines of the flock tested positive for IgM in more than one sampling. After an initial positivity, 60 sheep tested negative for IgG at the following serological controls (4 between the first and the second sampling, 30 between the second and the third and 28 between the third and the fourth sampling). One stray cat was positive for IgG, with a titre of 1 : 320. Moreover, one of the farmers was also positive, with a titre of 1 : 160 for IgG. A positive PCR result for T. gondii DNA was also observed in aliquots of grain and pellets taken from feed stocks amassed inside the sheds without protection, suggesting that an adequate management of the farm might be useful, if not essential, for controlling T. gondii outbreaks in ovine flocks. PMID:19968848
Zedda, M T; Rolesu, S; Pau, S; Rosati, I; Ledda, S; Satta, G; Patta, C; Masala, G
Proximal Corpus Cavernosum Tear Presenting as Scrotal Hematoma
We present the case of a penile fracture involving the proximal corpus cavernosum, presenting as a hematoma extending into the scrotum. The presentation, diagnosis, and surgical approach, which differ from the more typical penile shaft fracture, are delineated.
Darves-Bornoz, A.; DeBartolo, M. M.; Mishail, A. M.
Agenesis of the Corpus Callosum Is Associated With Feeding Difficulties
Our objective was to characterize the common occurrence of feeding and swallowing disorders noticed by our speech therapy department among patients with agenesis of the corpus callosum. All patients with suspected or presumed agenesis of the corpus callosum undergoing therapy for feeding and\\/or swallowing disorders, including oral and\\/or pharyngeal dysphagia and oral-sensory disorder, were identified. Their brain magnetic resonance imaging
Yu-tze Ng; Colleen M. McCarthy; Theodore J. Tarby; John B. Bodensteiner
Corpus callosotomy for treatment of pediatric refractory status epilepticus
Medically refractory status epilepticus (RSE) causes high morbidity and mortality in children. There are no evidence-based guidelines for treatment. Epilepsy surgery is a treatment option for RSE. We describe a 9-year-old boy treated successfully for RSE with complete corpus callosotomy (CC). Epilepsy surgery should be considered for prolonged RSE. In the absence of evidence of focal epileptogenesis, complete corpus callosotomy may be effective in select cases.
Greiner, Hansel M.; Tillema, Jan-Mendelt; Hallinan, Barbara E.; Holland, Katherine; Lee, Ki-Hyeong; Crone, Kerry R.
Corpus callosotomy for treatment of pediatric refractory status epilepticus.
Medically refractory status epilepticus (RSE) causes high morbidity and mortality in children. There are no evidence-based guidelines for treatment. Epilepsy surgery is a treatment option for RSE. We describe a 9-year-old boy treated successfully for RSE with complete corpus callosotomy (CC). Epilepsy surgery should be considered for prolonged RSE. In the absence of evidence of focal epileptogenesis, complete corpus callosotomy may be effective in select cases. PMID:22326839
Greiner, Hansel M; Tillema, Jan-Mendelt; Hallinan, Barbara E; Holland, Katherine; Lee, Ki-Hyeong; Crone, Kerry R
Corpus callosum: musician and gender effects.
Previously we found that musicians have significantly larger anterior corpus callosum (CC). In the current study, we intended to replicate and extend our previous results using a new and larger sample of gender-matched subjects (56 right-handed professional musicians and 56 age- and handedness-matched controls). We found a significant gender x musicianship interaction for anterior and posterior CC size; male musicians had a larger anterior CC than non-musicians, while females did not show a significant effect of musicianship. The lack of a significant effect in females may be due to a tendency for a more symmetric brain organization and a disproportionately high representation of absolute pitch (AP) musicians among females. Although a direct causal effect between musicianship and alterations in the midsagittal CC size cannot be established, it is likely that the early commencement and continuous practice of bimanual motor training serves as an external trigger that can influence midsagittal CC size through changes in the actual callosal fiber composition and in the degree of myelinization, which will have implications for interhemispheric connectivity. PMID:12598730
Lee, Dennis J; Chen, Yi; Schlaug, Gottfried
d-Serine modulates neurogenic relaxation in rat corpus cavernosum.
d-Serine, an endogenous co-agonist for the N-methyl-d-aspartate (NMDA) receptor in mammals, is synthesized from l-serine by serine racemase. Although much attention has been focused on the role of d-serine within the central nervous system, the physiological role of d-serine in peripheral nerves such as corpus cavernosal nerves has not been investigated. The present study was aimed to study the expression, cellular localization and function of serine racemase/d-serine system in isolated rat corpus cavernosum. Reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) and Western blot analysis showed the expression of serine racemase in rat corpus cavernosum. Immunogold electron microscopy demonstrated the cellular localization of serine racemase in the cavernosal nerves' membrane of the tissue. The organ bath studies on isolated rat corpus cavernosum showed that d-serine increases the non-adrenergic non-cholinergic neurogenic relaxation of isolated rat corpus cavernosum in vitro. This effect of d-serine was inhibited by a variety of NMDA receptor antagonists (ketamine, MK 801 and ifenprodil), suggesting that NMDA receptors are involved in the effects of d-serine on the neurogenic relaxation of corporal tissue strips. These observations provide the first evidence for the role of d-serine in modulating the neurogenic relaxation of rat corpus cavernosum, and may open new therapeutic avenues for the treatment of impotence. PMID:20170643
Ghasemi, Mehdi; Rezania, Fatemeh; Lewin, Jackie; Moore, Kevin P; Mani, Ali R
Ovine anti-rabies antibody production and evaluation.
In view of the disadvantages of human and equine rabies immunoglobulin still there is urgent needs for safe and cost-control anti-rabies immunoglobulins especially for person who have been severely exposed (categories III) to the virus. Our attempt to produce a less immunogenic and cheaper anti-rabies immunoglobulin affordable for those people living in developing countries, has been harnessed the ovine as a bioreactor instead the horse. The animals have been intramuscular immunized, and the plasma processed with 5% caprylic acid to yield IgG with purity of 95%. Moreover, antibody apparently indicated that the titer and neutralizing indexes were harmonized, especially at higher antibody dilution. The results showed that three immunized sheep were produced about 7000 IU of purified anti-rabies antibody. Sheep's IgG has low immunogenic effect than human and horse antibodies when injected into the mouse. Pure concentrated ovine antibody may serve as a possible alternative to currently available anti-rabies human or equine immunoglobulin. PMID:18242705
Redwan, El-Rashdy M; Fahmy, Ali; El Hanafy, Amr; Abd El-Baky, Nawal; Sallam, Sobhy M A
Biomechanical characterisation of ovine spinal facet joint cartilage.
The spinal facet joints are known to be an important component in the kinematics and the load transmission of the spine. The articular cartilage in the facet joint is prone to degenerative changes which lead to back pain and treatments for the condition have had limited long term success. There is currently a lack of information on the basic biomechanical properties of the facet joint cartilage which is needed to develop tissue substitution or regenerative interventions. In the present study, the thickness and biphasic properties of ovine facet cartilage were determined using a combination of indentation tests and computational modelling. The equilibrium biphasic Young's modulus and permeability were derived to be 0.76�0.35 MPa and 1.61�1.10�10?�? m?/(Ns) respectively, which were within the range of cartilage properties characterised from the human synovial joints. The average thickness of the ovine facet cartilage was 0.52�0.10 mm, which was measured using a needle indentation test. These properties could potentially be used for the development of substitution or tissue engineering interventions and for computational modelling of the facet joint. Furthermore, the developed method to characterise the facet cartilage could be used for other animals or human donors. PMID:22483055
Abd Latif, Mohd Juzaila; Jin, Zhongmin; Wilcox, Ruth K
Binding of Antibiotics to Bovine and Ovine Serum
The degree of binding of 37 antibiotics to bovine and ovine serum, after treatment at therapeutic doses, was determined by equilibrium dialysis and ultrafiltration methods. In general, binding values obtained by the two methods were comparable. The extent of binding varied from 0% for cephaloridine and kanamycin to >95% for novobiocin and fusidic acid. Of the 37 drugs studied, one-fourth were less than 25% bound, one-fourth were more than 75% bound, and the percentage binding of about half of the antibiotics ranged from 25 to 75%. Animal to animal variations in the extent of binding of a particular antibiotic were very small. The capacity of bovine or ovine serum to bind antibiotics was, with a few exceptions, similar to the reported capacity of human serum. At drug concentration ranges usually achieved during therapy, variations in drug levels in serum did not influence the degree of binding except with cephalexin, lincomycin, clindamycin, and chloramphenicol. With these antibiotics, the extent of binding increased two- to sevenfold with the decrease in drug concentration in serum.
Ziv, G.; Sulman, F. G.
Strain-rate sensitivity of porcine and ovine corneas.
Knowledge of strain-rate sensitivity of corneal tissue is important for improving the understanding of the tissue's response to mechanical actions and the accurate numerical simulation of corneal biomechanical behaviour under the effects of disease and surgery. In the study, fresh and well-preserved porcine and ovine corneal buttons were subjected to uniaxial tension loads with seven different strain rates ranging between 0.8 and 420% per minute. All specimens exhibited increased stiffness (as measured by the tangent modulus) with higher strain rates. However, clear differences in their behaviour were observed. While ovine corneas showed gradual, consistent and mostly statistically significant increases in stiffness with all elevations in strain rate, porcine corneas' response was significant over only a limited range of low strain rates. The effect of strain rate on the material's stress-strain behaviour was considered in the formation of three sets of constitutive models including: (i) a model based on a simple exponential stress-strain relationship, (ii) the Ogden model that considers the tissue's hyperelasticity but not anisotropy, and (iii) a third model by Holzapfel, Gasser and Ogden that considers both hyperelasticity and anisotropy. The three models are introduced to enable consideration of the strain rate effects in simulations employing finite element programs with varying capabilities or in modelling applications in corneal biomechanics which may or may not require consideration of mechanical anisotropy. PMID:21761808
Elsheikh, Ahmed; Kassem, Wael; Jones, Stephen W
Purinergic modulation of human corpus cavernosum relaxation.
The activation of P2Y(6) receptors has been previously reported to cause vascular smooth muscle constriction and relaxation. The aim of our study was to determine the effect of P2Y(6) receptor subtype activation on human cavernosal function. Cavernosal tissue was obtained from 23 patients undergoing gender reassignment surgery. Immunohistochemistry (IHC) and Western blotting were used to determine the presence of P2Y(6) receptors in corpus cavernosal tissue. The effects of UDP (a selective P2Y(6) receptor agonist) before and after the addition of distilled water (control), cibacron blue 3GA (CB, a P2Y(6) receptor antagonist; 10(-4) m) or N-nitro-L-arginine methyl esther (L-NAME, a NO synthase inhibitor; 10(-4) m) were assessed on phenylephrine (PE; 10(-4) m) pre-contracted cavernosal strips using organ baths. Electrical field stimulation (EFS; 0.5-32 Hz) was performed in the absence and presence of CB to determine neuronal-mediated P2Y(6) receptor responses. IHC and Western blotting revealed the presence of P2Y(6) receptors on cavernosal sections. UDP at 10(-4) m and 10(-3) m induced a 5% and 16% relaxation of the PE-mediated response (both p < 0.0001), respectively, which was significantly blocked by CB (48% reduction of the UDP 10(-3) m response, p < 0.002) but not affected by L-NAME. EFS-induced relaxations of pre-contraction strips were not significantly altered by CB. We have found the presence of P2Y(6) receptors in human cavernosal tissues, that when activated induce cavernosal smooth muscle cell relaxation via non-neuronal and non-nitric oxide dependent mechanism. Further investigation is needed to establish whether P2Y(6) receptors play a physiological role in penile erection. PMID:17971163
Lau, D H W; Metcalfe, M J; Mumtaz, F H; Mikhailidis, D P; Thompson, C S
Leukocyte and Cytokine Accumulation in the Ovine Teat and Udder during Endotoxin-Induced Inflammation
Persson Waller, K., Colditz, I.G., Flapper, P. and Seow, H.-F., 1997. Leukocyte and cytokine accumulation in the ovine teat and udder during endotoxin-induced inflammation. Veterinary Research Communications, 21 (2), 101-115
K. Persson Waller; I. G. Colditz; P. Flapper; H.-F. Seow
Characterisation and developmental potential of ovine bone marrow derived mesenchymal stem cells.
Since discovery, significant interest has been generated in the potential application of mesenchymal stem cells or multipotential stromal cells (MSC) for tissue regeneration and repair, due to their proliferative and multipotential capabilities. Although the sheep is often used as a large animal model for translating potential therapies for musculoskeletal injury and repair, the characteristics of MSC from ovine bone marrow have been inadequately described. Histological and gene expression studies have previously shown that ovine MSC share similar properties with human and rodents MSC, including their capacity for clonogenic growth and multiple stromal lineage differentiation. In the present study, ovine bone marrow derived MSCs positively express cell surface markers associated with MSC such as CD29, CD44 and CD166, and lacked expression of CD14, CD31 and CD45. Under serum-deprived conditions, proliferation of MSC occurred in response to EGF, PDGF, FGF-2, IGF-1 and most significantly TGF-alpha. While subcutaneous transplantation of ovine MSC in association with a ceramic HA/TCP carrier into immunocomprimised mice resulted in ectopic osteogenesis, adipogenesis and haematopoietic-support activity, transplantation of these cells within a gelatin sponge displayed partial chondrogenesis. The comprehensive characterisation of ovine MSC described herein provides important information for future translational studies involving ovine MSC. PMID:19115243
McCarty, Rosa C; Gronthos, Stan; Zannettino, Andrew C; Foster, Bruce K; Xian, Cory J
Lesions of the corpus callosum in children with neurofibromatosis 1.
Our aim was to determine the rate of focal lesions of the corpus callosum in children with neurofibromatosis type 1, and to characterize their natural history. Magnetic resonance imaging scans of the brain in 79 children with neurofibromatosis type 1 who were followed at the Neurology Clinic of Schneider Children's Medical Center (Petah Tiqwa, Israel) from 1990-2005 were reviewed. Focal lesions of the corpus callosum were identified in 11 (14%). These included unidentified bright objects in 7 patients (9%), and a neoplastic process in 4 (5%). Follow-up ranged from 1-16 years. Two of 4 tumors had enlarged during follow-up, and one was excised. Neurofibromatosis type 1 may be associated with a 14% prevalence of corpus callosum lesions. Owing to the apparently high frequency of callosal neoplasms in this population (5% in our series), and their tendency to enlarge, careful evaluation and prolonged follow-up are warranted. PMID:18486822
Mimouni-Bloch, Aviva; Kornreich, Liora; Kaadan, Walid; Steinberg, Tamar; Shuper, Avinoam
Diagnosis and phylogenetic analysis of ovine pulmonary adenocarcinoma in China.
Ovine pulmonary adenocarcinoma (OPA) is a lung tumor of sheep caused by jaagsiekte sheep retrovirus (JSRV). OPA is common in sheep, and it is most commonly observed in China. Without preventative vaccines and serological diagnostic tools for assay of OPA, identification of JSRV based on reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) is very important for prevention and control measures for OPA in practice management. In this study, the diagnosis of OPA was made from analysis of clinical signs, pathological observations, JSRV-like particle discovery, and RT-PCR of the target env gene. The phylogenetic analysis showed that the China Shandong (SD) strain studied in this article belonged to exogenous JSRV, and it was very similar to 92k3, which was isolated from sheep in the Kenya (Y18305). The current study reported a severe outbreak of OPA in Shandong Province, China. The observations could offer a comparative view of the env gene of JSRV. PMID:24150961
Zhang, Keshan; Kong, Hanjin; Liu, Yongjie; Shang, Youjun; Wu, Bin; Liu, Xiangtao
Efficacy of extracts of immature mango on ovine gastrointestinal nematodes.
The principal health problem in small ruminants is helminthiasis and the rapid development of nematode resistance to anthelminthics has limited the success of control in several countries, stimulating the search for alternatives. In this study, extracts of immature fruits of the mango Mangifera indica L. var Ub� were evaluated for inhibition of larval development and fecal egg count reduction in sheep naturally infected with gastrointestinal nematodes. In the phytochemical analyses, tannins and flavonoids were the metabolites identified. Aqueous extracts of immature fruits at 100 mg ml(-1) showed 100 % inhibition of larval development. The LC(90) of the extract was 35.9 mg ml(-1) and the in vivo anthelminthic efficacy at 0.740 g kg(-1) (BW, orally) was 53 %. The identification of larvae showed that 99.8 % were Haemonchus spp. In vitro and in vivo results indicate that this fruit could assist ovine nematode control. PMID:22773010
Nery, Patr�cia S; Nogueira, Fl�via A; Oliveira, Neide J F; Martins, Ernane R; Duarte, Eduardo R
Corpus-based identification and refinement of semantic classes.
Medical Language Processing (MLP), especially in specific domains, requires fine-grained semantic lexica. We examine whether robust natural language processing tools used on a representative corpus of a domain help in building and refining a semantic categorization. We test this hypothesis with ZELLIG, a corpus analysis tool. The first clusters we obtain are consistent with a model of the domain, as found in the SNOMED nomenclature. They correspond to coarse-grained semantic categories, but isolate as well lexical idiosyncrasies belonging to the clinical sub-language. Moreover, they help categorize additional words.
Nazarenko, A.; Zweigenbaum, P.; Bouaud, J.; Habert, B.
Computer-assisted Lemmatisation of a Cornish Text Corpus for Lexicographical Purposes
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
This project sets out to discover and develop techniques for the lemmatisation of a historical corpus of the Cornish language in order that a lemmatised dictionary macrostructure can be generated from the corpus. The system should be capable of uniquely identifying every lexical item that is attested in the corpus. A survey of published and�
Mills, Jon
Corpus Callosum Morphology and Its Relationship to Cognitive Function in Neurofibromatosis Type 1
Neurofibromatosis type 1 (NF1) is associated with cognitive dysfunction and structural brain abnormalities such as an enlarged corpus callosum. This study aimed to determine the relationship between corpus callosum morphology and cognitive function in children with neurofibromatosis type 1 using quantitative neuroanatomic imaging techniques. Children with neurofibromatosis type 1 (n = 46) demonstrated a significantly larger total corpus callosum and
Natalie Pride; Jonathan M. Payne; Richard Webster; E. Arthur Shores; Caroline Rae; Kathryn N. North
Corpus-based Morphological Generator for Tagalog Verbs
In this paper, we describe a morphological generator of Tagalog verbs from a given English sentence. The morphological generator uses a rule table, which was learned from corpus of English-Tagalog translations, in generating the proper Tagalog verb from an input English sentence. The system was then tested on 50 English sentences against a learning set of sentences with varying figures
Ima Catalina Lantin; Cyril John Ramos; Joanna Marie Mercado; Don Erick Bonus; Ria Sagum; Ron Ivan Villanueva
Parenting, corpus callosum, and executive function in preschool children.
In this longitudinal population-based study (N?=?544), we investigated whether early parenting and corpus callosum length predict child executive function abilities at 4 years of age. The length of the corpus callosum in infancy was measured using postnatal cranial ultrasounds at 6 weeks of age. At 3 years, two aspects of parenting were observed: maternal sensitivity during a teaching task and maternal discipline style during a discipline task. Parents rated executive function problems at 4 years of age in five domains of inhibition, shifting, emotional control, working memory, and planning/organizing, using the Behavior Rating Inventory of Executive Function-Preschool Version. Maternal sensitivity predicted less executive function problems at preschool age. A significant interaction was found between corpus callosum length in infancy and maternal use of positive discipline to determine child inhibition problems: The association between a relatively shorter corpus callosum in infancy and child inhibition problems was reduced in children who experienced more positive discipline. Our results point to the buffering potential of positive parenting for children with biological vulnerability. PMID:24028215
Kok, Rianne; Lucassen, Nicole; Bakermans-Kranenburg, Marian J; van IJzendoorn, Marinus H; Ghassabian, Akhgar; Roza, Sabine J; Govaert, Paul; Jaddoe, Vincent W; Hofman, Albert; Verhulst, Frank C; Tiemeier, Henning
Corpus Callosum Morphometrics in Young Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
This study assessed digital corpus callosum cross sectional areas in 3-4 year olds with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) compared to typically developing (TD) and developmentally delayed (DD) children. Though not different in absolute size compared to TD, ASD callosums were disproportionately small adjusted for increased ASD cerebral volume. ASD�
Boger-Megiddo, Inbal; Shaw, Dennis W. W.; Friedman, Seth D.; Sparks, Bobbi F.; Artru, Alan A.; Giedd, Jay N.; Dawson, Geraldine; Dager, Stephen R.
Pointing out Frequent Phrasal Verbs: A Corpus-Based Analysis
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
This study attempts to shed new light on one of the most notoriously challenging aspects of English language instruction--the English phrasal verbs. The highest frequency phrasal verb constructions in the 100-million-word British National Corpus are identified and analyzed. The findings indicate that a small subset of 20 lexical verbs combines�
Gardner, Dee; Davies, Mark
Corpus Callosum Differences Associated with Persistent Stuttering in Adults
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Recent studies have implicated anatomical differences in speech-relevant brain regions of adults who stutter (AWS) compared to normally fluent adults (NFA). The present study focused on the region of the corpus callosum (CC) which is involved in interhemispheric processing between the left and right cerebral hemispheres. Two-dimensional�
Choo, Ai Leen; Kraft, Shelly Jo; Olivero, William; Ambrose, Nicoline G.; Sharma, Harish; Chang, Soo-Eun; Loucks, Torrey M.
Corpus callosotomy in the treatment of secondary generalizing intractable epilepsy
Summary Over the past 5 years 9 patients underwent partial or complete corpus callosotomy for treatment of medically intractable epileptic seizures. A beneficial effect of the procedure was observed in 8 patients. Criteria for performance of the procedure included CT evidence of unilateral cerebral damage and non-localized epileptic foci in that hemisphere with secondary spread to the uninvolved side. The
Z. H. Rappaport; P. Lerman
Modifying Corpus Annotation to Support the Analysis of Learner Language
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
A crucial question for automatically analyzing learner language is to determine which grammatical information is relevant and useful for learner feedback. Based on knowledge about how learner language varies in its grammatical properties, we propose a framework for reusing analyses found in corpus annotation and illustrate its applicability to�
Dickinson, Markus; Lee, Chong Min
A Multidimensional Analysis of a Written L2 Spanish Corpus
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
The present study adds to our understanding of how learners employ lexical and grammatical phenomena to communicate in writing in different types of interlanguage discourse. A multidimensional (factor) analysis of a corpus of L2 Spanish writing (202,241 words) generated by second- and third-year, university-level learners was performed. The�
Asencion-Delaney, Yuly; Collentine, Joseph
The Enron Corpus: A New Dataset for Email Classification Research
Automated classication of email messages into user-specic folders and information extraction from chronologically ordered email streams have become interesting areas in text learning research. However, the lack of large benchmark collections has been an obstacle for studying the problems and evaluating the solutions. In this paper, we introduce the Enron corpus as a new test bed. We analyze its suitability
Bryan Klimt; Yiming Yang
Autism Traits in Individuals with Agenesis of the Corpus Callosum
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Autism spectrum disorders (ASD) have numerous etiologies, including structural brain malformations such as agenesis of the corpus callosum (AgCC). We sought to directly measure the occurrence of autism traits in a cohort of individuals with AgCC and to investigate the neural underpinnings of this association. We screened a large AgCC cohort (n =�
Lau, Yolanda C.; Hinkley, Leighton B. N.; Bukshpun, Polina; Strominger, Zoe A.; Wakahiro, Mari L. J.; Baron-Cohen, Simon; Allison, Carrie; Auyeung, Bonnie; Jeremy, Rita J.; Nagarajan, Srikantan S.; Sherr, Elliott H.; Marco, Elysa J.
A Corpus-Based Finite State Morphological Analyzer for Pashto
This paper provides details of the development of an inflectional morphological analyzer that can analyze different inflections of a Pashto verb, noun or adjective. The system is corpus-based. The developed system is capable to accept input in the form of a transliterated Pashto verbal, nominal or adjectival inflection; convert it to an Arabic-scripted Pashto equivalent; morphologically analyze the word and
Fatima Tuz Zuhra; Mohammad Abid Khan
This paper illustrates compiling a corpus of academic texts from the disciplines of economics and business administration, as the basis for designing a lexical component of the English for Academic Purposes (EAP) reading course and developing teaching materials for students intending to follow their university courses. The course is based on data-driven learning, and it is structured around a task-based
Yasemin Kirkg�z
Outcome in Prenatally Diagnosed Fetal Agenesis of the Corpus callosum
This study of the outcome and prognostic factors in prenatally diagnosed agenesis of the corpus callosum (ACC) was undertaken to see if there are any differences between subgroups, what relationship they have to neurodevelopmental outcome and whether this information aids the counselling of parents of fetuses with the condition. The outcome of 14 prenatally diagnosed fetuses with ACC and 61
P. W. A. Goodyear; C. M. Bannister; S. Russell; S. Rimmer
Corpus Planning and Codification in the Hebrew Revival.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Discusses the study of the unprecedented revival of the Hebrew language in Palestine during 1890-1914. The study focused on status planning but corpus planning also served as a critical component. Examines codification during the revitalization period. (Author/VWL)
Nahir, Moshe
An integrated pharmacokinetics ontology and corpus for text mining
Background Drug pharmacokinetics parameters, drug interaction parameters, and pharmacogenetics data have been unevenly collected in different databases and published extensively in the literature. Without appropriate pharmacokinetics ontology and a well annotated pharmacokinetics corpus, it will be difficult to develop text mining tools for pharmacokinetics data collection from the literature and pharmacokinetics data integration from multiple databases. Description A comprehensive pharmacokinetics ontology was constructed. It can annotate all aspects of in vitro pharmacokinetics experiments and in vivo pharmacokinetics studies. It covers all drug metabolism and transportation enzymes. Using our pharmacokinetics ontology, a PK-corpus was constructed to present four classes of pharmacokinetics abstracts: in vivo pharmacokinetics studies, in vivo pharmacogenetic studies, in vivo drug interaction studies, and in vitro drug interaction studies. A novel hierarchical three level annotation scheme was proposed and implemented to tag key terms, drug interaction sentences, and drug interaction pairs. The utility of the pharmacokinetics ontology was demonstrated by annotating three pharmacokinetics studies; and the utility of the PK-corpus was demonstrated by a drug interaction extraction text mining analysis. Conclusions The pharmacokinetics ontology annotates both in vitro pharmacokinetics experiments and in vivo pharmacokinetics studies. The PK-corpus is a highly valuable resource for the text mining of pharmacokinetics parameters and drug interactions.
You Should Have the Body: Understanding Habeas Corpus
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
English legal commentator William Blackstone described the writ of habeas corpus as a second Magna Carta, and Supreme Court Chief Justice John Marshall called it the "great writ." It has been part of the Anglo-American common law tradition since the Middle Ages. In the United States, it has been a source of tension between state and federal�
Landman, James
BREF, a large vocabulary spoken corpus for French
This paper presents some of the design considerations of BREF, a large read-speech corpus for French. BREF was designed to provide continuous speech data for the development of dictation machines, for the evaluation of continuous speech recognition systems (both speaker-dependent and speaker- independent), and for the study of phonological variations . The texts to be read were selected from 5
Lori F. Larnel; Jean-Luc Gauvain; Maxine Eskenazi
Building a Large Annotated Corpus of English: The Penn Treebank.
National Technical Information Service (NTIS)
As a result of this grant, the researchers have now published on CDROM a corpus of over 4 million words of running text annotated with part-of-speech (POS) tags, with over 3 million words of that material assigned skeletal grammatical structure. This mate...
M. Marcus
Corpus Linguistics, Network Analysis and Co-Occurrence Matrices
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
This article describes research undertaken in order to design a methodology for the reticular representation of knowledge of a specific discourse community. To achieve this goal, a representative corpus of the scientific production of the members of this discourse community (Universidad Politecnica de Valencia, UPV) was created. This article�
Stuart, Keith; Botella, Ana
Visualization of Prosodic Knowledge Using Corpus Driven MEMOInt Intonation Modelling
In this work we show how our intonation corpus driven intonation mod- elling methodology MEMOInt can help in the graphical visualization of the complex relationships between the different prosodic features which configure the intonational aspects of natural speech. MEMOInt has already been used successfully for the predic- tion of synthetic F0 contours in the presence of the usual data scarcity
David Escudero Mancebo; Valent�n Carde�oso-payo
Corpus Consultation and Advanced Learners' Writing Skills in French
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
In the rapidly changing environment of language learning and teaching, electronic literacies have an increasingly important role to play. While much research on new literacies focuses on the World Wide Web, the aim in this study is to investigate the importance of corpus consultation as a new type of literacy which is of particular relevance in�
Chambers, Angela; O'Sullivan, Ide
Ovarian failure and autoimmunity. Detection of autoantibodies directed against both the unoccupied luteinizing hormone/human chorionic gonadotropin receptor and the hormone-receptor complex of bovine corpus luteum.
We developed an ELISA system for the detection of human anti-ovarian antibodies. Bovine corpora lutea were extracted in PBS (pH 7.2) and fractionated by ultracentrifugation. Both the soluble fraction obtained after 80,000 g (S80) and the Triton-extracted membrane fraction (ST288) were used as antigens. Additionally, the luteinizing hormone (LH)/human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG) receptor was isolated by affinity chromatography (wheat germ agglutinin and LH-Sepharose) and also used as an antigen. In 7 of 14 patients with primary sterility and endometriosis a positive reaction was observed. Similarly, 6 of 16 patients with secondary sterility and endometriosis were also positive. Patients being stimulated for in vitro fertilization and presenting either primary or secondary sterility were positive in 5 of 22 and 6 of 16 cases, respectively. In the S80 test 41 of 60 sera presented IgG2 antibodies, whereas in the ST288 test 38 of 60 belonged to the IgG1 subclass. Kappa and lambda chains were equally distributed. Some patients could recognize the unoccupied LH/hCG receptor as an antigen, while others recognized only the complex formed by the hormone plus the hormone receptor. The S80 and ST288 antigens were isolated by affinity chromatography. Gel permeation of the purified antigens revealed in each case the presence of an antigen complex. The apparent molecular weight was between 2,000 and 36,000 D. Cross-reactivity studies using affinity-purified antibodies demonstrated an antigenic relationship of the membrane, soluble, and extractable fractions. NAc-(beta-1----4)-D-glucosaminide and -D-galactopyranoside were the main terminal glycosides.
Moncayo, H; Moncayo, R; Benz, R; Wolf, A; Lauritzen, C
A diffusion and T2 relaxation MRI study of the ovine lumbar intervertebral disc under compression in vitro
NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)
The ovine lumbar intervertebral disc is a useful model for the human lumbar disc. We present preliminary estimates of diffusion coefficients and T2 relaxation times in a pilot MRI study of the ovine lumbar intervertebral disc during uniaxial compression in vitro, and identify factors that hamper the ability to accurately monitor the temporal evolution of the effective diffusion tensor at high spatial resolution.
Drew, Simon C.; Silva, Pujitha; Crozier, Stuart; Pearcy, Mark J.
Orally administered ovine serum immunoglobulins modulate the intestinal levels of Lactobacillus and enterobacteria in the growing rat.
The aim was to determine whether orally administered ovine serum immunoglobulins modulate the gut microbiota in the growing rat. Thirty Sprague-Dawley male rats were used in a 21-d study and fed either a basal control diet (control; no immunoglobulin) or a similar diet containing freeze-dried ovine immunoglobulin (ovine Ig) with 15 individually fed rats per diet. Bacterial DNA isolated from ileal and colonic digesta were subjected to PCR-denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis (PCR-DGGE). In the ileum, the DGGE band number and diversity index were greater (P < 0.05) for rats fed the ovine Ig than those fed the control diet. The DNA sequencing of a selected DGGE band in the ovine Ig-fed rats revealed 99% similarity to the Lactobacillus strains. The quantitative PCR data revealed that supplementation of the diet with the ovine Ig fraction supported the growth of Lactobacillus and conversely decreased the number of enterobacteria in ileal and colonic digesta. Inclusion of the ovine Ig fraction led to a greater (P < 0.05) ratio for total Lactobacillus to total bacteria and total Lactobacillus to enterobacteria. The results from the present study show that dietary supplementation with ovine Ig may alter the intestinal environment by a specific enrichment of Lactobacillus strains and depletion of enterobacteria. PMID:23658346
Balan, P; Han, K-S; Lawley, B; Moughan, P J
Using multivariate statistical analysis to measure ovine temperament; stability of factor construction over time and between groups of animals
The ovine arena test in conjunction with multivariate statistical analysis (factor analysis) may be a means of measuring ovine temperament for practical purposes. Stability of factor construction over time and between groups of animals is considered to demonstrate trait consistency and is, therefore, one of the first steps in validating a temperament\\/personality test from this perspective. The aim of this
S. D. McBride; B. Wolf
Genetic architecture of gene expression in ovine skeletal muscle
Background In livestock populations the genetic contribution to muscling is intensively monitored in the progeny of industry sires and used as a tool in selective breeding programs. The genes and pathways conferring this genetic merit are largely undefined. Genetic variation within a population has potential, amongst other mechanisms, to alter gene expression via cis- or trans-acting mechanisms in a manner that impacts the functional activities of specific pathways that contribute to muscling traits. By integrating sire-based genetic merit information for a muscling trait with progeny-based gene expression data we directly tested the hypothesis that there is genetic structure in the gene expression program in ovine skeletal muscle. Results The genetic performance of six sires for a well defined muscling trait, longissimus lumborum muscle depth, was measured using extensive progeny testing and expressed as an Estimated Breeding Value by comparison with contemporary sires. Microarray gene expression data were obtained for longissimus lumborum samples taken from forty progeny of the six sires (4-8 progeny/sire). Initial unsupervised hierarchical clustering analysis revealed strong genetic architecture to the gene expression data, which also discriminated the sire-based Estimated Breeding Value for the trait. An integrated systems biology approach was then used to identify the major functional pathways contributing to the genetics of enhanced muscling by using both Estimated Breeding Value weighted gene co-expression network analysis and a differential gene co-expression network analysis. The modules of genes revealed by these analyses were enriched for a number of functional terms summarised as muscle sarcomere organisation and development, protein catabolism (proteosome), RNA processing, mitochondrial function and transcriptional regulation. Conclusions This study has revealed strong genetic structure in the gene expression program within ovine longissimus lumborum muscle. The balance between muscle protein synthesis, at the levels of both transcription and translation control, and protein catabolism mediated by regulated proteolysis is likely to be the primary determinant of the genetic merit for the muscling trait in this sheep population. There is also evidence that high genetic merit for muscling is associated with a fibre type shift toward fast glycolytic fibres. This study provides insight into mechanisms, presumably subject to strong artificial selection, that underpin enhanced muscling in sheep populations.
Epizootic of ovine congenital malformations associated with Schmallenberg virus infection.
Epizootic outbreaks of congenital malformations in sheep are rare and have, to the best of our knowledge, never been reported before in Europe. This paper describes relevant preliminary findings from the first epizootic outbreak of ovine congenital malformations in the Netherlands. Between 25 November and 20 December 2011, congenital malformations in newborn lambs on sheep farms throughout the country were reported to the Animal Health Service in Deventer. Subsequently, small ruminant veterinary specialists visited these farms and collected relevant information from farmers by means of questionnaires. The deformities varied from mild to severe, and ewes were reported to have given birth to both normal and deformed lambs; both male and female lambs were affected. Most of the affected lambs were delivered at term. Besides malformed and normal lambs, dummy lambs, unable to suckle, were born also on these farms. None of the ewes had shown clinical signs during gestation or at parturition. Dystocia was common, because of the lambs' deformities. Lambs were submitted for post-mortem examination, and samples of brain tissue were collected for virus detection. The main macroscopic findings included arthrogryposis, torticollis, scoliosis and kyphosis, brachygnathia inferior, and mild-to-marked hypoplasia of the cerebrum, cerebellum and spinal cord. Preliminary data from the first ten affected farms suggest that nutritional deficiencies, intoxication, and genetic factors are not likely to have caused the malformations. Preliminary diagnostic analyses of precolostral serum samples excluded border disease virus, bovine viral diarrhoea virus, and bluetongue virus. In December 2011, samples of brain tissue from 54 lambs were sent to the Central Veterinary Institute of Wageningen University Research, Lelystad. Real-time PCR detected the presence of a virus, provisionally named the Schmallenberg virus, in brain tissue from 22 of the 54 lambs, which originated from seven of eight farms that had submitted lambs for post-mortem examination. This Schmallenberg virus was first reported in Germany and seems to be related to the Shamonda, Aino, and Akabane viruses, all of which belong to the Simbu serogroup of the genus Orthobunyavirus of the family Bunyaviridae. These preliminary findings suggest that the Schmallenberg virus is the most likely cause of this epizootic of ovine congenital malformations, which is the first such outbreak reported in Europe. PMID:22393844
van den Brom, R; Luttikholt, S J M; Lievaart-Peterson, K; Peperkamp, N H M T; Mars, M H; van der Poel, W H M; Vellema, P
sup 77 Se NMR studies on ovine erythrocyte glutathione peroxidase
To facilitate {sup 77}Se NMR observation of the endogenous active site selenium in ovine erythrocyte glutathione peroxidase (GSHPx), lambs have been maintained on an artificial diet deficient in selenium and supplemented with 0.2 ppm 92atom% {sup 77}Se , as selenite. After 5 months, preparations of GSHPx showed that incorporation of selenium from the artificial diet represented 88% of the GSHPx selenium. Each monthly bleeding of two sheep routinely yielded 20mg of pure {sup 77}Se-enriched GSHPx. Limitations on the solubility of the enzyme have so far prevented observation of {sup 77}Se resonances from the intact enzyme. Upon denaturation, a broad resonance is observed at 277 ppm, indicating that the selenium is involved in mixed selenide sulfide bonds both inter and intramolecularly. Reduction of the SeS bonds with dithiothreitol resulted in an upfield shift of the {sup 77}Se resonance to {minus}212 ppm at pH 8 and {minus}55ppm at pH4.2, consistent with formation of Se- and SeH respectively. It is concluded that the selenium is most probably in the SeS or Se{sup {minus}} form in the intact enzyme. Relaxation time measurements were made at field strengths of 4.7 and 9.4T, which demonstrated the dominance of chemical shift anisotropy (CSA) relaxation for the selenium in GSHPx. A value of {le} 262 ppm was determined for the CSA of the iodoacetamide derivative of GSHPx.
Gettins, P.; Crews, B.C. (Vanderbilt Univ., Nashville, TN (United States))
Dynamic dorsoventral stiffness assessment of the ovine lumbar spine.
Posteroanterior spinal stiffness assessments are common in the evaluating patients with low back pain. The purpose of this study was to determine the effects of mechanical excitation frequency on dynamic lumbar spine stiffness. A computer-controlled voice coil actuator equipped with a load cell and LVDT was used to deliver an oscillatory dorsoventral (DV) mechanical force to the L3 spinous process of 15 adolescent Merino sheep. DV forces (48 N peak, approximately 10% body weight) were randomly applied at periodic excitation frequencies of 2.0, 6.0, 11.7 and a 0.5-19.7 Hz sweep. Force and displacement were recorded over a 13-22 s time interval. The in vivo DV stiffness of the ovine spine was frequency dependent and varied 3.7-fold over the 0.5-19.7 Hz mechanical excitation frequency range. Minimum and maximum DV stiffness (force/displacement) were 3.86+/-0.38 and 14.1+/-9.95 N/mm at 4.0 and 19.7 Hz, respectively. Stiffness values based on the swept-sine measurements were not significantly different from corresponding periodic oscillations (2.0 and 6.0 Hz). The mean coefficient of variation in the swept-sine DV dynamic stiffness assessment method was 15%, which was similar to the periodic oscillation method (10-16%). The results indicate that changes in mechanical excitation frequency and animal body mass modulate DV spinal stiffness. PMID:16376350
Keller, Tony S; Colloca, Christopher J
Cytokine release by ovine macrophages following infection with Chlamydia psittaci
Chlamydia psittaci is an obligate intracellular pathogen that causes abortion in both sheep and humans. The disease in sheep (but not humans) is characterized by a long-term persistent phase that appears to be under the control of interferon-gamma. However, nothing is known about cytokine induction that precedes the persistent phase in sheep. Primary alveolar lavage cells recovered from normal adult sheep were used to study cytokine production in the first 72 h of infection with C. psittaci. These cells were phenotypically characteristic of macrophages, being adherent, phagocytic, CD14+ and staining positive for non-specific esterase. In vitro infection of the macrophages with C. psittaci resulted in the release of IL-1?, IL-8 and granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor (GM-CSF) as measured by ovine-specific ELISAs. Heat-treated chlamydiae (1 h at 65�C) did not induce the release of IL-1?, but the release of IL-8 was similar to that induced by untreated organisms. The cells from different sheep varied most notably in their patterns of GM-CSF release in response to heat-treated and untreated organisms.
Entrican, G; Wilkie, R; Mcwaters, P; Scheerlinck, J-P; Wood, P R; Brown, J
Interaction of Corynebacterium pseudotuberculosis with ovine cells in vitro.
Caseous lymphadenitis is an infectious and contagious disease caused by Corynebacterium pseudotuberculosis, with a worldwide distribution and high prevalence in small ruminant populations. This disease causes significant economic loss in small ruminants through reduced meat, wool, and milk production. C. pseudotuberculosis can also affect horses, domestic and wild large ruminants, swine, and man. It is considered an occupational zoonosis for humans. As part of in vitro investigations of the pathogenesis of C. pseudotuberculosis, this study analyzed its capacity to adhere to and invade the FLK-BLV-044 cell line, derived from ovine embryonic kidney cells. C. pseudotuberculosis showed a measurable capacity to adhere to and invade this cell line with no significant differences between the four strains assessed. The incubation of the cell line at 4�C, pre-incubation with sugars, complete and heat inactivated antiserum, and heat-killed and ultraviolet-killed bacteria produced a significant (P < 0.05) decrease in the invasion efficiency or inability to invade the cell line. Plate counting and fluorescence studies showed intracellular bacteria for up to 6 days. Non-phagocytic cells may therefore act as a suitable environment for C. pseudotuberculosis survival and play a role in the spread of infection and/or maintenance of a carrier state. PMID:22732360
Valdivia, J; Real, F; Acosta, F; Acosta, B; D�niz, S; Ramos-Vivas, J; Elaamri, F; Padilla, D
Orally administered ovine serum immunoglobulins influence growth performance, organ weights, and gut morphology in growing rats.
In this study, our aim was to determine whether orally administered ovine serum Ig improved growth performance, organ weights, and gut morphology in growing rats and whether the method of manufacture of ovine serum Ig affected its bioactivity. Ninety Sprague-Dawley male rats were used in a 21-d growth study and were fed a basal control diet (BD; no Ig) and 5 test diets: spray-dried porcine plasma (SDPP), freeze-dried ovine Ig (FDOI), 2 concentrations of spray-dried ovine Ig (SDOI(100) and SDOI(150)), and inactivated ovine Ig (IOI). Diets were isocaloric and contained the same amount of the first limiting amino acids, methionine plus cysteine. The body weight gain:feed ratio was higher (P < 0.05) for the FDOI-fed rats than for the BD- and IOI-fed groups. FDOI rats had higher jejunum (P < 0.05) and colon weights (P < 0.05) at the end of the study than rats in the BD group. Compared with the SDOI(100)-fed group, the FDOI group supported higher (P < 0.05) duodenum and colon weights. For gut morphology, the FDOI and the BD and IOI groups differed (P < 0.05). The FDOI-fed rats had longer (P < 0.05) villi and greater villi surface areas in the duodenum, jejunum, and ileum than the rats fed SDOI(100). An ovine Ig fraction selectively improved growth performance, organ weight, and gut morphology in growing rats. Compared with spray-drying, a freeze-drying procedure appears to preserve a higher degree of immunological activity. PMID:19106311
Balan, Prabhu; Han, Kyoung-Sik; Rutherfurd, Shane M; Singh, Harjinder; Moughan, Paul J
Expression of the interferon tau inducible ubiquitin cross-reactive protein in the ovine uterus.
Ubiquitin cross-reactive protein (UCRP) is a 17-kDa protein that shows cross-reactivity with ubiquitin antisera and retains the carboxyl-terminal Leu-Arg-Gly-Gly amino acid sequence of ubiquitin that ligates to, and directs degradation of, cytosolic proteins. It has been reported that bovine endometrial UCRP is synthesized and secreted in response to conceptus-derived interferon-tau (IFNtau). In the present studies, UCRP mRNA and protein were detected in ovine endometrium. Ovine UCRP mRNA was detectable on Day 13, peaked at Day 15, and remained high through Day 19 of pregnancy. The UCRP mRNA was localized to the luminal epithelium (LE), stromal cells (ST) immediately beneath the LE, and shallow glandular epithelium (GE) on Day 13, but it extended to the deep GE, deep ST, and myometrium of uterine tissues by Day 15 of pregnancy. Western blotting revealed induction of UCRP in the endometrial extracts from pregnant, but not cyclic, ewes. Ovine UCRP was also detected in uterine flushings from Days 15 and 17 of pregnancy and immunoprecipitated from Day 17 pregnant endometrial explant-conditioned medium. Treatment of immortalized ovine LE cells with recombinant ovine (ro) IFNtau induced cytosolic expression of UCRP, and intrauterine injection of roIFNtau into ovariectomized cyclic ewes induced endometrial expression of UCRP mRNA. These results are the first to describe temporal and spatial alterations in the cellular localization of UCRP in the ruminant uterus. Collectively, UCRP is synthesized and secreted by the ovine endometrium in response to IFNtau during early pregnancy. Because UCRP is present in the uterus and uterine flushings, it may regulate endometrial proteins associated with establishment and maintenance of early pregnancy in ruminants. PMID:10377064
Johnson, G A; Spencer, T E; Hansen, T R; Austin, K J; Burghardt, R C; Bazer, F W
Gastric corpus polyps associated with Proton Pump Inhibitors therapy.
The prevalence of Gastroesophageal Reflux Disease (GERD) is rapidly rising in Asia. We describe here a case of 51 years old man who had surgery for esophageal leiomyoma and received long-term therapy with Proton Pump Inhibitors (PPIs) for persisting reflux symptoms. On Esophago-Gastroduodenoscopy (EGD) several sessile polyps were seen in the gastric corpus. Earlier EGD done 15 years back had not demonstrated those polyps. Sections revealed polypoid fragments of glandular epithelium with dilated glands and negative histology for H. pylori. Polymerase chain reaction for 16S ribosomal RNA gene (16S rRNA PCR) of H. pylori was also negative. This is the first report originating from an Asian country describing Fundal Gland Polyps (FGPs) in the corpus of stomach rather than fundus in a patient on long-term PPI therapy. PMID:18460247
Yakoob, Javed; Abbas, Zaigham; Jafri, Wasim; Ahmad, Zubair
Frequency of Basic English Grammatical Structures: A Corpus Analysis
Many recent models of language comprehension have stressed the role of distributional frequencies in determining the relative accessibility or ease of processing associated with a particular lexical item or sentence structure. However, there exist relatively few comprehensive analyses of structural frequencies, and little consideration has been given to the appropriateness of using any particular set of corpus frequencies in modeling human language. We provide a comprehensive set of structural frequencies for a variety of written and spoken corpora, focusing on structures that have played a critical role in debates on normal psycholinguistics, aphasia, and child language acquisition, and compare our results with those from several recent papers to illustrate the implications and limitations of using corpus data in psycholinguistic research.
Roland, Douglas; Dick, Frederic; Elman, Jeffrey L.
Autism traits in individuals with agenesis of the corpus callosum
Autism spectrum disorders (ASD) have numerous etiologies, including structural brain malformations such as agenesis of the corpus callosum (AgCC). We sought to directly measure the occurrence of autism traits in a cohort of individuals with AgCC and to investigate the neural underpinnings of this association. We screened a large AgCC cohort (n = 106) with the Autism Spectrum Quotient (AQ) and found that 45% of children, 35% of adolescents, and 18% of adults exceeded the predetermined autism-screening cut-off. Interestingly, performance on the AQ�s imagination domain was inversely correlated with magnetoencephalography measures of resting-state functional connectivity in the right superior temporal gyrus. Individuals with AgCC should be screened for ASD and disorders of the corpus callosum should be considered in autism diagnostic evaluations as well.
Lau, Yolanda C.; Hinkley, Leighton B. N.; Bukshpun, Polina; Strominger, Zoe A.; Wakahiro, Mari L. J.; Baron-Cohen, Simon; Allison, Carrie; Auyeung, Bonnie; Jeremy, Rita J.; Nagarajan, Srikantan S.; Sherr, Elliott H.; Marco, Elysa J.
Lateral Surgical Approach to Lumbar Intervertebral Discs in an Ovine Model
The sheep is becoming increasingly used as a large animal model for preclinical spine surgery studies. Access to the ovine lumbar intervertebral discs has traditionally been via an anterior or anterolateral approach, which requires larger wound incisions and, at times, significant abdominal retraction. We present a new minimally invasive operative technique for a far-lateral approach to the ovine lumbar spine that allows for smaller incisions, excellent visualisation of intervertebral discs, and minimal abdominal retraction and is well tolerated by animals with minimal morbidity.
Oehme, David; Goldschlager, Tony; Rosenfeld, Jeffrey; Danks, Andrew; Ghosh, Peter; Gibbon, Anne; Jenkin, Graham
Selectively diminished corpus callosum fibers in congenital central hypoventilation syndrome
Congenital central hypoventilation syndrome (CCHS), a condition associated with mutations in the PHOX2B gene, is characterized by loss of breathing drive during sleep, insensitivity to CO2 and O2, and multiple somatomotor, autonomic, neuropsychological, and ophthalmologic deficits, including impaired intrinsic and extrinsic eye muscle control. Brain structural studies show injury in peri-callosal regions and the corpus callosum (CC), which has the
R. Kumar; P. M. Macey; M. A. Woo; R. M. Harper
Corpus Clouds - Facilitating Text Analysis by Means of Visualizations
\\u000a Large text corpora are a main language resource for the human-driven analysis of linguistic phenomena. With the ever increasing\\u000a amount of data, it is vital to find ways to help people understand the data, and visualization techniques provide one way\\u000a to do that. Corpus Clouds is a program which provides visualizations of different types of frequency information dynamically\\u000a derived from
Chris Culy; Verena Lyding
A Corpus-Based Approach to Language Learning
A CORPUS-BASED APPROACH TO LANGUAGE LEARNINGEric BrillSupervisor: Mitchell MarcusOne goal of computational linguistics is to discover a method for assigning a rich structural annotation to sentences that are presented as simple linear strings of words; meaning can be much more readily extracted from a structurally annotated sentence than from asentence with no structural information. Also, structure allows for a more
Eric Brill
Anaphoric relations in the clinical narrative: corpus creation
Objective The long-term goal of this work is the automated discovery of anaphoric relations from the clinical narrative. The creation of a gold standard set from a cross-institutional corpus of clinical notes and high-level characteristics of that gold standard are described. Methods A standard methodology for annotation guideline development, gold standard annotations, and inter-annotator agreement (IAA) was used. Results The gold standard annotations resulted in 7214 markables, 5992 pairs, and 1304 chains. Each report averaged 40 anaphoric markables, 33 pairs, and seven chains. The overall IAA is high on the Mayo dataset (0.6607), and moderate on the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC) dataset (0.4072). The IAA between each annotator and the gold standard is high (Mayo: 0.7669, 0.7697, and 0.9021; UPMC: 0.6753 and 0.7138). These results imply a quality corpus feasible for system development. They also suggest the complementary nature of the annotations performed by the experts and the importance of an annotator team with diverse knowledge backgrounds. Limitations Only one of the annotators had the linguistic background necessary for annotation of the linguistic attributes. The overall generalizability of the guidelines will be further strengthened by annotations of data from additional sites. This will increase the overall corpus size and the representation of each relation type. Conclusion The first step toward the development of an anaphoric relation resolver as part of a comprehensive natural language processing system geared specifically for the clinical narrative in the electronic medical record is described. The deidentified annotated corpus will be available to researchers.
Chapman, Wendy W; Zheng, Jiaping; Crowley, Rebecca S
Icariin on relaxation effect of corpus cavernosum smooth muscle
NO-cGMP pathway in penile corpus cavernosal smooth muscle plays an important role in penile erection. The level of cGMP is\\u000a regulated by a balance between the rate of synthesis by guanylate cyclase and the rate of hydrolytic breakdown to guanosine\\u000a 5? monophosphate (GMP) by phosphodiesterase 5(PDE5). Icariin is isolated from natural drug Epimedii herba, it is shown to\\u000a have the
Zhongcheng Xin; Kim Euikyung; Zhenji Tian; Guiting Lin; Yinglu Guo
A comparative evaluation of modern English corpus grammatical annotation schemes
Many English Corpus Linguistics projects reported in ICAME Journal and else-where involve grammatical analysis or tagging of English texts (eg Atwell 1983, Leech et al 1983, Booth 1985, Owen 1987, Souter 1989a, O'Donoghue 1991, Belmore 1991, Kyt? and Voutilainen 1995, Aarts 1996, Qiao and Huang 1998). Each new project has to review existing tagging schemes, and decide which to adopt
Eric Atwell; George Demetriou; John Hughes; Amanda Schiffrin; Clive Souter; Sean Wilcock
Statistical shape analysis of the corpus callosum in Schizophrenia
We present a statistical shape-analysis framework for characterizing and comparing morphological variation of the corpus callosum. The midsagittal boundary of the corpus callosum is represented by a closed curve and analyzed using an invariant shape representation. The shape space of callosal curves is endowed with a Riemannian metric. Shape distances are given by the length of shortest paths (geodesics) that are invariant to shape-confounding transformations. The statistical framework enables computation of shape averages and covariances on the shape space in an intrinsic manner (unique to the shape space). The statistical framework makes use of the tangent principal component approach to achieve dimension reduction on the space of corpus callosum shapes. The advantages of this approach are � it is fully automatic, invariant, and avoids the use of landmarks to define shapes. We applied our method to determine the effects of sex, age, schizophrenia and schizophrenia-related genetic liability on callosal shape in a large sample of patients and controls and their first-degree relatives (N=218). Results showed significant age, sex, and schizophrenia effects on both global and local callosal shape structure.
Joshi, Shantanu H.; Narr, Katherine L.; Philips, Owen R.; Nuechterlein, Keith H.; Asarnow, Robert F.; Toga, Arthur W.; Woods, Roger P.
[Agenesis of the corpus callosum. Neuropathologic study and physiopathologic hypotheses].
The neuropathological study of corpus callosum agenesis requires a two-phase approach: first it should analyze the putative causal factors, i.e. absence of callosal neurons, commissuration inability or synapse remodelling defect; secondly it has to detect any morphogenetic effects stemming from the absence of commissure such as nonregression of archicortical structures, ventricular enlargement or possible invasion of the remaining telencephaplic commissure by callosal neurons. Absence of callosal neurons due to abnormal corticogenesis gives rise to corpus callosum agenesis without callosal axon, that is without Probst's bundles. Conversely, corpus callosum agenesis occurring secondary to a commissuration default is associated with the presence of callosal axons which travel along the midline instead of crossing, that leads to the formation of Probst's bundles. This inability to cross the midline could be secondary to an obstacle, such as lipoma or as interhemispheric cysts, or primitive due to axonal guidance disturbance. In the latter situation, the commissural defect could affect the other cerebral commissures i.e. anterior or hippocampal commissures, or could become integrated into a more diffuse midline pathology involving both cerebral and extracerebral structures. Finally, it could be assumed that a synapse remodelling defect could lead to atrophy or hypertrophy of the commissure, that occurs in the absence of white matter pathology. PMID:9757326
Gelot, A; Lewin, F; Moraine, C; Pompidou, A
Comparing English Vocabulary in a Spoken Learner Corpus with a Native Speaker Corpus: Pedagogical Implications Arising from an Empirical Study in Japan
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Insights from corpus linguistics have come to be seen as having a significant impact in second language pedagogy. Learner corpora, or collections of texts spoken or written by non-native speakers (NNS) of a language, are now being used for the purposes of enhancing language teaching. Specifically, by comparing the corpus of NNS with native�
Shirato, Junko; Stapleton, Paul
Agenesis of the corpus callosum and autism: a comprehensive comparison.
The corpus callosum, with its ?200 million axons, remains enigmatic in its contribution to cognition and behaviour. Agenesis of the corpus callosum is a congenital condition in which the corpus callosum fails to develop; such individuals exhibit localized deficits in non-literal language comprehension, humour, theory of mind and social reasoning. These findings together with parent reports suggest that behavioural and cognitive impairments in subjects with callosal agenesis may overlap with the profile of autism spectrum disorders, particularly with respect to impairments in social interaction and communication. To provide a comprehensive test of this hypothesis, we directly compared a group of 26 adults with callosal agenesis to a group of 28 adults with a diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder but no neurological abnormality. All participants had full-scale intelligence quotient scores >78 and groups were matched on age, handedness, and gender ratio. Using the Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule together with current clinical presentation to assess autistic symptomatology, we found that 8/26 (about a third) of agenesis subjects presented with autism. However, more formal diagnosis additionally involving recollective parent-report measures regarding childhood behaviour showed that only 3/22 met complete formal criteria for an autism spectrum disorder (parent reports were unavailable for four subjects). We found no relationship between intelligence quotient and autism symptomatology in callosal agenesis, nor evidence that the presence of any residual corpus callosum differentiated those who exhibited current autism spectrum symptoms from those who did not. Relative to the autism spectrum comparison group, parent ratings of childhood behaviour indicated children with agenesis were less likely to meet diagnostic criteria for autism, even for those who met autism spectrum criteria as adults, and even though there was no group difference in parent report of current behaviours. The findings suggest two broad conclusions. First, they support the hypothesis that congenital disruption of the corpus callosum constitutes a major risk factor for developing autism. Second, they quantify specific features that distinguish autistic behaviour associated with callosal agenesis from autism more generally. Taken together, these two findings also leverage specific questions for future investigation: what are the distal causes (genetic and environmental) determining both callosal agenesis and its autistic features, and what are the proximal mechanisms by which absence of the callosum might generate autistic symptomatology? PMID:24771497
Paul, Lynn K; Corsello, Christina; Kennedy, Daniel P; Adolphs, Ralph
Collagen fibril orientation in ovine and bovine leather affects strength: a small angle X-ray scattering (SAXS) study.
There is a large difference in strength between ovine and bovine leather. The structure and arrangement of fibrous collagen in leather and the relationship between collagen structure and leather strength has until now been poorly understood. Synchrotron based SAXS is used to characterize the fibrous collagen structure in a series of ovine and bovine leathers and to relate it to tear strength. SAXS gives quantitative information on the amount of fibrous collagen, the orientation (direction and spread) of the collagen microfibrils, and the d-spacing of the collagen. The amount of collagen varies through the thickness of the leather from the grain to the corium, with a greater concentration of crystalline collagen measured toward the corium side. The orientation index (OI) is correlated strongly with strength in ovine leather and between ovine and bovine leathers. Stronger leather has the fibrils arranged mostly parallel to the plane of the leather surface (high OI), while weaker leather has more out-of-plane fibrils (low OI). With the measurement taken parallel to the animal's backbone, weak (19.9 N/mm) ovine leather has an OI of 0.422 (0.033), stronger (39.5 N/mm) ovine leather has an OI of 0.452 (0.033), and bovine leather with a strength of (61.5 N/mm) has an OI of 0.493 (0.016). The d-spacing profile through leather thickness also varies according to leather strength, with little variation being detected in weak ovine leather (average=64.3 (0.5) nm), but with strong ovine leather and bovine leather (which is even stronger) exhibiting a dip in d-spacing (from 64.5 nm at the edges dropping to 62 nm in the center). This work provides a clear understanding of a nanostructural characteristic of ovine and bovine leather that leads to differences in strength. PMID:21854072
Basil-Jones, Melissa M; Edmonds, Richard L; Cooper, Sue M; Haverkamp, Richard G
Ovine reference materials and assays for prion genetic testing
Background Genetic predisposition to scrapie in sheep is associated with several variations in the peptide sequence of the prion protein gene (PRNP). DNA-based tests for scoring PRNP codons are essential tools for eradicating scrapie and for evaluating rare alleles for increased resistance to disease. In addition to those associated with scrapie, there are dozens more PRNP polymorphisms that may occur in various flocks. If not accounted for, these sites may cause base-pair mismatching with oligonucleotides used in DNA testing. Thus, the fidelity of scrapie genetic testing is enhanced by knowing the position and frequency of PRNP polymorphisms in targeted flocks. Results An adaptive DNA sequencing strategy was developed to determine the 771 bp PRNP coding sequence for any sheep and thereby produce a consensus sequence for targeted flocks. The strategy initially accounted for 43 known polymorphisms and facilitates the detection of unknown polymorphisms through an overlapping amplicon design. The strategy was applied to 953 sheep DNAs from multiple breeds in U.S. populations. The samples included two sets of reference sheep: one set for standardizing PRNP genetic testing and another set for discovering polymorphisms, estimating allele frequencies, and determining haplotype phase. DNA sequencing revealed 16 previously unreported polymorphisms, including a L237P variant on the F141 haplotype. Two mass spectrometry multiplex assays were developed to score five codons of interest in U.S. sheep: 112, 136, 141, 154, and 171. Reference tissues, DNA, trace files, and genotypes from this project are publicly available for use without restriction. Conclusion Identifying ovine PRNP polymorphisms in targeted flocks is critical for designing efficient scrapie genetic testing systems. Together with reference DNA panels, this information facilitates training, certification, and development of new tests and knowledge that may expedite the eradication of sheep scrapie.
Decellularized ovine arteries as small-diameter vascular grafts.
Atherosclerosis and its complications still represent the leading cause of death in the developed countries. While autologous blood vessels may be regarded as the best solution for peripheral and coronary bypass, they are unavailable in most patients. Even though tissue engineering techniques are often applied to the development of small-diameter vascular grafts, limiting factors of this approach are represented by the lack of essential extracellular matrix proteins and/or poor biomechanical properties of the scaffolds used. Along these lines, the aim of this study was to develop a decellularization protocol for ovine carotids to be used as suitable small-diameter vascular grafts. Samples were treated either with sodium dodecyl sulphate (SDS) or with Trypsin and Triton X-100; a final nuclease digestion was performed for both protocols. Morphological analyses demonstrate complete removal of nuclei and cellular components in treated vessels, also confirmed by significant reduction in wall thickness and DNA content. Essential extracellular matrix proteins such as collagen, elastin, and fibronectin are well preserved after decellularization. From a mechanical point of view, Trypsin and Triton X-100 treated arteries show elastic modules and compliance comparable to native carotids, whereas the use of SDS makes samples stiffer, with a significant decrease in the compliance mean value and an increase in longitudinal and circumferential Young's modules. It�is demonstrated that the treatment where Trypsin and Triton X-100 are combined guarantees complete decellularization of carotids, with no significant alteration of biomechanical and structural properties, thus preserving a suitable environment for adhesion, proliferation, and migration of cells. PMID:25050540
Mancuso, L; Gualerzi, A; Boschetti, F; Loy, F; Cao, G
Development of an Ovine Model of Pediatric Complete Heart Block
Background Complete heart block is a significant clinical problem that can limit the quality of life in affected children. To understand the pathophysiology of this condition and provide for development of novel therapies, we sought to establish a large animal model of permanent, pacemaker-dependent atrioventricular block (AVB) that mimics the size and growth characteristics of pediatric patients. Materials and Methods We utilized 9 immature lambs weighing 10.5 � 1.4 kg. After implantation of dual-chamber pacemaker devices with fixed leads, AVB was produced by interrupting His-bundle conduction using radio-frequency ablation at the base of the non-coronary cusp of the aortic valve. Ablations (30 to 60 seconds in duration) were performed under fluoroscopic guidance with electrophysiological monitoring. Interrogation of pacemakers and electrocardiography (ECG) determined the persistence of heart block. Ovine hearts were also examined immunohistochemically for localization of conduction tissue. Results AVB was produced in 8 animals using an atypical approach from the left side of the heart. One animal died due to ventricular fibrillation during ablation proximal to the tricuspid annulus and one lamb was sacrificed post-operatively due to stroke. 4 sheep were kept for long-term follow-up (109.8 � 32.9 days) and required continuous ventricular pacing attributable to lasting AVB, despite significant increases in body weight and size. Conclusions We have created a large animal model of pediatric complete heart block that is stable and technically practicable. We anticipate that this lamb model will allow for advancement of cell-based and other innovative treatments to repair complete heart block in children.
Sill, Bjoern; Roy, Nathalie; Hammer, Peter E.; Triedman, John K.; Sigg, Daniel C.; Kelly, Mark F.; Nedder, Arthur; Dunning, Patricia S.; Cowan, Douglas B.
Prenatal Testosterone and Dihydrotestosterone Exposure Disrupts Ovine Testes Development
Androgens play important roles during the first trimester of intrauterine life, coinciding with genital tract differentiation, during virilization and maintenance of secondary male characteristics and during initiation of spermatogenesis. Little is known about the impact of inappropriate exposure to excess androgens during fetal development on male sexual maturation and reproduction. The objectives of this study were to determine the effects of prenatal 5?-dihydrotestosterone (DHT) and testosterone (T) treatment during ovine sexual differentiation on post-pubertal testicular formation and subsequent potential for fertility as assessed by epididymal sperm characteristics. Rams prenatally treated with T exhibited increased testicular weight relative to age-matched controls (C) and prenatal DHT-treated rams (P<0.05), as well as elevated total and free T concentrations compared to DHT-treated rams (P=0.07 and P<0.05, respectively). The percentage of progressively motile sperm from the epididymis was significantly reduced in prenatal DHT-treated but not T-treated rams compared to C rams (P<0.05). The T-treated rams had a greater number of germ cell layers than DHT-treated rams, but comparable to the controls. Prenatal T-treated rams had significantly larger seminiferous tubule diameter, and lumen diameter compared to prenatal DHT-treated (P<0.05). Significantly more prenatal DHT- and T-treated rams (P<0.05) had occluded tubule lumen than C rams. Findings from this study demonstrate that exposure to excess T/DHT during male fetal sexual differentiation have differential effects on post-pubertal testicular size, seminiferous tubule size and function, sperm motility, and T concentrations.
Bormann, Charles L.; Smith, Gary D.; Padmanabhan, Vasantha; Lee, Theresa M.
Myometrial angiotensin II receptor subtypes change during ovine pregnancy.
Although regulation of angiotensin II receptor (AT) binding in vascular and uterine smooth muscle is similar in nonpregnant animals, studies suggest it may differ during pregnancy. We, therefore, examined binding characteristics of myometrial AT receptors in nulliparous (n = 7), pregnant (n = 24, 110-139 d of gestation), and postpartum (n = 21, 5 to > or = 130 d) sheep and compared this to vascular receptor binding. We also determined if changes in myometrial binding reflect alterations in receptor subtype. By using plasma membrane preparations from myometrium and medial layer of abdominal aorta, we determined receptor density and affinity employing radioligand binding; myometrial AT receptor subtypes were assessed by inhibiting [125I]-ANG II binding with subtype-specific antagonists. Compared to nulliparous ewes, myometrial AT receptor density fell approximately 90% during pregnancy (1,486 +/- 167 vs. 130 +/- 16 fmol/mg protein) and returned to nulliparous values > or = 4 wk postpartum; vascular binding was unchanged. Nulliparous myometrium expressed predominantly AT2 receptors (AT1/AT2 congruent to 15%/85%), whereas AT1 receptors predominated during pregnancy (AT1/AT2 congruent to 80%/20%). By 5 d postpartum AT1/AT2 congruent to 40%/60%, and > 4 wk postpartum AT2 receptors again predominated (AT1/AT2 congruent to 15%/85%). In studies of ANG II-induced force generation, myometrium from pregnant ewes (n = 10) demonstrated dose-dependent increases in force (P < 0.001), which were inhibited with an AT1 receptor antagonist. Postpartum myometrial responses were less at doses > or = 10(-9) M (P < 0.05) and unaffected by AT2 receptor antagonists. Vascular and myometrial AT receptor binding are differentially regulated during ovine pregnancy, the latter primarily reflecting decreases in AT2 receptor expression. This is the first description of reversible changes in AT receptor subtype in adult mammals.
Cox, B E; Ipson, M A; Shaul, P W; Kamm, K E; Rosenfeld, C R
Difference between smokers and non-smokers in the corpus callosum volume.
The purpose of this study was to analyze the effects of smoking on corpus callosum volume. In addition, the relationships between smoking duration, smoking frequency, and corpus callosum volume were analyzed. Magnetic resonance brain images were acquired for 58 normal Korean men (30 smokers (age 32.82�14.12 years) and 28 non-smokers (age 35.49�13.11 years)). The corpus callosum volume was measured using Brain Voyager 2000S/W and was normalized by intracranical volume, which was calculated using cerebral sizes. The corpus callosum volume for smokers was significantly smaller than that for non-smokers. Also, there was a negative correlation between corpus callosum volume and smoking duration. The change of white matter volume (e.g., corpus callosum) might be a primary factor for characterizing the effects of smoking. PMID:20804817
Choi, Mi-Hyun; Lee, Su-Jeong; Yang, Jae-Woong; Kim, Ji-Hye; Choi, Jin-Seung; Park, Jang-Yeon; Jun, Jae-Hoon; Tack, Gye-Rae; Lee, Beob-Yi; Kim, Hyun-Jun; Chung, Soon-Cheol
Pharmacological characterisation of oxytocin binding sites in the ovine pineal gland.
Both oxytocin (OT) and [Arg8]vasopressin (AVP) are found within the ovine pineal gland and may function to modulate melatonin secretion. However, the receptors which mediate the actions of these peptides have yet to be characterised. Preliminary studies of ovine pineal microsomal cell membranes showed binding of [3H]OT (79+/-9 fmol/mg) 10 times greater than binding of [3H]AVP (8+/-3 fmol/mg). Saturation studies using either [3H]OT or the selective OT receptor ligand [125I]d(CH2)5[Tyr(Me)2,Thr4,Orn8,Tyr-NH2(9)]-vasotocin (OTA) revealed high affinity, single site kinetics (Kd = 1.72+/-0.32 nM; Bmax = 68+/-18 fmol/mg). Binding of [3H]AVP was more effectively displaced by OT than AVP, suggesting that binding may be due to cross-reaction with the OT binding site. Displacement of [3H]OT using a range of selective agonists and antagonist analogues revealed pharmacological characteristics similar to [3H]OT binding sites in the ovine and rat uterus. These data show that the ovine pineal expresses a high density of OT binding sites which may participate in the regulation of melatonin secretion. PMID:9250578
Rahmani, H R; Muge, D K; Ingram, C D
Previous studies demonstrate that gonadotroph responsiveness to GnRH, GnRH binding, and the apparent number of GnRH receptors are all increased by 17B-estradiol (E) or inhibin (IN) in ovine pituitary cultures. rogesterone attenuates these effects. o explore differences between th...
Uterine Milk Protein, a Novel Activin-Binding Protein, Is Present in Ovine Allantoic Fluid
Activins are pluripotent growth factors that have recently been shown to be present in placental and fetal membrane preparations. Our previous studies have identified and purified activin A from ovine amniotic and allantoic fluids. In this study, ligand blots of side frac- tions from the isolation of activin A from allantoic fluid suggested the presence of activin-binding proteins other than
Genetic polymorphism of ovine milk proteins: its influence on technological properties of milk � a review
Current knowledge of the genetic polymorphism in ovine milk proteins including heterogeneity detected and their relationships with the technological properties of milk is reviewed. In the casein fraction a great heterogeneity has been determined either by the presence of genetic variants or other factors such as a discrete phosphorylation level and the coexistence of protein forms of different chain length.
Lourdes Amigo; Isidra Recio; Mercedes Ramos
Ovine Echinococcus granulosus transmission dynamics in the province of Rio Negro, Argentina, 1980�1999
In this work, the impact of a hydatidosis control programme for dogs on the intermediate ovine host was specifically analysed to determine the levels of prevalence achieved and the dynamics of parasite transmission, as well as to evaluate the quality of diagnostic systems in slaughterhouses. A field study was conducted in four slaughterhouses (Valcheta, Los Menucos, Jacobacci, Bariloche) that process
Edmundo Larrieu; Mar??a T Costa; Gustavo Cantoni; Rosa Alvarez; Laura Cavagion; Jos� L Labanchi; Ricardo Bigatti; Daniel Araya; Eduardo Herrero; Emiliano Alvarez; Sergio Mancini; Perla Cabrera
Brain damage and hypoxia in an ovine fetal chronic cocaine model
Objective: To assess the development of brain damage in an ovine fetal chronic cocaine model. To evaluate the effect of isolated hypoxic tests on this model and to correlate hemodynamic findings (brain-sparing effect) following fetal hypoxia and the occurrence of brain damage. Study design: Fifteen ewes were divided into a control group (n=7) and a cocaine treated group (n=8). From
R. N. Laurini; B. Arbeille; C. Gemberg; S. Akoka; A. Locatelli; J. Lansac; Ph. Arbeille
Characterisation and developmental potential of ovine bone marrow derived mesenchymal stem cells
Since discovery, significant interest has been generated in the potential application of mesenchymal stem cells or multipotential stromal cells (MSC) for tissue regeneration and repair, due to their proliferative and multipotential capabilities. Although the sheep is often used as a large animal model for translating potential therapies for musculoskeletal injury and repair, the characteristics of MSC from ovine bone marrow
Rosa C. McCarty; Stan Gronthos; Andrew C. Zannettino; Bruce K. Foster; Cory J. Xian
Extracellular matrix regulates ovine granulosa cell survival, proliferation and steroidogenesis: relationships between cell shape and function
The extracellular matrix (ECM), constituting the follicular basal lamina and present also between follicular cells and in the follicular fluid, is believed to regulate granulosa cell (GC) function during follicular development. Ovine GCs isolated from small (1-3 mm in diameter) or large (4- 7 mm in diameter) antral follicles were cultured on various pure ECM components (type I collagen, fibronectin,
C Huet; C Pisselet; B Mandon-P�pin; P Monget; D Monniaux
Affinity-Purified, Mixed Monospecific Crotalid Antivenom Ovine Fab for the Treatment of Crotalid Venom Poisoning
Study objective: To test the efficacy and safety of a new antivenom, affinity-purified, mixed monospecific crotalid antivenom ovine Fab, in human subjects with minimal or moderate crotalid envenomation. Methods: We conducted a prospective multicenter clinical trial of 11 patients 10 years or older with progressive manifestations after mild to moderate crotalid snakebite. After giving their consent, subjects received four to
Richard C Dart; Steve A Seifert; Leslie Carroll; Richard F Clark; Edward Hall; Leslie V Boyer-Hassen; Steven C Curry; Craig S Kitchens; Ray A Garcia
P2E-8 Ex Vivo Acoustic Radiation Force Impulse Imaging of an Ovine Heart Model
Acoustic radiation force impulse (ARFI) imaging with an intra-cardiac probe has been demonstrated to be a suitable modality to monitor the progress of radiofrequency ablation (RFA) procedures. In order to continue studies while allowing increased control and repeatability in the procedure, an ovine heart model was used to artificially simulate a beating heart. The interior of the heart remained accessible
Stephen J. Hsu; Stephen W. Smith; Julia L. Hubert; Gregg E. Trahey
Antimicrobial Drug Susceptibility of Staphylococcus aureus Strains Isolated from Bovine and Ovine Mammary Glands
The activity of selected antimicrobial agents against Staphylococcus aureus was determined with the agar disk diffusiontest todetermine thediameter ofthe zone of inhibition and the E-test for determination of the minimal inhibitory concentration (MIC). The 92 S. aureus strains used in this study were isolated from bovine (n = 76) and ovine (n = 16) intramammary infec- tions. Four antibiotics, which
A. Pengov; S. Ceru
Clinical outcomes following the use of ovine forestomach matrix (endoform dermal template) to treat chronic wounds.
The suitability of the ovine forestomach matrix (OFM) for the treatment of recalcitrant wounds was evaluated in 19 patients. At 12 weeks, 50% of wounds had closed, and the average reduction in surface area was 73.4%. Promising outcomes of this initial series support the clinical consideration of OFM. PMID:23507693
Liden, Brock A; May, Barnaby C H
Sequence variation at a Bmy I\\/ Rsa I restriction site in ovine herpes virus 2
DNA samples extracted from a bovine brain, one blood and one buffy coat sample from three cattle with malignant catarrhal fever, and from 47 samples of pooled sheep sera, were amplified by nested polymerase chain reaction (PCR) using primers specific for ovine herpes virus 2 (OHV-2). Confirmation of the specificity of the amplified DNA segment by restriction enzyme analysis with
A. M Masters; D. A Galvin; D. V Cousins
Lipoma of corpus callosum associated with dysraphic lesions and trisomy 13
We report on a further case of corpus callosal lipoma and frontal cranial defects. Most cases in the literature of corpus callosal lipoma in association with {open_quotes}dysraphic{close_quotes} lesions have been frontal in location. Malformation of the corpus callosum is said to be associated with 50% of these lipomas. Trisomy 13 was confirmed by the 13q14 cosmid probe on paraffin-embedded liver tissue. 19 refs., 5 figs.
Wainwright, H.; Bowen, R.; Radcliffe, M. [Univ. of Cape Town Medical School (South Africa)
Subject Preference, Head Animacy and Lexical Cues: A Corpus Study of Relative Clauses in Chinese
\\u000a This research examines factors that influence the frequency and ease of processing of relative clauses (RCs) in Mandarin Chinese.\\u000a We conduct a corpus study of RCs with transitive action verbs in the Chinese Treebank corpus 5.0 and investigate two factors\\u000a that have been argued to influence processing ease: RC type and classifier position. Our corpus analyses show that subject-modifying\\u000a RCs
Fuyun Wu; Elsi Kaiser; Elaine Andersen
Culture of Ovine IVM/IVF Zygotes in Isolated Mouse Oviduct: Effect of Basal Medium
Background The basal medium that supports Isolated Mouse Oviduct (IMO) is important for supporting embryo development and quality. Methods The culture of ovine IVM/IVF zygotes was done in IMO using SOFaaciBSA and SOFaaBSA as basal medium of IMO and in SOFaaBSA alone as control. For preparation of IMO mature inbred strain C57BL/6 female mice were synchronized and mated with vasectomized males. The females with vaginal plug were sacrificed and the zygotes were transferred in to the isolated oviduct at 20 hpi. The oviducts were cultured with SOFaaciBSA and SOFaaBSA for 6 days. Another group of zygotes were cultured in SOFaaBSA alone as control. Results Culture of zygotes in the IMO with SOFaaciBSA and SOFaaBSA, did not significantly affect the development and quality of embryos (p > 0.05). The hatching rate, total and trophectoderm cells number in IMO groups� blastocysts were significantly higher than SOFaaBSA alone. The morphological appearance of IMO blastocysts was superior to SOFaaBSA alone. When the quality of oocytes was poor, IMO could better support ovine embryo development either with SOFaaBSA or SOFaaciBSA than SOFaaBSA alone and there was a significant difference in blastocyst formation at day 6 with SOFaaBSA alone. Conclusion The culture of ovine IVM/IVF zygotes in IMO using two highly efficient ruminant embryo culture media not only could support development of ovine embryos similar to the level in non IMO culture system (SOFaaBSA alone) but also could improve the quality of resulting embryos. Additionally, IMO could better support the development of ovine embryos derived from poor quality oocytes compared to the SOFaaBSA alone.
Farahavar, Abbas; Shirazi, Abolfazl; Kohram, Hamid; Shahneh, Ahmad Zareh; Sarvari, Ali; Naderi, Mohammad Mehdi; Boroujeni, Sara Borjian; Zhandi, Mehdi
The Effect of Corpus Size on Case Frame Acquisition for Predicate-Argument Structure Analysis
NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)
This paper reports the effect of corpus size on case frame acquisition for predicate-argument structure analysis in Japanese. For this study, we collect a Japanese corpus consisting of up to 100 billion words, and construct case frames from corpora of six different sizes. Then, we apply these case frames to syntactic and case structure analysis, and zero anaphora resolution, in order to investigate the relationship between the corpus size for case frame acquisition and the performance of predicate-argument structure analysis. We obtained better analyses by using case frames constructed from larger corpora; the performance was not saturated even with a corpus size of 100 billion words.
Sasano, Ryohei; Kawahara, Daisuke; Kurohashi, Sadao
Unsupervised Chunking Based on Graph Propagation from Bilingual Corpus
This paper presents a novel approach for unsupervised shallow parsing model trained on the unannotated Chinese text of parallel Chinese-English corpus. In this approach, no information of the Chinese side is applied. The exploitation of graph-based label propagation for bilingual knowledge transfer, along with an application of using the projected labels as features in unsupervised model, contributes to a better performance. The experimental comparisons with the state-of-the-art algorithms show that the proposed approach is able to achieve impressive higher accuracy in terms of F-score.
Chao, Lidia S.
Corpus analysis and automatic detection of emotion-including keywords
NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)
Emotion words play a vital role in many sentiment analysis tasks. Previous research uses sentiment dictionary to detect the subjectivity or polarity of words. In this paper, we dive into Emotion-Inducing Keywords (EIK), which refers to the words in use that convey emotion. We first analyze an emotion corpus to explore the pragmatic aspects of EIK. Then we design an effective framework for automatically detecting EIK in sentences by utilizing linguistic features and context information. Our system outperforms traditional dictionary-based methods dramatically in increasing Precision, Recall and F1-score.
Yuan, Bo; He, Xiangqing; Liu, Ying
Unsupervised chunking based on graph propagation from bilingual corpus.
This paper presents a novel approach for unsupervised shallow parsing model trained on the unannotated Chinese text of parallel Chinese-English corpus. In this approach, no information of the Chinese side is applied. The exploitation of graph-based label propagation for bilingual knowledge transfer, along with an application of using the projected labels as features in unsupervised model, contributes to a better performance. The experimental comparisons with the state-of-the-art algorithms show that the proposed approach is able to achieve impressive higher accuracy in terms of F-score. PMID:24772017
Zhu, Ling; Wong, Derek F; Chao, Lidia S
Genome Sequence of Lactobacillus plantarum 19L3, a Strain Proposed as a Starter Culture for Slovensk? Bryndza Ovine Cheese
The genome sequence of Lactobacillus plantarum isolated from ovine cheese is presented here. This bacterium is proposed as a starter strain, named 19L3, for Slovensk� bryndza cheese, a traditional Slovak cheese fulfilling European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) requirements.
Dzunkova, Maria; Moya, Andres; Tomaska, Martin; Kolosta, Miroslav; Kmet, Vladimir
Functional properties of ovine whey protein concentrates produced by membrane technology after clarification of cheese manufacture by-products
Functionality (solubility, emulsifying and foaming properties) of ovine cheese whey and deproteinized whey (Sorelho) protein concentrates was evaluated. Both by-products of ovine cheese manufacture were clarified by thermocalcic precipitation and microfiltration using two pore size membranes (0.65 and 0.20 ?m). Next, they were ultrafiltrated\\/diafiltrated, and then, the liophilization of the corresponding retentates was carried out. The functionality of these powders,
Olga D??az; Carlos D. Pereira; Angel Cobos
Evaluation of the Overall Accuracy of the DeLaval Cell Counter for Somatic Cell Counts in Ovine Milk
The DeLaval cell counter (DCC) is a portable device designed for on-farm somatic cell count (SCC) analysis in bovine milk. This study evaluated the performance of the DCC when analyzing ovine milk. A total of 29 composite ovine milk samples, ranging between 20 � 103 and 2,200 � 103 cells\\/mL, were divided into 15 aliquots\\/ milk sample corresponding to 5
C. Gonzalo; B. Linage; J. A. Carriedo; F. de la Fuente; F. San Primitivo
Reduced area of the corpus callosum in posttraumatic stress disorder.
Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) studies have revealed decreases in the mid-sagittal area of the corpus callosum (CC) in pediatric posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), but at present no data are available in adult PTSD patients. We have previously reported decreased whole-brain white matter (WM) volume in adults with PTSD and now report corpus callosum area from the same sample. MRI was used to obtain whole-brain images in 12 adult patients with PTSD and 10 matched controls. Total parenchyma (white matter plus gray matter [GM]) volume, mid-sagittal area of the CC and seven sub-regions of this structure were calculated. In PTSD patients, the total CC area, absolute and normalized to total brain parenchyma, was smaller compared with control values. Several absolute and normalized CC sub-regions were also smaller in PTSD patients: genu (region 2), mid-body (region 5) and isthmus (region 6). There was also a trend for the anterior mid-body (area 4) to be smaller in PTSD patients. No differences were found in the rostrum (region 1), rostral body (region 3) or splenium (region 7). Adult patients with PTSD had decreased CC area after correcting for total brain tissue, indicating that these differences are not attributable to generalized white matter atrophy. These findings are similar to previous results in children with PTSD and suggest specific changes in the CC. PMID:15465292
Villarreal, Gerardo; Hamilton, Derek A; Graham, David P; Driscoll, Ira; Qualls, Clifford; Petropoulos, Helen; Brooks, William M
A note on the relative positions of the corpus callosum and the hippocampal formation
ABBIE (1939) has recently questioned the classical hypothesis of Elliot Smith on the relation of the corpus callosum to the hippocampus and the lamina terminalis in the callosal mammals. The fibres of the corpus callosum, according to Elliot Smith, reach the opposite hemisphere by invading the lamina terminalis in the region of the dorsal (hippocampal) commissure which is itself ventral
Y. Appajee
Studio Quality Speaker-Independent Connected - Digit Corpus (for CD-ROM).
National Technical Information Service (NTIS)
The three-disk set of CD-ROMs contains a corpus of speech which was designed and collected for the purpose of 'designing and evaluating algorithms for speaker-independent recognition of connected digit sequences.' The corpus contains read utterances from ...
A Corpus-Based Approach to Online Materials Development for Writing Research Articles
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
There has been increasing interest in the possible applications of corpora to both linguistic research and pedagogy. This study takes a corpus-based, genre-analytic approach to discipline-specific materials development. Combining corpus analysis with genre analysis makes it possible to develop teaching materials that are not only authentic but�
Chang, Ching-Fen; Kuo, Chih-Hua
Conversational Telephone Speech Corpus Collection for the NIST Speaker Recognition Evaluation 2004
This paper discusses some of the factors that should be considered when designing a speech corpus collection to be used for text- independent speaker recognition evaluation. The factors include telephone handset type, telephone transmission type, language, and (non-telephone) microphone type. The paper describes the design of the new corpus collection being undertaken by the Linguistic Data Consortium (LDC) to support
Alvin Martin; David Miller; Mark Przybocki; Joseph Campbell; Hirotaka Nakasone
Corpus Callosotomy for Treatment of Pediatric Epilepsy in the Modern Era
Objective: The purpose of this study was to evaluate seizure outcome in children with intractable secondary generalized epilepsy without a resectable focus who underwent complete corpus callosotomy and compare these results to those of anterior two-third callosotomy. Method: Data were obtained for all patients who underwent a corpus callosotomy from 2000 to 2005. The study involved 37 patients. Eleven patients
Scott Y. Rahimi; Yong D. Park; Mark R. Witcher; Ki H. Lee; Manuel Marrufo; Mark R. Lee
Using Edit Distance to Analyse Errors in a Natural Language to Logic Translation Corpus
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
We have assembled a large corpus of student submissions to an automatic grading system, where the subject matter involves the translation of natural language sentences into propositional logic. Of the 2.3 million translation instances in the corpus, 286,000 (approximately 12%) are categorized as being in error. We want to understand the nature of�
Barker-Plummer, Dave; Dale, Robert; Cox, Richard; Romanczuk, Alex
Spatial attention in agenesis of the corpus callosum: shifting attention between visual fields
The role of the corpus callosum in spatially selective visual attention is uncertain. Research using commissurotomy and callosotomy patients has attempted to determine if the corpus callosum plays a role in reorienting attention between visual fields, as if spatial attention is unitary or divisible between the cerebral hemispheres. Reorienting of selective visuospatial attention within versus between visual fields was tested
Robert J Hines; Lynn K Paul; Warren S Brown
An Evaluation of an Online Bilingual Corpus for the Self-Learning of Legal English.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Introduces a bilingual corpus of legal and documentary texts in English and Chinese and reports a study that sought to evaluate the usefulness of the corpus in the self-learning of legal English. Subjects were Chinese students doing a degree in translation at a university in Hong Kong, where English common law is still used since the handover of�
Fan, May; Xunfeng, Xu
Surgical treatment of induratio penis plastica (Peyronie's disease) with a corpus cavernosum graft.
Four patients with induratio penis plastica, involving the corpus cavernosum, have been treated by excision of the affected tissue and filling of the defect by a transplant of corpus cavernosum bulbi urethrae. Cavernosograms and a histological study indicate that the operative results were good, but the case histories stress the need of extreme care in the selection of patients. PMID:444774
Medgyesi, S
The Preference for Self-Correction in a Tai Conversational Corpus
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
The organization of repair in a corpus of conversations in the Lue, Yuan (or Myang), and Siamese dialects of Tai is examined with regard to the preference for self-correction described previously for an English corpus. In both, repair is an identically organized sequential phenomenon involving repair segments during conversation. (CHK)
Moerman, Michael
Corpus-Based Work and Discourse Analysis in FL Pedagogy: A Reassessment.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Pinpoints specificities of computer-aided corpus-based work in foreign language pedagogic contexts and assesses how they can feed into language teaching and learning practices generally, despite the ostensible pedagogic and processing shortcomings of corpus-based work in these kinds of contexts. (Author/VWL)
Guillot, Marie-Noelle
Three sibs with microcephaly, clubfeet and agenesis of corpus callosum: a new genetic syndrome?
Clubfoot is a common birth deformity, and agenesis of the corpus callosum is one of the most prevalent brain malformations. We describe three sibs of Arab origin, who were born with clubfeet, agenesis of corpus callosum, and minor anomalies. Two of them were born with microcephaly. This phenotype may represent a novel autosomal recessive genetic condition. PMID:21465661
Shkalim, Vered; Ben-Sira, Liat; Inbar, Dov; Kaadan, Walid; Basel-Vanagaite, Lina; Straussberg, Rachel
WSJCAMO: a British English speech corpus for large vocabulary continuous speech recognition
A significant new speech corpus of British English has been recorded at Cambridge University. Derived from the Wall Street Journal text corpus, WSJCAMO constitutes one of the largest corpora of spoken British English currently in existence. It has been specifically designed for the construction and evaluation of speaker-independent speech recognition systems. The database consists of 140 speakers each speaking about
Tony Robinson; Jeroen Fransen; David Pye; Jonathan Foote; Steve Renals
The JRC-Acquis: A multilingual aligned parallel corpus with 20+ languages
We present a new, unique and freely available parallel corpus containing European Union (EU) documents of mostly legal nature. It is available in all 20 official EU languages, with additional documents being available in the languages of the EU candidate countries. The corpus consists of almost 8,000 documents per language, with an average size of nearly 9 million words per
Ralf Steinberger; Bruno Pouliquen; Anna Widiger; Camelia Ignat; Tomaz Erjavec; Dan Tufis; Daniel Varga
Developing a clinical hypermedia corpus: experiences from the use of a practice-centered method.
This paper outlines a practice-centered method for creation of a hypermedia corpus. It also describes experiences with creating such a corpus of information to support interprofessional work at a Primary Healthcare Center. From these experiences, a number of basic issues regarding information systems development within medical informatics will be discussed.
Timpka, T.; Nyce, J. M.; Sjoberg, C.; Hedblom, P.; Lindblom, P.
Corpus callosum size in children with spastic cerebral palsy: relationship to clinical outcome.
This study examines corpus callosum pathology in children with spastic cerebral palsy aged 7 to 15 years and to investigates the relation between corpus callosum areas and clinical picture. Magnetic resonance images of 46 patients were reviewed prospectively. Twenty-two patients with cerebral palsy were age and gender matched with the control patients. The cerebral palsy group had a significantly smaller mean corpus callosum surface area than did the control group. The cerebral palsy group also had a significantly smaller mean internal skull surface area measurement than did the control group. The corpus callosum/internal skull surface area ratio was also smaller for those with cerebral palsy. Wechsler Intelligence Scale Verbal IQ scores were associated with the surface area of the corpus callosum in cerebral palsy patients. A significant relationship between corpus callosum surface area and IQ scores in children with cerebral palsy was found. A positive correlation between internal skull surface area and IQ scores in children with cerebral palsy was noted. A significant correlation between Apgar score and corpus callosum surface area in the cerebral palsy group was found. A negative correlation between corpus callosum surface area and the Gross Motor Function Classification System in patients with cerebral palsy was noted. PMID:17621513
Ku?ak, Wojciech; Sobaniec, Wojciech; Kubas, Bozena; Walecki, Jerzy
Language with Character: A Stratified Corpus Comparison of Individual Differences in E-Mail Communication
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
To what extent does the wording and syntactic form of people's writing reflect their personalities? Using a bottom-up stratified corpus comparison, rather than the top-down content analysis techniques that have been used before, we examine a corpus of e-mail messages elicited from individuals of known personality, as measured by the Eysenck�
Oberlander, Jon; Gill, Alastair J.
Partial morphological and functional characterization of the corpus allatum-corpus cardiacum complex from the two-spotted stinkbug, Perillus bioculatus (Hemiptera: Pentatomidae)
Summary��Selected morphological and physiological properties of the corpus allatum (CA)-corpus cardiacum (CC) complex from the two-spotted\\u000a stinkbug, Perillus bioculatus (Hemiptera: Pentatomidae), were studied. The CAs play an important role in insect physiology because of their production\\u000a of the juvenile hormones (JHs), i.e., key hormones involved in development and reproduction. We found that the P. bioculatus CA-CC complex is present in
Cynthia L. Goodman; Renee M. Wagner; Henda Nabli; Maureen K. Wright-Osment; Takashi Okuda; Thomas A. Coudron
Partial Morphological and Functional Characterization of the Corpus Allatum - Corpus Cardiacum Complex from the Two-Spotted Stinkbug, Perillus bioculatus (Hemiptera: Pentatomidae)
SUMMARY Selected morphological and physiological properties of the corpus allatum (CA)-corpus cardiacum (CC) complex from the two-spotted stinkbug, Perillus bioculatus (Hemiptera: Pentatomidae), were studied. The CAs play an important role in insect physiology because of their production of the juvenile hormones (JHs), i.e., key hormones involved in devel- opment and reproduction. We found that the P. bioculatus CA-CC complex is
CYNTHIA L. GOODMAN; Henda Nabli; MAUREEN K. WRIGHT-OSMENT; Takashi Okuda; THOMAS A. COUDRON
The Lamina Rostralis: Modification of Concepts Concerning the Anatomy, Embryology, and MR Appearance of the Rostrum of the Corpus Callosum
PURPOSE: To study the anatomy and embryology of the lamina rostralis, and to determine whether the rostrum is, as frequently stated, the last section of the corpus callosum to develop. METHODS: The rostrum was analyzed in dissected adult brains and on MR studies in 300 patients with a normal corpus callosum and in 84 patients with a hypogenetic corpus callosum.
E. Leon Kier; Charles L. Truwit
Toward a Broad-coverage Bilingual Corpus for Speech Translation of Travel Conversations in the Real World
At ATR Spoken Language Translation Research Laboratories, we are building a broad-coverage bilingual corpus to study corpus-based speech translation technologies for the real world. There are three important points to consider in designing and constructing a corpus for future speech translation research. The first is to have a variety of speech samples, with a wide range of pronunciations and speakers.
Toshiyuki Takezawa; Eiichiro Sumita; Fumiaki Sugaya; Hirofumi Yamamoto; Seiichi Yamamoto
Ovine serum immunoglobulin has immunomodulatory effects in growing rats gavaged with Salmonella enteritidis.
In this study, we aimed to determine whether orally administered ovine serum Ig modulate aspects of immunity and associated gut microflora in growing rats challenged with Salmonella enteritidis. The 4 groups consisted of rats fed a casein-based control diet (BD; ungavaged) and 3 groups of rats gavaged with 1 � 10(7) viable Salmonella enteritidis and fed a BD diet, a BD diet containing freeze-dried ovine Ig (FDOI), or a BD diet containing inactivated ovine Ig (IOI). The rats were randomly allocated to 1 of the 4 diets (n = 15) and consumed it for 18 d. They were orally gavaged on d 15. Phagocytic activity of peripheral blood leukocyte and lymphocyte proliferation in the presence of the concanavalin A (ConA) were greater (P < 0.05) in the ungavaged BD- and gavaged FDOI-fed rats than in the gavaged rats fed either the BD or IOI diet. ConA-stimulated Peyer's patch cells and splenocytes from the gavaged rats fed the FDOI diet produced more IFN?, IgA, and IgG than the gavaged rats fed either the BD or IOI diet (P < 0.05). The gavaged FDOI-fed rats had higher ileal and colonic digesta and plasma concentrations of anti-Salmonella secretory sIgA and secretory sIgG (P < 0.05). DNA analysis of a denatured gradient gel electrophoresis profile revealed that 6 of 10 bands had sequence similarity to probiotic strains of bacteria in the ileum and colon of the gavaged FDOI-fed rats. In conclusion, an ovine Ig fraction modulated various indices of immune function and associated gut microflora in growing rats inoculated with Salmonella. PMID:21411611
Balan, Prabhu; Han, Kyoung-Sik; Rutherfurd-Markwick, Kay; Singh, Harjinder; Moughan, Paul J
Effect of single-chain ovine gonadotropins with dual activity on ovarian function in sheep.
We examined the half-life and biological activity of two single-chain proteins that combined portions of ovine FSH and LH. We proposed the hypothesis that these chimeric proteins would display LH and FSH activities and would promote follicle maturation in ewes. Estrus activity was synchronized using progestogen-impregnated vaginal pessaries. To negate the impact of endogenous LH and FSH, animals received serum-containing antibodies against GNRH 1 day before pessary removal (PR). At PR sheep (five animals per group) received a single injection (10?IU/kg, i.v.) of either the ovine-based (oFcLc?) gonadotropin analog, an ovine-based analog containing oLH? truncated at the carboxyl terminus (oFcL(?T)c?), or a human-based gonadotropin analog (hFcLc?). Control animals received a comparable amount of gonadotropin-free protein. Ovulation was induced 3 days after PR using human chorionic gonadotropin (1000?IU, i.v.). Ovaries were collected 11 days after PR. Neither estradiol (E2) or progesterone (P4) production, development of preovulatory follicles or corpora lutea (CL) were noted in control animals receiving gonadotropin-free protein. Significant increase in the synthesis of E2 and P4 was noted in sheep receiving the dually active gonadotropin analogs. The number of CLs present 11 days after PR was significantly increased in sheep receiving the chimeric glycoproteins compared with control animals. The magnitude of the secretory and ovarian responses did not differ between hFcLc? and oFcLc? or between oFcLc? and oFcL(?T)c?. Immunoactivity of LH and FSH was low in control animals, but was significantly elevated in sheep receiving the gonadotropin analogs. In conclusion, ovine-based gonadotropin analogs are functionally active in sheep and a single injection is adequate to induce the development of multiple ovulatory follicles. PMID:24811780
Rutigliano, Heloisa M; Adams, Betty M; Jablonka-Shariff, Albina; Boime, Irving; Adams, Thomas E
Calcification in the ovine intervertebral disc: a model of hydroxyapatite deposition disease
The study design included a multidisciplinary examination of the mineral phase of ovine intervertebral disc calcifications.\\u000a The objective of the study was to investigate the mineral phase and its mechanisms of formation\\/association with degeneration\\u000a in a naturally occurring animal model of disc calcification. The aetiology of dystrophic disc calcification in adult humans\\u000a is unknown, but occurs as a well-described clinical
James Melrose; D. Burkhardt; T. K. F. Taylor; C. T. Dillon; R. Read; M. Cake; C. B. Little
Regulation of 11-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase type 2 activity in ovine placenta by fetal cortisol
The effect of fetal cortisol on the activity of the type 2 isoform of the enzyme, 11-hydroxysteroid dehydrog- enase (11-HSD2), was examined in ovine placenta and fetal kidney by measuring tissue 11-HSD2 activity dur- ing late gestation when endogenous fetal cortisol levels rise and after exogenous cortisol administration to immature fetuses before the prepartum cortisol surge. Placental 11-HSD2 activity decreased
K A Clarke; J W Ward; A J Forhead; D A Giussani; A L Fowden
Molecular cloning and characterisation of the CD18 partner in ovine ( Ovis aries) ? 2-integrins
The leukocyte integrins play a critical role in a number of cellular adhesive interactions during the immune response. We describe here the isolation and characterization of the ovine ?2 (CD18) subunit, common to the leukocyte ?2-integrin family. The deduced 770-amino-acid sequence reveals a transmembrane protein with 81%, 83% and 95% identity with its murine, human and bovine homologues, respectively. Comparisons
L Zecchinon; T Fett; E Baise; D Desmecht
The plasma clearance of 125I-ovine placental lactogen (125I-oPL) in pregnant, non-pregnant and foetal sheep followed a biphasic exponential curve. The initial half-life (t1(�)) of the hormone ranged from 5�7�12�7 min. The molecular identity of 125I-oPL in plasma samples was examined by gel filtration chromatography. At the end of blood sampling, the high concentrations of radioactivity in the thyroid, kidney and
S Reddy; WB Watkins
Ovine lentivirus antibody detection in serum, colostrum and milk using a recombinant transmembrane protein ELISA
An enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) was used to detect antibodies against ovine lentivirus (OLV) in serum, colostrum, and milk from naturally infected sheep. The assay used OLV recombinant transmembrane envelope protein (rTM) as a test antigen. Matched serum\\/colostrum and serum\\/milk samples were collected at 24h, 4weeks (mid-lactation), and 8 weeks (weaning) post-lambing. Among 129 paired samples collected at 24 h
Jim Keen; Jimmy Kwang; E. Travis Littledike; Laura L. Hungerford
Enterococcus faecalis affects the proliferation and differentiation of ovine osteoblast-like cells
Enterococcus faecalis (E. faecalis) is a Gram-positive bacterium, mostly recovered from root-filled teeth with persistent periapical lesions. Bacterial contamination\\u000a of root canals inevitably results in interaction between E. faecalis and periapical tissues during the dynamic process of periapical inflammation. This study investigated the impact of heat-inactivated\\u000a endodontic E. faecalis on the proliferation and the differentiation of ovine osteoblast-like cells, in
Lamprini Karygianni; Margit Wiedmann-Al-Ahmad; G�nter Finkenzeller; Sebastian Sauerbier; Martin Wolkewitz; Elmar Hellwig; Ali Al-Ahmad
Modulation of 4HNE-mediated signaling by proline-rich peptides from ovine colostrum
In previous studies we showed that colostrinin (CLN), a complex of proline-rich polypeptides derived from ovine colostrum,\\u000a induces mitogenic stimulation, as well as a variety of cytokines in human peripheral blood leukocytes, and possesses antioxidant\\u000a activity in pheochromocytoma (PC12) cells. In this study we investigated the effects of CLN on 4-hydroxynonenal (4HNE)-mediated\\u000a adduct formation, generation of reactive oxygen species (ROS),
Istvan Boldogh; Daniel Liebenthal; T. Kley Hughes; Terry L. Juelich; Jerzy A. Georgiades; Marian L. Kruzel; G. John Stanton
Myofiber angle distributions in the ovine left ventricle do not conform to computationally optimized predictions
Recent computational models of optimized left ventricular (LV) myofiber geometry that minimize the spatial variance in sarcomere length, stress, and ATP consumption have predicted that a midwall myofiber angle of 20� and transmural myofiber angle gradient of 140� from epicardium to endocardium is a functionally optimal LV myofiber geometry. In order to test the extent to which actual fiber angle distributions conform to this prediction, we measured local myofiber angles at an average of nine transmural depths in each of 32 sites (4 short-axis levels, 8 circumferentially distributed blocks in each level) in five normal ovine LVs. We found: 1) a mean midwall myofiber angle of ?7� (SD 9), but with spatial heterogeneity (averaging 0� in the posterolateral and anterolateral wall near the papillary muscles, and ?9� in all other regions); and 2) an average transmural gradient of 93� (SD 21), but with spatial heterogeneity (averaging a low of 51� in the basal posterior sector and a high of 130� in the mid-equatorial anterolateral sector). We conclude that midwall myofiber angles and transmural myofiber angle gradients in the ovine heart are regionally non-uniform and differ significantly from the predictions of present-day computationally optimized LV myofiber models. Myofiber geometry in the ovine heart may differ from other species, but model assumptions also underlie the discrepancy between experimental and computational results. To test of the predictive capability of the current computational model would we propose using an ovine specific LV geometry and comparing the computed myofiber orientations to those we report herein.
Ennis, Daniel B.; Nguyen, Tom C.; Riboh, Jonathan C.; Wigstrom, Lars; Harrington, Katherine B.; Daughters, George T.; Ingels, Neil B.; Miller, D. Craig
Allelic variants of ovine prion protein gene (PRNP) in Oklahoma sheep
1,144 sheep belonging to 21 breeds and known crosses were sequence analyzed for polymorphisms in the ovine PRNP gene. Genotype and allele frequencies of polymorphisms in PRNP known to confer resistance to scrapie, a fatal neurodegenerative disease of sheep, are reported. Known polymorphisms at codons 136 (A\\/V), 154 (H\\/R) and 171 (Q\\/R\\/H\\/K) were identified. The frequency of the171R allele known
U. DeSilva; X. Guo; D. M. Kupfer; S. C. Fernando; A. T. V. Pillai; F. Z. Najar; S. So; G. Q. Fitch; B. A. Roe
Transforming growth factor beta-1 facilitates establishing clonal populations of ovine muscle satellite cells.
Myogenic cells isolated from lamb fetuses (approximately mid-gestation) exhibited a concentration-dependent decrease in myogenic cell proliferation in response to transforming growth factor (TGF) beta-1 (P < .001). Half-maximal inhibition of proliferation occurred at approximately .05 ng of TGF beta-1/mL and maximal inhibition of proliferation occurred at approximately .1 ng of TGF beta-1/mL. The specificity of this inhibition was confirmed by neutralization of the activity following exposure to a TGF beta antibody. The TGF beta-1 also suppressed proliferation of ovine satellite cells isolated from 5-d-old lambs (P < .0035), but to a lesser extent than observed for embryonic cells. In contrast, TGF beta-1 did not significantly suppress serum-stimulated proliferation of ovine satellite cells isolated from 30- or 150-d-old lambs. Similarly, TGF beta-1 did not suppress proliferation of skeletal muscle fibroblast-like cells isolated from either fetal lambs or 150-d-old lambs. In fact, proliferation of fibroblast-like cells derived from embryonic ovine muscle was enhanced by exposure to TGF beta-1 at all levels tested; however, a concentration-dependent response was not observed. Media transfer experiments showed that conditioning of culture media by postnatally derived cells did not render TGF beta-1 inactive. The studies described in this manuscript suggest that sensitivity of ovine myogenic cells to the antiproliferative effect of TGF-beta may vary with the stage of development.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS) PMID:7982828
Hathaway, M R; Pampusch, M S; Hembree, J R; Dayton, W R
Racial and ethnic disparities in cancers of the uterine corpus.
Survival after diagnosis of cancer of the uterine corpus is significantly worse in black women as compared with white women. The etiology of the racial and ethnic disparities that exist in endometrial cancer incidence and outcome is multifactorial and complex. Potential explanations include cancer biology, differences in access to care, sociodemographic characteristics, response to treatment and comorbid factors. In this article, a review was performed to assess the magnitude and reasons for the observed disparity in endometrial cancer mortality. Strategies and recommendations to reduce or eliminate differences in endometrial cancer outcome are explored. These include advocacy for more research to clarify the underlying causes of cancer disparities at all levels, including the molecular basis of disparate outcomes, improving access to quality healthcare services, establishing culturally competent models of healthcare delivery, and developing novel cost-effective screening and early prevention methods.
Yap, O. W. Stephanie; Matthews, Roland P.
Postnatally diagnosed agenesis of corpus callosum in fetuses.
Objectives: To examine and characterize the agenesis of the corpus calosum (ACC) in an epidemiological study of fetal autopsies, as well as, to analyze the associated anomalies and to emphasize the importance of the clinical examination of ACC. Methods: The subjects of observation are 20 fetuses from a total of 2238 autopsies carried out during a period of three years (2006-2009) in Tunis. Results: The associated abnormalities are hydrocephalus, cerebellar hypoplasia, agenesis of vermis cerebelli, polymicrogyria and lissencephaly. Sixteen of the cases (80%) are syndromic: Trisomy 13,18,21 (5,1,2 fetuses respectively) and Thanatophoric dysplasia, Fetal akinesia syndrome, Dandy-Walker Malformation and the Association VACTERL are represented by two cases each. Conclusion: The prenatal diagnosis of ACC must be the result of a multidisciplinary approach. The phenotype of the XLAG syndrome creates an interest to study asymptomatic patients with ACC, especially when the anomaly is detected prenatally. PMID:24833489
Kitova, Tanya Todorova; Kitov, Borislav; Milkov, Denis; Gaigi, Soumeya
Corpus callosum size and shape alterations in adolescent inhalant users.
Inhalants, frequently abused during adolescence, are neurotoxic to white matter. We investigated the impact of inhalant misuse on the morphology of the corpus callosum (CC), the largest white matter bundle in the brain, in an adolescent sample of inhalant users [n = 14; mean age = 17.3; standard deviation (SD) = 1.7], cannabis users (n = 11; mean age = 19.7; SD = 1.7) and community controls (n = 9; mean age = 19.5; SD = 2.6). We identified significant morphological differences in the CC among inhalant users compared with community controls. There were no morphological differences between inhalant and cannabis users. Our findings may represent the early stages of neurobiological damage associated with chronic inhalant misuse. PMID:21955104
Takagi, Michael; Lubman, Dan I; Walterfang, Mark; Barton, Sarah; Reutens, David; Wood, Amanda; Y�cel, Murat
Axon position within the corpus callosum determines contralateral cortical projection.
How developing axons in the corpus callosum (CC) achieve their homotopic projection to the contralateral cortex remains unclear. We found that axonal position within the CC plays a critical role in this projection. Labeling of nearby callosal axons in mice showed that callosal axons were segregated in an orderly fashion, with those from more medial cerebral cortex located more dorsally and subsequently projecting to more medial contralateral cortical regions. The normal axonal order within the CC was grossly disturbed when semaphorin3A/neuropilin-1 signaling was disrupted. However, the order in which axons were positioned within the CC still determined their contralateral projection, causing a severe disruption of the homotopic contralateral projection that persisted at postnatal day 30, when the normal developmental refinement of contralateral projections is completed in wild-type (WT) mice. Thus, the orderly positioning of axons within the CC is a primary determinant of how homotopic interhemispheric projections form in the contralateral cortex. PMID:23812756
Zhou, Jing; Wen, Yunqing; She, Liang; Sui, Ya-Nan; Liu, Lu; Richards, Linda J; Poo, Mu-Ming
Axon position within the corpus callosum determines contralateral cortical projection
How developing axons in the corpus callosum (CC) achieve their homotopic projection to the contralateral cortex remains unclear. We found that axonal position within the CC plays a critical role in this projection. Labeling of nearby callosal axons in mice showed that callosal axons were segregated in an orderly fashion, with those from more medial cerebral cortex located more dorsally and subsequently projecting to more medial contralateral cortical regions. The normal axonal order within the CC was grossly disturbed when semaphorin3A/neuropilin-1 signaling was disrupted. However, the order in which axons were positioned within the CC still determined their contralateral projection, causing a severe disruption of the homotopic contralateral projection that persisted at postnatal day 30, when the normal developmental refinement of contralateral projections is completed in wild-type (WT) mice. Thus, the orderly positioning of axons within the CC is a primary determinant of how homotopic interhemispheric projections form in the contralateral cortex.
Zhou, Jing; Wen, Yunqing; She, Liang; Sui, Ya-nan; Liu, Lu; Richards, Linda J.; Poo, Mu-ming
Building an efficient curation workflow for the Arabidopsis literature corpus
TAIR (The Arabidopsis Information Resource) is the model organism database (MOD) for Arabidopsis thaliana, a model plant with a literature corpus of about 39 000 articles in PubMed, with over 4300 new articles added in 2011. We have developed a literature curation workflow incorporating both automated and manual elements to cope with this flood of new research articles. The current workflow can be divided into two phases: article selection and curation. Structured controlled vocabularies, such as the Gene Ontology and Plant Ontology are used to capture free text information in the literature as succinct ontology-based annotations suitable for the application of computational analysis methods. We also describe our curation platform and the use of text mining tools in our workflow. Database URL: www.arabidopsis.org
Li, Donghui; Berardini, Tanya Z.; Muller, Robert J.; Huala, Eva
Due to its proximity to the mitral valve, the coronary sinus (CS) vessel serves as a conduit for the deployment and implantation of the percutaneous transvenous mitral annuloplasty (PTMA) devices that can potentially reduce the mitral regurgitation. Because CS vessel is a venous tissue and seldom diseased, its mechanical properties have not been well studied. In this study, we performed the multi-axial mechanical test and histological analysis to characterize the mechanical and structural properties of the aged human, porcine and ovine CS tissues. The results showed that the aged human CS tissues exhibited much stiffer and highly anisotropic behaviors compared to the porcine and ovine. Both of the porcine and ovine CS vessel walls were thicker and mainly composed of striated muscle fibers (SMF), whereas the thinner aged human CS had higher collagen, lesser SMF, and more fragmented elastin fibers, which are possibly due to the aging effects. We also observed that the anatomical features of porcine CS vessel might be not suitable for the PTMA deployment. These differences between animal and human models raise questions for the validity of using animal models to investigate the biomechanics involved in the PTMA intervention. Therefore, caution must be taken in future studies of PTMA stents using animal models.
Pham, Thuy; Sun, Wei
Primary and secondary restraints of human and ovine knees for simulated in vivo gait kinematics.
Knee soft tissue structures are frequently injured, leading to the development of osteoarthritis even with treatment. Understanding how these structures contribute to knee function during activities of daily living (ADLs) is crucial in creating more effective treatments. This study was designed to determine the role of different knee structures during a simulated ADL in both human knees and ovine stifle joints. A six degree-of-freedom robot was used to reproduce each species' in vivo gait while measuring three-dimensional joint forces and torques. Using a semi-randomized selective cutting method, we determined the primary and secondary structures contributing to the forces and torques along and about each anatomical axis. In both species, the bony interaction, ACL, and medial meniscus provided most of the force contributions during stance, whereas the ovine MCL, human bone, and ACLs of both species were the key contributors during swing. This study contributes to our overarching goal of establishing functional tissue engineering parameters for knee structures by further validating biomechanical similarities between the ovine model and the human to provide a platform for measuring biomechanics during an in vivo ADL. These parameters will be used to develop more effective treatments for knee injuries to reduce or eliminate the incidence of osteoarthritis. PMID:24326097
Nesbitt, Rebecca J; Herfat, Safa T; Boguszewski, Daniel V; Engel, Andrew J; Galloway, Marc T; Shearn, Jason T
Purification and physicochemical characterization of ovine beta-lactoglobulin and alpha-lactalbumin.
Ovine whey proteins were fractionated and studied by using different analytical techniques. Anion-exchange chromatography and reversed-phase high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) showed the presence of two fractions of beta-lactoglobulin but only one of alpha-lactalbumin. Gel permeation and sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS)-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis allowed the calculation of the apparent molecular mass of each component, while HPLC coupled to electrospray ionisation-mass spectrometry (ESI-MS) technique, giving the exact molecular masses, demonstrated the presence of two variants A and B of ovine beta-lactoglobulin. Amino acid compositions of the two variants of beta-lactoglobulin differed only in their His and Tyr contents. Circular dichroism spectroscopy profiles showed pH conformation changes of each component. The thermograms of the different whey protein components showed a higher heat resistance of beta-lactoglobulin A compared to beta-lactoglobulin B at pH 2, and indicated high instability of ovine alpha-lactalbumin at this pH. PMID:15285107
El-Zahar, Khaled; Sitohy, Mahmoud; Dalgalarrondo, Mich�le; Choiset, Yvan; M�tro, Fran�ois; Haertl�, Thomas; Chobert, Jean-Marc
A unique method to produce transgenic embryos in ovine, porcine, feline, bovine and equine species.
Transgenesis is an essential tool in many biotechnological applications. Intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI)-mediated gene transfer is a powerful technique to obtain transgenic pups; however, most domestic animal embryos do not develop properly after ICSI. An additional step in the protocol, namely assistance by haploid chemical activation, permits the use of ICSI-mediated gene transfer to generate transgenic preimplantation embryos in a wide range of domestic species, including ovine, porcine, feline, equine and bovine. In the present study, spermatozoa from five species were coincubated with pCX-EGFP plasmid and injected into metaphase II oocytes. The chemical activation protocol consisted of ionomycin plus 6-dimethylaminopurine. We detected high proportions of fluorescent EGFP embryos for all five species (23-60%), but with a high frequency of mosaic expression (range 60-85%). To our knowledge, this is the first study to produce exogenous DNA expression in feline and equine embryos. Chemical activation reduces the lag phase of egfp expression in ovine embryos. Our results show that this unique method could be used to obtain ovine, porcine, feline, bovine and equine transgenic preimplantation embryos. PMID:18842176
Pereyra-Bonnet, F; Fern�ndez-Mart�n, R; Olivera, R; Jarazo, J; Vichera, G; Gibbons, A; Salamone, D
Determination of fat, protein, and total solids in ovine milk by near-infrared spectroscopy.
Analysis by near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) was investigated as a means of predicting quality parameters of ovine milk. Calibration equations were developed with samples of ovine milk obtained from a flock of Manchega and Lacaune dairy ewes at different stages of lactation for a wide variation in milk composition. Prediction equations for milk protein, fat, and total solids content were developed by use of reflection or transflection methods to measure absorbance values. Accuracies of measurements were compared. R2 (squared multiple correlation coefficient) values were satisfactory in most cases. The highest R2 value for milk protein content (0.92) was obtained in transflectance mode with unhomogenized milk. The highest R2 values for fat (0.99) and total solids (0.98-0.96) content were obtained in both a transflectance mode without sample conditioning and in a transflectance mode with milk homogenized at 40 degrees C. To validate the calibration, an independent set of 40 milk samples was used. The best r2 (simple correlation coefficient) values for protein, fat, and total solids were 0.92, 0.97, and 0.92, respectively. The study showed that NIRS is a potentially useful technique for evaluating the composition of unhomogenized ovine milk. PMID:10367392
Albanell, E; C�ceres, P; Caja, G; Molina, E; Gargouri, A
Whole ovine ovaries as a model for human: perfusion with cryoprotectants in vivo and in vitro.
These experiments were performed to test the perfusion of ovine as a model for human ovaries by cryoprotectants in vivo at high temperature when the permeability of capillaries is high and when blood is insensibly replaced by the solution of cryoprotectants. By our hypothetical supposition, ovaries could be saturated by cryoprotectants before their surgical removal. The objective was to examine the effectiveness of perfusion of ovine ovaries with vascular pedicle in vivo and in vitro. Arteria ovarica was cannuled and ovaries were perfused by Leibovitz L-15 medium + 100 IU/mL heparin + 5% bovine calf serum + 6% dimethyl sulfoxide + 6% ethylene glycol + 0.15 M sucrose + Indian ink in vivo and in vitro. In the first and second cycle of experiments, ovaries (n = 13 and n = 23) were perfused in vivo and in vitro, respectively, during 60 min with the rate of perfusion 50 mL/h (0.8 mL/min). It was established with in vivo perfusion that only about 10% of ovarian tissues were perfused due to an appearance of multiple anastomoses when the perfusion medium goes from arteria ovarica to arteria uterina without inflow into the ovaries. It was concluded that in vitro perfusion of ovine intact ovaries with vascular pedicle by freezing medium is more effective than this manipulation performed in vivo. PMID:24701576
Isachenko, Vladimir; Rahimi, Gohar; Dattena, Maria; Mallmann, Peter; Baikoshkarova, Saltanat; Kellerwessel, Elisabeth; Otarbaev, Marat; Shalakhmetova, Tamara; Isachenko, Evgenia
BioInfer: a corpus for information extraction in the biomedical domain
Background Lately, there has been a great interest in the application of information extraction methods to the biomedical domain, in particular, to the extraction of relationships of genes, proteins, and RNA from scientific publications. The development and evaluation of such methods requires annotated domain corpora. Results We present BioInfer (Bio Information Extraction Resource), a new public resource providing an annotated corpus of biomedical English. We describe an annotation scheme capturing named entities and their relationships along with a dependency analysis of sentence syntax. We further present ontologies defining the types of entities and relationships annotated in the corpus. Currently, the corpus contains 1100 sentences from abstracts of biomedical research articles annotated for relationships, named entities, as well as syntactic dependencies. Supporting software is provided with the corpus. The corpus is unique in the domain in combining these annotation types for a single set of sentences, and in the level of detail of the relationship annotation. Conclusion We introduce a corpus targeted at protein, gene, and RNA relationships which serves as a resource for the development of information extraction systems and their components such as parsers and domain analyzers. The corpus will be maintained and further developed with a current version being available at .
Pyysalo, Sampo; Ginter, Filip; Heimonen, Juho; Bjorne, Jari; Boberg, Jorma; Jarvinen, Jouni; Salakoski, Tapio
A method for determining the number of documents needed for a gold standard corpus.
The unstructured narratives in medicine have been increasingly targeted for content extraction using the techniques of natural language processing (NLP). In most cases, these efforts are facilitated by creating a manually annotated set of narratives containing the ground truth; commonly referred to as a gold standard corpus. This corpus is used for modeling, fine-tuning, and testing NLP software as well as providing the basis for training in machine learning. Determining the number of annotated documents (size) for this corpus is important, but rarely described; rather, the factors of cost and time appear to dominate decision-making about corpus size. In this report, a method is outlined to determine gold standard size based on the capture probabilities for the unique words within a target corpus. To demonstrate this method, a corpus of dictation letters from the Michigan Pain Consultant (MPC) clinics for pain management are described and analyzed. A well-formed working corpus of 10,000 dictations was first constructed to provide a representative subset of the total, with no more than one dictation letter per patient. Each dictation was divided into words and common words were removed. The Poisson function was used to determine probabilities of word capture within samples taken from the working corpus, and then integrated over word length to give a single capture probability as a function of sample size. For these MPC dictations, a sample size of 500 documents is predicted to give a capture probability of approximately 0.95. Continuing the demonstration of sample selection, a provisional gold standard corpus of 500 documents was selected and examined for its similarity to the MPC structured coding and demographic data available for each patient. It is shown that a representative sample, of justifiable size, can be selected for use as a gold standard. PMID:22245601
Juckett, David
In Vitro Nasal Transport Across Ovine Mucosa: Effects of Ammonium Glycyrrhizinate on Electrical Properties and Permeability of Growth Hormone Releasing Peptide, Mannitol, and Lucifer Yellow
Transport of growth hormone releasing peptide across ovine nasal mucosa in the absence or presence of ammonium glycyrrhizinate (AMGZ) was studied in vitro. Ovine nasal mucosa was stripped from underlying cartilage and mounted in Ussing chambers. Transepithelial conductance (Gt) and short-circuit current (Isc) were monitored during experiments to assess tissue viability and integrity. Radiolabeled mannitol (Man; MW 182) and growth
Patricia M. Reardon; Caroline H. Gochoco; Kenneth L. Audus; Glynn Wilson; Philip L. Smith
An audio-visual corpus for speech perception and automatic speech recognition.
An audio-visual corpus has been collected to support the use of common material in speech perception and automatic speech recognition studies. The corpus consists of high-quality audio and video recordings of 1000 sentences spoken by each of 34 talkers. Sentences are simple, syntactically identical phrases such as "place green at B 4 now". Intelligibility tests using the audio signals suggest that the material is easily identifiable in quiet and low levels of stationary noise. The annotated corpus is available on the web for research use. PMID:17139705
Cooke, Martin; Barker, Jon; Cunningham, Stuart; Shao, Xu
The catalogue of the Ripley Corpus: alchemical writings attributed to George Ripley (d. ca. 1490).
The period 1471 to 1700 saw the accretion of a large corpus of alchemical works associated with the famous English alchemist George Ripley, Canon of Bridlington (d. ca. 1490). Evaluation of Ripley's alchemy is hampered by uncertainty over the composition of the corpus, the dating and provenance of individual texts, and the difficulty of separating genuine from spurious attributions. The Catalogue of the Ripley Corpus (CRC) provides a first step in ordering these diverse materials: a descriptive catalogue of approximately forty-five alchemical treatises, recipes and poems attributed to Ripley, with an index of all known manuscript copies. PMID:20973441
Rampling, Jennifer M
Evaluation of pore-water samplers at a drainage ditch, Installation Restoration Site 4, Naval Air Station Corpus Christi, Corpus Christi, Texas, 2005�06
The U.S. Geological Survey, in cooperation with the Naval Facilities Engineering Command Southeast, used innovative sampling methods to investigate ground-water contamination by chlorobenzenes beneath a drainage ditch on the southwestern side of Installation Restoration Site 4, Naval Air Station Corpus Christi, Corpus Christi, Texas, during 2005-06. The drainage ditch, which is a potential receptor for ground-water contaminants from Installation Restoration Site 4, intermittently discharges water to Corpus Christi Bay. This report evaluates a new type of pore-water sampler developed for this investigation to examine the subsurface contamination beneath the drainage ditch. The new type of pore-water sampler appears to be an effective approach for long-term monitoring of ground water in the sand and organic-rich mud beneath the drainage ditch.
Vroblesky, Don A.; Casey, Clifton C.
Haploinsufficiency of ZNF238 is associated with corpus callosum abnormalities in 1q44 deletions.
A variety of candidate genes have been proposed to cause corpus callosum abnormalities (CCAs) in patients with terminal chromosome 1q deletions. Recent data excluded AKT3 and implicated ZNF238 and/or CEP170 as genes causative of corpus callosum anomalies in patients with 1q43-1q44 deletions. We report on a girl with dysmorphic features, seizures beginning in infancy, hypotonia, marked developmental delay, and dysgenesis of the corpus callosum. Chromosomal microarray analysis detected a de novo 1.47 Mb deletion at 1q44. The deleted interval encompasses the ZNF238 gene but not the CEP170 or AKT3 genes, thus providing additional evidence for the former and against the latter as being causative of corpus callosum anomalies in patients with such deletions. PMID:23494996
Perlman, Seth J; Kulkarni, Shashikant; Manwaring, Linda; Shinawi, Marwan
Agenesis of the Corpus Callosum in a Newborn with Turner Mosaicism
The agenesis of the corpus callosum results from a failure in the development of the largest fiber bundle that connects cerebral hemispheres. Patient�s outcome is influenced by etiology and associated central nervous system malformations. We describe a child with Turner syndrome (TS) mosaicism, with particular phenotype features and a complete agenesis of the corpus callosum. To our knowledge, this is the second case report of TS mosaicism associated with complete agenesis of the corpus callosum. Anatomical brain magnetic resonance imaging and diffusion tensor imaging were useful to confirm the complete absence of the corpus callosum, evaluate associated central nervous system malformations, visualize abnormal white matter tracts (Probst bundles) and assess the remaining commissures.
Pereira, Ester; Polo, Monica Rebollo; Lopez, Jordi Muchart; Quijano, Thais Agut; Garcia-Alix, Alfredo; Fons, Carmen
Whole-exome sequencing identifies mutated c12orf57 in recessive corpus callosum hypoplasia.
The corpus callosum is the principal cerebral commissure connecting the right and left hemispheres. The development of the corpus callosum is under tight genetic control, as demonstrated by abnormalities in its development in more than 1,000 genetic syndromes. We recruited more than 25 families in which members affected with corpus callosum hypoplasia (CCH) lacked syndromic features and had consanguineous parents, suggesting recessive causes. Exome sequence analysis identified C12orf57 mutations at the initiator methionine codon in four different families. C12orf57 is ubiquitously expressed and encodes a poorly annotated 126 amino acid protein of unknown function. This protein is without significant paralogs but has been tightly conserved across evolution. Our data suggest that this conserved gene is required for development of the human corpus callosum. PMID:23453666
Akizu, Naiara; Shembesh, Nuri M; Ben-Omran, Tawfeg; Bastaki, Laila; Al-Tawari, Asma; Zaki, Maha S; Koul, Roshan; Spencer, Emily; Rosti, Rasim Ozgur; Scott, Eric; Nickerson, Elizabeth; Gabriel, Stacey; da Gente, Gilberto; Li, Jiang; Deardorff, Matthew A; Conlin, Laura K; Horton, Margaret A; Zackai, Elaine H; Sherr, Elliott H; Gleeson, Joseph G
Whole-Exome Sequencing Identifies Mutated C12orf57 in Recessive Corpus Callosum Hypoplasia
The corpus callosum is the principal cerebral commissure connecting the right and left hemispheres. The development of the corpus callosum is under tight genetic control, as demonstrated by abnormalities in its development in more than 1,000 genetic syndromes. We recruited more than 25 families in which members affected with corpus callosum hypoplasia (CCH) lacked syndromic features and had consanguineous parents, suggesting recessive causes. Exome sequence analysis identified C12orf57 mutations at the initiator methionine codon in four different families. C12orf57 is ubiquitously expressed and encodes a poorly annotated 126 amino acid protein of unknown function. This protein is without significant paralogs but has been tightly conserved across evolution. Our data suggest that this conserved gene is required for development of the human corpus callosum.
Akizu, Naiara; Shembesh, Nuri M.; Ben-Omran, Tawfeg; Bastaki, Laila; Al-Tawari, Asma; Zaki, Maha S.; Koul, Roshan; Spencer, Emily; Rosti, Rasim Ozgur; Scott, Eric; Nickerson, Elizabeth; Gabriel, Stacey; da Gente, Gilberto; Li, Jiang; Deardorff, Matthew A.; Conlin, Laura K.; Horton, Margaret A.; Zackai, Elaine H.; Sherr, Elliott H.; Gleeson, Joseph G.
Matrix: A statistical method and software tool for linguistic analysis through corpus comparison
Abstract Matrix: A statistical method and software tool for linguistic analysis through corpus comparison A thesis submitted to Lancaster University for the degree of Ph D in Computer Science Paul Edward Rayson, B Sc September 2002
P. Rayson
Agenesis of the corpus callosum in a newborn with turner mosaicism.
The agenesis of the corpus callosum results from a failure in the development of the largest fiber bundle that connects cerebral hemispheres. Patient's outcome is influenced by etiology and associated central nervous system malformations. We describe a child with Turner syndrome (TS) mosaicism, with particular phenotype features and a complete agenesis of the corpus callosum. To our knowledge, this is the second case report of TS mosaicism associated with complete agenesis of the corpus callosum. Anatomical brain magnetic resonance imaging and diffusion tensor imaging were useful to confirm the complete absence of the corpus callosum, evaluate associated central nervous system malformations, visualize abnormal white matter tracts (Probst bundles) and assess the remaining commissures. PMID:24987509
Pereira, Ester; Polo, Monica Rebollo; L�pez, Jordi Muchart; Quijano, Thais Agut; Garc�a-Alix, Alfredo; Fons, Carmen
Intelligent Semantic-Based System for Corpus Analysis through Hybrid Probabilistic Neural Networks
\\u000a The paper describes the application of hybrid probabilistic neural networks for corpus analysis which consists of intelligent\\u000a semantic-based methods of analysis and recognition of word clusters and their meaning. The task of analyzing a corpus of academic\\u000a articles was resolved with hybrid probabilistic neural networks and developed word clusters. The created prototypes of word\\u000a clusters provide the probabilistic neural networks
Keith Douglas Stuart; Maciej Majewski; Ana Botella Trelis
Practical considerations in the use of TEI headers in a large corpus
Many aspects of the guidelines of the Text Encoding Initiative (TEI) are applicable to corpora and text collections, and to the texts that these contain. As the first large corpus developed using mark-up conforming to the guidelines, the British National Corpus (BNC) is a test-bed for many TEI-developed mechanisms. This is particularly true in the case of the TEI header,
Dominic Dunlop
Current status in the management of uterine corpus cancer in Korea
Uterine corpus cancer has increased in prevalence in Korean women over the last decade. Recently, elegant studies have been reported from many institutes. To improve treatment strategies, a review of our own data is warranted. This work will discuss the risks and prognostic factors for uterine corpus cancer, and the radiologic evaluation, prediction of lymph node metastasis, systematic lymphadenectomy, minimally invasive surgery, ovarian-saving surgery, fertility-sparing treatment, and adjuvant treatment in women with uterine cancer.
Jeong, Nan-Hee; Lee, Seon-Kyung
MRI evaluation of pathologies affecting the corpus callosum: A pictorial essay
The corpus callosum is a midline cerebral structure and has a unique embryological development pattern. In this article, we describe the pathophysiology and present imaging findings of various typical/atypical conditions affecting the corpus callosum. Since many of these pathologies have characteristic appearances on magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and their therapeutic approaches are poles apart, ranging from medical to surgical, the neuroradiologist should be well aware of them.
Kazi, Aamish Z; Joshi, Priscilla C; Kelkar, Abhimanyu B; Mahajan, Mangal S; Ghawate, Amit S
The structure of the corpus callosum in obsessive compulsive disorder.
Abnormal brain connectivity has recently been reported in obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD). However, structural differences in the corpus callosum (CC), the primary structure connecting the two hemispheres, have not been extensively studied. In this case-control study, we recruited 30 patients with OCD and 30 healthy control subjects carefully matched for age, sex and handedness. Combining surface-based mesh-modeling and voxel-based morphometry (VBM), we compared callosal thickness and white matter (WM) density in patients and controls. We investigated associations between callosal structure and cortical gray matter (GM) density, and we related CC measures to neuropsychological performance in OCD. OCD patients showed small anterior and posterior callosal regions compared to healthy control subjects. In the OCD group, anterior callosal thickness was positively correlated with GM density of the right mid-dorso-lateral prefrontal (BA 9/46) area, while posterior callosal thickness was positively correlated with GM density in the left supramarginal gyrus (BA 40). Moreover, posterior callosal WM density was positively correlated with verbal memory, visuo-spatial memory, verbal fluency, and visuo-spatial reasoning performances. Callosal attributes were related to GM density in cortical areas innervated by the CC, and were also related to performance in cognitive domains impaired in the disorder. The CC may therefore be integrally involved in OCD. PMID:23078960
Di Paola, M; Luders, E; Rubino, I A; Siracusano, A; Manfredi, G; Girardi, P; Martinotti, G; Thompson, P M; Chou, Y-Y; Toga, A W; Caltagirone, C; Spalletta, G
Automatic corpus callosum segmentation for standardized MR brain scanning
NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)
Magnetic Resonance (MR) brain scanning is often planned manually with the goal of aligning the imaging plane with key anatomic landmarks. The planning is time-consuming and subject to inter- and intra- operator variability. An automatic and standardized planning of brain scans is highly useful for clinical applications, and for maximum utility should work on patients of all ages. In this study, we propose a method for fully automatic planning that utilizes the landmarks from two orthogonal images to define the geometry of the third scanning plane. The corpus callosum (CC) is segmented in sagittal images by an active shape model (ASM), and the result is further improved by weighting the boundary movement with confidence scores and incorporating region based refinement. Based on the extracted contour of the CC, several important landmarks are located and then combined with landmarks from the coronal or transverse plane to define the geometry of the third plane. Our automatic method is tested on 54 MR images from 24 patients and 3 healthy volunteers, with ages ranging from 4 months to 70 years old. The average accuracy with respect to two manually labeled points on the CC is 3.54 mm and 4.19 mm, and differed by an average of 2.48 degrees from the orientation of the line connecting them, demonstrating that our method is sufficiently accurate for clinical use.
Xu, Qing; Chen, Hong; Zhang, Li; Novak, Carol L.
Detecting corpus callosum abnormalities in autism based on anatomical landmarks
Autism is a severe developmental disorder whose neurological basis is largely unknown. Autism is a subtype of autism that displays more homogeneous features within group. The aim of this study was to identify the shape differences of the corpus callosum between patients with autism and the controls. Anatomical landmarks were collected from mid-sagittal MRI of 25 patients and 18 controls. Euclidean distance matrix analysis and thin-plate spline were used to analyze the landmark forms. Point-by-point shape comparison was performed both globally and locally. A new local shape comparison scheme was proposed which compared each part of the shape in its local coordinate system. Point correspondence was established among individual shapes based on the inherent landmark correspondence. No significant difference was found in the landmark form between patients and controls, but the distance between interior genu and posterior most was found significantly shorter in patients. Thin-plate spline analysis showed significant group difference between the landmark configurations in terms of the deformation from the overall mean configuration. Significant global shape differences were found in the anterior lower body and posterior bottom, and local shape difference existed in the anterior bottom. This study can serve as both clinical reference and a detailed procedure guideline for similar studies in the future.
He, Qing; Duan, Ye; Karsch, Kevin; Miles, Judith
Data modelling in corpus linguistics: How low may we go?
Corpus linguistics allows researchers to process millions of words. However, the more words we analyse, i.e., the more data we acquire, the more urgent the call for correct data interpretation becomes. In recent years, a number of studies saw the light attempting to profile some prolific authors' linguistic decline, linking this decline to pathological conditions such as Alzheimer's Disease (AD). However, in line with the nature of the (literary) work that was analysed, numbers alone do not suffice to 'tell the story'. The one and only objective of using statistical methods for the analysis of research data is to tell a story - what happened, when, and how. In the present study we describe a computerised but individualised approach to linguistic analysis - we propose a unifying approach, with firm grounds in Information Theory, that, independently from the specific parameter being investigated, guarantees to produce a robust model of the temporal dynamics of an author's linguistic richness over his or her lifetime. We applied this methodology to six renowned authors with an active writing life of four decades or more: Iris Murdoch, Gerard Reve, Hugo Claus, Agatha Christie, P.D. James, and Harry Mulisch. The first three were diagnosed with probable Alzheimer Disease, confirmed post-mortem for Iris Murdoch; this same condition was hypothesized for Agatha Christie. Our analysis reveals different evolutive patterns of lexical richness, in turn plausibly correlated with the authors' different conditions. PMID:24332294
van Velzen, Marjolein H; Nanetti, Luca; de Deyn, Peter P
Corpus-based intention recognition in cooperation dilemmas.
Intention recognition is ubiquitous in most social interactions among humans and other primates. Despite this, the role of intention recognition in the emergence of cooperative actions remains elusive. Resorting to the tools of evolutionary game theory, herein we describe a computational model showing how intention recognition coevolves with cooperation in populations of self-regarding individuals. By equipping some individuals with the capacity of assessing the intentions of others in the course of a prototypical dilemma of cooperation-the repeated prisoner's dilemma-we show how intention recognition is favored by natural selection, opening a window of opportunity for cooperation to thrive. We introduce a new strategy (IR) that is able to assign an intention to the actions of opponents, on the basis of an acquired corpus consisting of possible plans achieving that intention, as well as to then make decisions on the basis of such recognized intentions. The success of IR is grounded on the free exploitation of unconditional cooperators while remaining robust against unconditional defectors. In addition, we show how intention recognizers do indeed prevail against the best-known successful strategies of iterated dilemmas of cooperation, even in the presence of errors and reduction of fitness associated with a small cognitive cost for performing intention recognition. PMID:22938562
Han, The Anh; Pereira, Lu�s Moniz; Santos, Francisco C
Transcriptome signatures in Helicobacter pylori-infected mucosa identifies acidic mammalian chitinase loss as a corpus atrophy marker
Background The majority of gastric cancer cases are believed to be caused by chronic infection with the bacterium Helicobacter pylori, and atrophic corpus gastritis is a predisposing condition to gastric cancer development. We aimed to increase understanding of the molecular details of atrophy by performing a global transcriptome analysis of stomach tissue. Methods Biopsies from patients with different stages of H. pylori infection were taken from both the antrum and corpus mucosa and analyzed on microarrays. The stages included patients without current H. pylori infection, H. pylori-infected without corpus atrophy and patients with current or past H. pylori-infection with corpus-predominant atrophic gastritis. Results Using clustering and integrated analysis, we found firm evidence for antralization of the corpus mucosa of atrophy patients. This antralization harbored gain of gastrin expression, as well as loss of expression of corpus-related genes, such as genes associated with acid production, energy metabolism and blood clotting. The analyses provided detailed molecular evidence for simultaneous intestinal metaplasia (IM) and spasmolytic polypeptide expressing metaplasia (SPEM) in atrophic corpus tissue. Finally, acidic mammalian chitinase, a chitin-degrading enzyme produced by chief cells, was shown to be strongly down-regulated in corpus atrophy. Conclusions Transcriptome analysis revealed several gene groups which are related to development of corpus atrophy, some of which were increased also in H. pylori-infected non-atrophic patients. Furthermore, loss of acidic chitinase expression is a promising marker for corpus atrophy.
Interferon-tau and progesterone regulate ubiquitin cross-reactive protein expression in the ovine uterus.
Ubiquitin cross-reactive protein (UCRP) is a functional ubiquitin homolog synthesized by the ruminant endometrium in response to conceptus-derived interferon-tau (IFNtau). Progesterone is required for IFNtau to exert antiluteolytic actions on the endometrium. Therefore, this study was designed to determine whether progesterone is requisite for IFNtau induction of UCRP expression within the ovine uterus. Cyclic ewes were ovariectomized and fitted with intrauterine (i.u.) catheters on Day 5 and treated daily with steroids (i.m.) and protein (i.u.) as follows: 1) progesterone (P, Days 5-24) and control serum proteins (CX, Days 11-24); 2) P and ZK 137.316 (ZK; progesterone receptor antagonist, Days 11-24) and CX proteins; 3) P and recombinant ovine IFNtau (roIFNtau, Days 11-24); or 4) P and ZK and roIFNtau. All ewes were hysterectomized on Day 25. In P-treated ewes, roIFNtau increased endometrial UCRP mRNA and protein levels. However, administration of ZK to ewes ablated roIFNtau induction of UCRP. Recombinant ovine IFNtau induced expression of UCRP mRNA in progestinized endometrial luminal (LE) and glandular (GE) epithelium as well as in both stratum compactum and spongiosum layers of the stroma (ST). Progesterone receptor protein was located in endometrial ST, but not in LE and GE from these ewes. Results support the hypothesis that progesterone is required for IFNtau induction of type I IFN-responsive genes, such as UCRP, in the ruminant uterus. PMID:10684803
Johnson, G A; Spencer, T E; Burghardt, R C; Joyce, M M; Bazer, F W
Comparison of Coxiella burnetii shedding in milk of dairy bovine, caprine, and ovine herds.
The shedding of Coxiella burnetii in bovine, caprine, and ovine milk was measured using PCR, in 3 herds for each species, the bulk tank milk samples of which were positive at the time of their selection. Milk samples of 95 cows, 120 goats, and 90 ewes were sampled over 16 wk, as was the bulk tank milk. The shedding of C. burnetii in vaginal mucus and feces was checked at the beginning of the experiment and 2 mo later. The clinical signs in the selected herds as well as the duration and the shedding routes differed among the 3 species. The cows were asymptomatic and shed C. burnetii almost exclusively in milk. In one of the caprine herds, abortions due to C. burnetii were reported. The goats excreted the bacteria mainly in milk. In contrast, the ewes, which came from flocks with abortions due to Q fever (C. burnetii infection), shed the bacteria mostly in feces and in vaginal mucus. This could explain why human outbreaks of Q fever are more often related to ovine flocks than to bovine herds. These excretions did not seem more frequent when the samples were taken close to parturition. The samples were taken from 0 to 421 d after parturition in bovine herds and from 5 to 119 d and 11 to 238 d after parturition in the caprine and ovine herds, respectively. The shedding in milk was sometimes intermittent, and several animals shed the bacteria but were negative by ELISA: 80% of the ewes were seronegative, underscoring the lack of sensitivity of the ELISA tests available for veterinary diagnosis. The detection of antibodies in milk seems more sensitive than it is in serum. PMID:18024725
Rodolakis, A; Berri, M; H�chard, C; Caudron, C; Souriau, A; Bodier, C C; Blanchard, B; Camuset, P; Devillechaise, P; Natorp, J C; Vadet, J P; Arricau-Bouvery, N
Ribotyping of Fusobacterium necrophorum Strains Isolated from Bovine and Ovine Hepatic Abscesses
A microbiological study was made of 100 strains ofFusobacterium necrophorumisolated from hepatic abscesses in bovine and ovine herds. Differences between the biological activity and ribotypes within the twoF. necrophorumsubspecies were studied. Conventional methods identified 89 isolates asF. necrophorumsubsp.necrophorumand 11 asF. necrophorumsubsp.funduliforme. For ribotyping, 50 strains (35F.n.subsp.necrophorum, 11F.n.subsp.funduliformeand 4 reference strains) were digested with restriction endonucleases (HindIII,EcoRI andBamHI) and examined after
Emilio Mateos; Jorge Valle; Segundo P?riz; Rosario Cerrato; Ruth Jim�nez; Anselmo Perea Remujo; Santiago Vadillo
An assessment of residual ovine nematodes on pasture under maritime conditions.
Residual ovine nematode pasture infections were assessed by grazing groups of ewes and their lambs on permanent sheep and cattle pastures and by the use of tracer lambs. Ostertagia spp., Cooperia oncophora, Nematodirus spp., Chabertia ovina and Trichuris spp. eggs and/or larvae survived on pastures overwinter. Second generation Ostertagia larvae were present in greatest numbers on pasture during the latter part of August and early September. The failure of a significant build-up of Cooperia oncophora was attributed to negligible worm egg output of this species in sheep. A build-up of Nematodirus spp. on pasture was not detected in this study.
Smith, H J; Fulton, N R
Structural changes of the corpus callosum in tinnitus
Objectives: In tinnitus, several brain regions seem to be structurally altered, including the medial partition of Heschl's gyrus (mHG), the site of the primary auditory cortex. The mHG is smaller in tinnitus patients than in healthy controls. The corpus callosum (CC) is the main interhemispheric commissure of the brain connecting the auditory areas of the left and the right hemisphere. Here, we investigate whether tinnitus status is associated with CC volume. Methods: The midsagittal cross-sectional area of the CC was examined in tinnitus patients and healthy controls in which an examination of the mHG had been carried out earlier. The CC was extracted and segmented into subregions which were defined according to the most common CC morphometry schemes introduced by Witelson (1989) and Hofer and Frahm (2006). Results: For both CC segmentation schemes, the CC posterior midbody was smaller in male patients than in male healthy controls and the isthmus, the anterior midbody, and the genou were larger in female patients than in female controls. With CC size normalized relative to mHG volume, the normalized CC splenium was larger in male patients than male controls and the normalized CC splenium, the isthmus and the genou were larger in female patients than female controls. Normalized CC segment size expresses callosal interconnectivity relative to auditory cortex volume. Conclusion: It may be argued that the predominant function of the CC is excitatory. The stronger callosal interconnectivity in tinnitus patients, compared to healthy controls, may facilitate the emergence and maintenance of a positive feedback loop between tinnitus generators located in the two hemispheres.
Diesch, Eugen; Schummer, Verena; Kramer, Martin; Rupp, Andre
Magnetic resonance findings of the corpus callosum in canine and feline lysosomal storage diseases.
Several reports have described magnetic resonance (MR) findings in canine and feline lysosomal storage diseases such as gangliosidoses and neuronal ceroid lipofuscinosis. Although most of those studies described the signal intensities of white matter in the cerebrum, findings of the corpus callosum were not described in detail. A retrospective study was conducted on MR findings of the corpus callosum as well as the rostral commissure and the fornix in 18 cases of canine and feline lysosomal storage diseases. This included 6 Shiba Inu dogs and 2 domestic shorthair cats with GM1 gangliosidosis; 2 domestic shorthair cats, 2 familial toy poodles, and a golden retriever with GM2 gangliosidosis; and 2 border collies and 3 chihuahuas with neuronal ceroid lipofuscinoses, to determine whether changes of the corpus callosum is an imaging indicator of those diseases. The corpus callosum and the rostral commissure were difficult to recognize in all cases of juvenile-onset gangliosidoses (GM1 gangliosidosis in Shiba Inu dogs and domestic shorthair cats and GM2 gangliosidosis in domestic shorthair cats) and GM2 gangliosidosis in toy poodles with late juvenile-onset. In contrast, the corpus callosum and the rostral commissure were confirmed in cases of GM2 gangliosidosis in a golden retriever and canine neuronal ceroid lipofuscinoses with late juvenile- to early adult-onset, but were extremely thin. Abnormal findings of the corpus callosum on midline sagittal images may be a useful imaging indicator for suspecting lysosomal storage diseases, especially hypoplasia (underdevelopment) of the corpus callosum in juvenile-onset gangliosidoses. PMID:24386203
Hasegawa, Daisuke; Tamura, Shinji; Nakamoto, Yuya; Matsuki, Naoaki; Takahashi, Kimimasa; Fujita, Michio; Uchida, Kazuyuki; Yamato, Osamu
Adherence of ruminant mastitis Staphylococcus aureus strains to epithelial cells from ovine mammary gland primary cultures and from a rat intestinal cell line.
Staphylococcus aureus isolated from mastitis (14 bovine and 11 ovine strains) exhibited an ability to adhere to epithelial primary cultures from ovine mammary gland and to a rat epithelial cell line, RIE-1. Strain differences in the degree of adherence were observed in both cases. These differences were maintained when comparing different epithelial sources (rat vs. ovine). RIE-1 cells can thus be used as a model for studying staphylococcal adherence to epithelial cells. Changes in bacterial adherence were observed according to the bacterial growth phase. The magnitude of these changes differed among strains. Bacterial cell surface hydrophobicity was not related to the degree of adherence to mammalian epithelial cells. PMID:7510431
Iturralde, M; Aguilar, B; Baselga, R; Amorena, B
A comparison of six methods for genomic DNA extraction suitable for PCR-based genotyping applications using ovine milk samples
Isolation of amplifiable genomic DNA is a prerequisite for the genetic assessment of diseases and disease susceptibility in farm animals. Milk somatic cells are a practical, animal friendly and cost-effective source of genomic DNA in milking ruminants. In this study, six different DNA extraction methods were optimized, evaluated and compared for the isolation of DNA from ovine milk samples. Methods
Androniki Psifidi; Chrysostomos I. Dovas; Georgios Banos
Interactive in vitro effect of prolactin, growth hormone and season on leptin secretion by ovine adipose tissue
White adipose tissue is an important endocrine organ. Receptors for several hormones are found in the adipocytes, suggesting that these hormones may directly regulate the activity of the fat cells. The effects of prolactin (PRL), growth hormone (GH), melatonin, insulin and their interaction on the regulation of leptin secretion from ovine peri-renal adipose tissue samples were evaluated. Adipose tissue isolated
M. Szczesna; D. A. Zieba; B. Klocek-Gorka; D. H. Keisler
Widespread early dendritic injury associated with loss of cortical MAP2 immunostaining in a focal ovine head impact model
Dendritic pathology associated with traumatic brain injury may be identified by microtubule associated protein-2 (MAP-2) immunohistochemistry. The aim of this study was to examine the dendritic response in the cerebral cortical mantle in an ovine head impact model using MAP-2 immunostaining as a marker for dendritic injury. The loss of cortical MAP-2 immunoreactivity at 2 h was recorded and quantitated
Jim Manavis; Po-Ling Lee; Peter C Blumbergs; Steve B Lewis; John W Finnie; Peter L Reilly; Nigel R Jones
Ovine placental eluate immunoglobulins recognise isologous and third party acid-treated trophoblast microvesicle antigens in vitro.
Placental microvesicles were prepared from ovine placentae and immunoglobulins eluted with 0.5 M glycine buffer pH 2.5. The ability of eluate immunoglobulins to re-associate with isologous (self) and third party acidified microvesicles was tested by ELISA. Ovine placental immunoglobulins re-associated with isologous and third party acidified microvesicles suggesting that at least 2 types of antigenic epitopes I and II maybe expressed on the ovine placentae. Type I antigens may be present on placentae of all ovines while type II epitopes may be paternally derived, hence unique to each pregnancy. Analysis by SDS PAGE revealed the heavy and light chains of IgG at 57 and 27 kDa, respectively, together giving a relative molecular weight of 158 kDa. Results suggest that immunoglobulins produced to placental microvesicle antigens may be directed to some but not all antigenic epitopes expressed on the trophoblast, possibly defining a mechanism by which the foetus evades maternal immunological rejection. PMID:16700472
Omwandho, C A; Gruessner, S E; Falconer, J; Mala, G O; Mecha, E O; Tumbo-Oeri, A G; Tinneberg, H R; Roberts, T K
Effect of biopsy and vitrification on in vitro survival of ovine embryos at different stages of development
The objective of the present study was to assess the in vitro viability of ovine embryos at different stages of development after combining cell sampling and vitrification. Precompacted morulae, compacted morulae and blastocysts were obtained from superovulated Sarda ewes at 4, 5 or 6 d following insemination. Embryo cell biopsy was carried out in a 100-?l drop of PBS +
S. Naitana; P. Loi; S. Ledda; P. Cappai; M. Dattena; L. Bogliolo; G. Leoni
Microfiltration of bovine and ovine milk for the reduction of microbial content in a tubular membrane: a preliminary investigation
In the present work a preliminary study on bovine and ovine milk microfiltration is reported. The study was aimed at the reduction of milk microbial content through a �cold technology� (i.e. at temperatures not higher than 40�C), with the obvious advantages for the preservation of essential elements. Considering the system's fouling characteristics, membrane washing was firstly optimised: Ultrasil 25 resulted
F. Beolchini; D. Barba
Ovine middle cerebral artery characterization and quantification of ultrastructure and other features: changes with development
Regulation of tone, blood pressure, and blood flow in the cerebral vasculature is of vital importance, particularly in the developing infant. We tested the hypothesis that, in addition to accretion of smooth muscle cells (SMCs) in cell layers with vessel thickening, significant changes in smooth muscle structure, as well as phenotype, extracellular matrix, and membrane proteins, in the media of cerebral arteries (CAs) during the course of late fetal development account for associated changes in contractility. Using transmission electron, confocal, wide-field epifluorescence, and light microscopy, we examined the structure and ultrastructure of CAs. Also, we utilized wire myography, Western immunoblotting, and real-time quantitative PCR to examine several other features of these arteries. We compared the main branch ovine middle CAs of 95- and 140-gestational day (GD) fetuses with those of adults (n = 5 for each experimental group). We observed a graded increase in phenylephrine- and KCl-induced contractile responses with development. Structurally, lumen diameter, media thickness, and media cross-sectional area increased dramatically from one age group to the next. With maturation, the cross-sectional profiles of CA SMCs changed from flattened bands in the 95-GD fetus to irregular ovoid-shaped fascicles in the 140-GD fetus and adult. We also observed a change in the type of collagen, specific integrin molecules, and several other parameters of SMC morphology with maturation. Ovine CAs at 95 GD appeared morphologically immature and poorly equipped to respond to major hemodynamic adjustments with maturation.
Goyal, Ravi; Henderson, David A.; Chu, Nina
Probiotic potential of Lactobacillus spp. isolated from Brazilian regional ovine cheese.
Twelve Lactobacillus isolates from Brazilian starter-free ovine cheeses were evaluated for their probiotic potential. The strains were identified by 16S rDNA sequencing as Lactobacillus plantarum (7), Lb. brevis (2), Lb. casei (2) and Lb. parabuchneri (1). All strains showed variable resistance to gastric juices and relative tolerance to pancreatin and bile salts. Only five strains of Lb. plantarum could not deconjugate the sodium salt of taurodeoxycholic acid. Autoaggregation ability after 24 h was above 50% and hydrophobicity was higher than 60% for most strains. All lactobacilli could inhibit linolenic acid oxidation, except Lb. parabuchneri strain, whereas none of them could scavenge DPPH radical. ?-Galactosidase activity ranged from 47�7 to 2503 Miller units. Inhibition of food pathogens Listeria monocytogenes, Staphylococcus aureus, Bacillus cereus, Escherichia coli and Salmonella typhimurium was demonstrated and the production of organic acids could be associated with this effect. The Lactobacillus strains from Brazilian regional ovine cheese showed interesting functional characteristics, mainly the strains Lb. brevis SM-B and Lb. plantarum SM-I. Both presented high acid tolerance. In addition, Lb. brevis SM-B also displayed remarkable antioxidant activity and Lb. plantarum SM-I was the highest ?-galactosidase producer, exhibited high autoaggregation and hydrophobicity properties. PMID:23171587
Meira, Stela Maris Meister; Helfer, Virginia Etges; Velho, Renata Voltolini; Lopes, Fernanda Cortez; Brandelli, Adriano
Ovine uterine space restriction alters placental transferrin receptor and fetal iron status during late pregnancy
Background Fetal growth restriction is reported to be associated with impaired placental iron transport. Transferrin receptor (TfR) is a major placental iron transporter in humans, but is unstudied in sheep. TfR is regulated by both iron and nitric oxide (NO), the molecule produced by endothelial NOS (eNOS). We hypothesized that limited placental development downregulates both placental TfR and eNOS expression, thereby lowering fetal tissue iron. Methods An ovine surgical uterine space restriction (USR) model, combined with multifetal gestation, tested the extremes of uterine and placental adaptation. Blood, tissues, and placentomes from non-space restricted (NSR) singletons were compared to USR fetuses at 120 or 130 days of gestation (GD). Results When expressed proportionate to fetal weight, liver iron content did not differ while renal iron was higher in USR vs. NSR fetuses. Renal TfR protein expression did not differ, but placental TfR expression was lower in USR fetuses at GD130. Placental levels of TfR correlated to eNOS. TfR was localized throughout the placentome, including the hemophagous zone, implicating a role for TfR in ovine placental iron transport. Conclusion In conclusion, fetal iron was regulated in an organ-specific fashion. In USR fetuses, NO-mediated placental adaptations may prevent the normal upregulation of placental TfR at GD130.
Sun, Mary Y.; Habeck, Jason M.; Meyer, Katie M.; Koch, Jill M.; Ramadoss, Jayanth; Blohowiak, Sharon E.; Magness, Ronald R.; Kling, Pamela J.
The effect of Psoroptes ovis infestation on ovine epidermal barrier function
Sheep scab is an intensively pruritic, exudative and allergic dermatitis of sheep caused by the ectoparasitic mite Psoroptes ovis. The purpose of the present study was to investigate the effect of P. ovis infestation on different components of the ovine epidermal barrier within the first 24 hours post-infestation (hpi). To achieve this, the expression of epidermal differentiation complex (EDC) genes and epidermal barrier proteins, the nature and severity of epidermal pathology and transepidermal water loss (TEWL) were evaluated. By 1 hpi a significant dermal polymorphonuclear infiltrate and a significant increase in TEWL with maximal mean TEWL (598.67 g/m2h) were observed. Epidermal pathology involving intra-epidermal pustulation, loss of epidermal architecture and damage to the basement membrane was seen by 3 hpi. Filaggrin and loricrin protein levels in the stratum corneum declined significantly in the first 24 hpi and qPCR validation confirmed the decrease in expression of the key EDC genes involucrin, filaggrin and loricrin observed by microarray analysis, with 5.8-fold, 4.5-fold and 80-fold decreases, respectively by 24 hpi. The present study has demonstrated that early P. ovis infestation disrupts the ovine epidermal barrier causing significant alterations in the expression of critical barrier components, epidermal pathology, and TEWL. Many of these features have also been documented in human and canine atopic dermatitis suggesting that sheep scab may provide a model for the elucidation of events occurring in the early phases of atopic sensitisation.
The effect of Psoroptes ovis infestation on ovine epidermal barrier function.
Sheep scab is an intensively pruritic, exudative and allergic dermatitis of sheep caused by the ectoparasitic mite Psoroptes ovis. The purpose of the present study was to investigate the effect of P. ovis infestation on different components of the ovine epidermal barrier within the first 24 hours post-infestation (hpi). To achieve this, the expression of epidermal differentiation complex (EDC) genes and epidermal barrier proteins, the nature and severity of epidermal pathology and transepidermal water loss (TEWL) were evaluated.By 1 hpi a significant dermal polymorphonuclear infiltrate and a significant increase in TEWL with maximal mean TEWL (598.67 g/m2h) were observed. Epidermal pathology involving intra-epidermal pustulation, loss of epidermal architecture and damage to the basement membrane was seen by 3 hpi. Filaggrin and loricrin protein levels in the stratum corneum declined significantly in the first 24 hpi and qPCR validation confirmed the decrease in expression of the key EDC genes involucrin, filaggrin and loricrin observed by microarray analysis, with 5.8-fold, 4.5-fold and 80-fold decreases, respectively by 24 hpi.The present study has demonstrated that early P. ovis infestation disrupts the ovine epidermal barrier causing significant alterations in the expression of critical barrier components, epidermal pathology, and TEWL. Many of these features have also been documented in human and canine atopic dermatitis suggesting that sheep scab may provide a model for the elucidation of events occurring in the early phases of atopic sensitisation. PMID:23398847
Stoeckli, Miriam R; McNeilly, Tom N; Frew, David; Marr, Edward J; Nisbet, Alasdair J; van den Broek, Adri H M; Burgess, Stewart T G
Gene expression profiling of ovine keratinocytes stimulated with Psoroptes ovis mite antigen--a preliminary study.
Sheep scab is caused by the noninvasive mite, Psoroptes ovis, which initiates a profound pro-inflammatory skin response leading to lesion development. To investigate these early events between the skin and the parasite, primary ovine epidermal keratinocyte cultures were generated and challenged with mite derived antigens. The kinetics of the mRNA response of these cells were monitored by microarray. The results indicated that the cells responded within 1 h of challenge, with a significant increase in the pro-inflammatory cytokine IL-8. This result was confirmed by real-time RT-PCR, and showed that IL-8 up-regulation was maximal at 1 h but declined to pre-stimulation levels at 24 and 48 h. The IL-8 mRNA response to mite wash antigens containing secretory and/or excretory proteins was also investigated and compared to the response to whole mite antigen. These studies revealed that the mite wash antigen, at a challenge dose of 10 microg/mL, was markedly more potent and induced significantly higher levels of IL-8 mRNA than the same concentration of whole mite antigen. These results are discussed in relation to mite establishment and survival on the ovine host. PMID:19493210
Watkins, C A; Mackellar, A; Frew, D; Mackie, C; George, A; Hopkins, J; Burgess, S T G; McNeilly, T N; Huntley, J F
Suppressing effects of bisphenol A on the secretory function of ovine anterior pituitary cells.
We investigated the action of bisphenol A (BPA) on cellular GH release and content, cell number, GHmRNA expression, and concentrations of cellular cyclic AMP ([cAMP]c) and calcium ion ([Ca2+]c) in primary cultured ovine anterior pituitary cells. The following results were found: (1) BPA as well as nonylphenol (NP) at 10(-6) to 10(-3) M significantly and concentration-dependently suppressed basal and GHRH-stimulated GH release, and the cellular GH content, (2) BPA suppressed the cell number in a time- and concentration-dependent manner, (3) 10(-4)M BPA suppressed GHmRNA expression to 68% of control (BPA-free), and abolished GHRH (10(-8) M)-induced increases in [cAMP]c and [Ca2+]c. From these findings we conclude that BPA possesses a suppressing action on GH synthesis and release, and this suppressing action is probably related to impairment of cellular signal transduction systems in ovine anterior pituitary cells. PMID:15223023
Katoh, K; Matsuda, A; Ishigami, A; Yonekura, S; Ishiwata, H; Chen, C; Obara, Y
Improved repair of chondral and osteochondral defects in the ovine trochlea compared with the medial condyle.
Associations between topographic location and articular cartilage repair in preclinical animal models are unknown. Based on clinical investigations, we hypothesized that lesions in the ovine femoral condyle repair better than in the trochlea. Full-thickness chondral and osteochondral defects were simultaneously established in the weightbearing area of the medial femoral condyle and the lateral trochlear facet in sheep, with chondral defects subjected to subchondral drilling. After 6 months in vivo, cartilage repair and osteoarthritis development was evaluated by macroscopic, histological, immunohistochemical, and biochemical analyses. Macroscopic and histological articular cartilage repair and type-II collagen immunoreactivity were better in the femoral trochlea, regardless of the defect type. Location-independently, osteochondral defects induced more osteoarthritic degeneration of the adjacent cartilage than drilled chondral lesions. DNA and proteoglycan contents of chondral defects were higher in the condyle, reflecting physiological topographical differences. The results indicate that topographic location dictates the structural patterns and biochemical composition of the repair tissue in sheep. These findings suggest that repair of cartilage defects at different anatomical sites of the ovine stifle joint needs to be assessed independently and that the sheep trochlea exhibits cartilage repair patterns reflective of the human medial femoral condyle. PMID:23813860
Orth, Patrick; Meyer, Heinz-Lothar; Goebel, Lars; Eldracher, Mona; Ong, Mei Fang; Cucchiarini, Magali; Madry, Henning
Ovine Forestomach Matrix as a Substrate for Single-Stage Split-Thickness Graft Reconstruction
Objective: Split skin graft reconstruction of scalp defects often leaves an obvious contour defect. Here, we aimed to demonstrate the use of a decellularized extracellular matrix biomaterial, termed ovine forestomach matrix (OFM), as a substrate for split-thickness skin grafts (STSGs) for scalp reconstruction. Methods: Following full-thickness tumor excision, OFM was applied directly to skull periosteum, and then an STSG was applied. Participants were monitored for graft take, epithelialization, and cosmetic outcomes. Results: Participants responded well to the procedure with more than 95% graft take in 4 participants, and 100% epithelialization of the grafts after 2 weeks. A 30% graft take was observed in the fifth participant due to local infection and partial necrosis of the graft. Ovine forestomach matrix was remodelled with time and the regenerated dermis was well vascularized and had robust and ordered collagen deposition. Conclusions: This series demonstrates that OFM can serve as a temporary dermal scaffold to support an overlying STSG and allow for a single-stage grafting procedure.
Simcock, Jeremy; May, Barnaby C. H.
Characterization of human mucin (MUC15) and identification of ovine and caprine orthologs.
The glycoprotein MUC15 (mucin 15) was initially isolated from the bovine milk fat globule membrane. The present work demonstrates the existence of immunologically similar proteins ( approximately 130 kDa) in ovine, caprine, porcine, and buffalo milk samples. Purification and N-terminal amino acid sequencing confirmed the presence of ovine and caprine MUC15 orthologs in milk fat globule membranes. Expression of MUC15 in human milk was demonstrated by immunostaining ( approximately 150 kDa) as well as by mass spectrometry. Screening of a human multiple tissue expression array showed abundant MUC15 gene expression in placenta, salivary gland, thyroid gland, trachea, esophagus, kidney, testis, and the leukemia K-562 cell line. Furthermore, moderate expression was seen in the pancreas, adult and fetal lung, fetal kidney, lymph node, adult and fetal thymus, and parietal lobe. Structural motifs for interactions (epidermal growth factor receptor and Src homology 2 domains) are identified in the intracellular region. Implication of the mucin in signal transduction and the potential physiological function of MUC15 are discussed. PMID:19038922
Pallesen, L T; Pedersen, L R L; Petersen, T E; Knudsen, C R; Rasmussen, J T
Effect of "ice blockers" in solutions for vitrification of in vitro matured ovine oocytes.
Polymers have been used as a substitute for serum in vitrification solutions for embryos and oocytes. This study was designed to replace serum with defined commercial macromolecules in vitrification solution for in vitro matured ovine oocytes. Oocytes were cryopreserved in two vitrification solutions (16.5 percent ethylene glycol + 16.5 percent dimethyl sulphoxide) supplemented with 1 percent of SuperCool X-1000 and 1 percent SuperCool Z-1000 (Ice Blockers) or 20 percent foetal calf serum (FCS). After warming, oocytes viability and developmental potential after processing for in vitro embryo production were assessed. The number of viable oocytes (87.4 percent and 85.9 percent), cleaveage rates (21.4 percent and 19.6 percent) and blastocyst development rates (4.8 percent and 4.5 percent) were similar for Ice Blockers and FCS, respectively. On the basis of these findings, it may be concluded that combined use of Ice Blockers (SuperCool X-1000 and SuperCool Z-1000) as supplementation in vitrification solution offers similar results to serum for vitrification of in vitro matured ovine oocytes. PMID:22434121
Marco-Jimenez, F; Berlinguer, F; Leoni, G G; Succu, S; Naitana, S
Development and Evaluation of an Ovine Antibody-Based Platform for Treatment of Clostridium difficile Infection
Treatment of Clostridium difficile is a major problem as a hospital-associated infection which can cause severe, recurrent diarrhea. The currently available antibiotics are not effective in all cases and alternative treatments are required. In the present study, an ovine antibody-based platform for passive immunotherapy of C. difficile infection is described. Antibodies with high toxin-neutralizing titers were generated against C. difficile toxins A and B and were shown to neutralize three sequence variants of these toxins (toxinotypes) which are prevalent in human C. difficile infection. Passive immunization of hamsters with a mixture of toxin A and B antibodies protected them from a challenge with C. difficile spores in a dose-dependent manner. Antibodies to both toxins A and B were required for protection. The administration of toxin A and B antibodies up to 24 h postchallenge was found to reduce significantly the onset of C. difficile infection compared to nonimmunized controls. Protection from infection was also demonstrated with key disease isolates (ribotypes 027 and 078), which are members of the hypervirulent C. difficile clade. The ribotype 027 and 078 strains also have the capacity to produce an active binary toxin and these data suggest that neutralization of this toxin is unnecessary for the management of infection induced by these strains. In summary, the data suggest that ovine toxin A and B antibodies may be effective in the treatment of C. difficile infection; their potential use for the management of severe, fulminant cases is discussed.
Roberts, April; McGlashan, Joanna; Al-Abdulla, Ibrahim; Ling, Roger; Denton, Harriet; Green, Steve; Coxon, Ruth; Landon, John
Electrocortical activity in the near-term ovine fetus: automated analysis using amplitude frequency components.
We have designed an automated method for analyzing electrocortical (ECoG) activity in the near-term ovine fetus to process and quantitatively classify large amounts of data rapidly and objectively. Seven chronically catheterized fetal sheep were studied for 8h each at ~0.9 of gestation with continuous recording of ECoG activity using a computerized data acquisition system. Multiple ECoG amplitude and frequency parameters were scored from which we established animal specific parameter cut-off values as well as population based duration cut-off values to distinguish low-voltage/high frequency (LV/HF) and high-voltage/low frequency (HV/LF) state epochs, and indeterminate voltage/frequency (IV/F) and transition period activities. We have shown that the incidence of the predominant LV/HF and HV/LF activity states at 45% and 36% of the time, respectively, is comparable to that previously reported using semi-quantitative techniques with visual analysis. However, the duration of these state epochs is considerably shorter due to the detection of brief periods of IV/F activity which would be difficult to capture using visual analysis. Importantly, our findings in the healthy ovine fetus near-term using this automated ECoG scoring methodology now provide a framework from which to study maturational events in younger animals, and under adverse pregnancy conditions. PMID:21665193
Keen, Ashley E; Frasch, Martin G; Sheehan, Melissa A; Matushewski, Brad J; Richardson, Bryan S
Mid-Gestation Ovine Cardiomyocytes Are Vulnerable to Mitotic Suppression by Thyroid Hormone
Circulating fetal 3,3?,5-tri-iodo-l-thyronine (T3 ) is maintained at very low levels until a dramatic prepartum surge. 3,3?,5-Tri-iodo-l-thyronine inhibits serum-stimulated proliferation in near-term ovine cardiomyocytes, but it is not known whether midgestation myocytes are also inhibited. Because early cessation of cardiomyocyte mitosis would result in an underendowed heart, we hypothesized that 0.67 gestation (100 of 145 days gestation) ovine cardiomyocytes would be insensitive to suppressive growth effects of T3 . These younger cardiomyocytes were grown with T3 in 10% serum-enriched media for 24 hours. Physiological (0.37, 0.75, and 1.5 nmol/L) concentrations of T3 dramatically suppressed mitotic activity in cardiomyocytes (P < .001). 3,3?,5-Tri-iodo-l-thyronine stimulated phosphorylation of extracellular signal-regulated kinase and AKT (also known as Protein Kinase B [PKB]) signaling pathways. Nevertheless, the protein content of the cell cycle suppressor, p21, increased 2-fold (P < .05), and promoter, cyclin D1, decreased by 50%. Contrary to our hypothesis, elevated levels of T3 powerfully inhibit proliferation of midgestation fetal cardiomyocytes. Thus, midgestation maternal hyperthyroidism might lead to an underendowed fetal myocardium.
Chattergoon, Natasha N.; Louey, Samantha; Stork, Philip; Giraud, George D.; Thornburg, Kent L.
Enucleated ovine oocyte supports human somatic cells reprogramming back to the embryonic stage.
Increased possibility of universality of ooplasmic reprogramming factors resulted in a parallel increased interest to use interspecies somatic cell nuclear transfer (iSCNT) to address basic questions of developmental biology and to improve the feasibility of cell therapy. In this study, the interactions between human somatic cells and ovine oocytes were investigated. Nuclear remodeling events were first observed 3 h post-iSCNT as nuclear swelling, chromosome condensation, and spindle formation. A time-dependent decrease in maturation promoting activity of inactivated reconstructs coincided with increased aberrations in chromosome and spindle organization of the newly developed embryos. The sequence and duration of nuclear remodeling events were irrespective of donor cell type used. Although the majority of the reconstituted embryos arrested before embryonic genome activation (8-16-cell) stage, less than 5% of them could progress beyond transcription-requiring developmental stage and formed blastocyst-like structures with distinct inner cell mass and trophectoderm at days 7 and 8 post-SCNT. Importantly, real-time assessment of three developmentally important genes (Oct4, Sox2, and Nanog) indicated their upregulation in iSCNT blastocysts. Blastocyst-derived outgrowths had alkaline phosphatase activity that was lost upon passage. Collectively, this study introduced ovine oocyte as a credible cytoplast for remodeling and reprogramming of human somatic cells back to the embryonic stage and provided a platform for further studies to unravel possible differences exist between reprogramming ability of oocytes of different mammalian species. PMID:22384929
Hosseini, S Morteza; Hajian, Mehdi; Forouzanfar, Mohsen; Moulavi, Fariba; Abedi, Parvaneh; Asgari, Vajiheh; Tanhaei, Somayyeh; Abbasi, Hassan; Jafarpour, Farnoosh; Ostadhosseini, Soamyyeh; Karamali, Fereshteh; Karbaliaie, Khadijeh; Baharvand, Hossein; Nasr-Esfahani, Mohammad H
Inhibition of ovine in vitro fertilization by anti-Prt antibody: hypothetical model for Prt/ZP interaction
Background The impact of prion proteins in the rules that dictate biological reproduction is still poorly understood. Likewise, the role of prnt gene, encoding the prion-like protein testis specific (Prt), in ram reproductive physiology remains largely unknown. In this study, we assessed the effect of Prt in ovine fertilization by using an anti-Prt antibody (APPA) in fertilization medium incubated with spermatozoa and oocytes. Moreover, a computational model was constructed to infer how the results obtained could be related to a hypothetical role for Prt in sperm-zona pellucida (ZP) binding. Methods Mature ovine oocytes were transferred to fertilization medium alone (control) or supplemented with APPA, or pre-immune serum (CSerum). Oocytes were inseminated with ovine spermatozoa and after 18 h, presumptive zygotes (n?=?142) were fixed to evaluate fertilization rates or transferred (n?=?374) for embryo culture until D6-7. Predicted ovine Prt tertiary structure was compared with data obtained by circular dichroism spectroscopy (CD) and a protein-protein computational docking model was estimated for a hypothetical Prt/ZP interaction. Results The fertilizing rate was lower (P?=?0.006) in APPA group (46.0+/?6.79%) when compared to control (78.5+/?7.47%) and CSerum (64.5+/?6.65%) groups. In addition, the cleavage rate was higher (P?0.0001) in control (44.1+/?4.15%) than in APPA group (19.7+/?4.22%). Prt CD spectroscopy showed a 22% alpha-helical structure in 30% (m/v) aqueous trifluoroethanol (TFE) and 17% alpha in 0.6% (m/v) TFE. The predominant alpha-helical secondary structure detected correlates with the predicted three dimensional structure for ovine Prt, which was subsequently used to test Prt/ZP docking. Computational analyses predicted a favorable Prt-binding activity towards ZP domains. Conclusions Our data indicates that the presence of APPA reduces the number of fertilized oocytes and of cleaved embryos. Moreover, the CD analysis data reinforces the predicted ovine Prt trend towards an alpha-helical structure. Predicted protein-protein docking suggests a possible interaction between Prt and ZP, thus supporting an important role for Prt in ovine fertilization.
Effect of an Ethanol Extract of Scutellaria baicalensis on Relaxation in Corpus Cavernosum Smooth Muscle
Aims of study. The aim of the present study was to investigate whether an ethanol extract of Scutellaria baicalensis (ESB) relaxes penile corpus cavernosum muscle in organ bath experiments. Materials and methods. Changes in tension of cavernous smooth muscle strips were determined by penile strip chamber model and in penile perfusion model. Isolated endothelium-intact rabbit corpus cavernosum was precontracted with phenylephrine (PE) and then treated with ESB. Results. ESB relaxed penile smooth muscle in a dose-dependent manner, and this was inhibited by pre-treatment with NG-nitro-l-arginine methyl ester (l-NAME), a nitric oxide (NO) synthase inhibitor, and 1H-[1, 2, 4]-oxadiazolo-[4,3-?]-quinoxalin-1-one (ODQ), a soluble guanylyl cyclase (sGC) inhibitor. ESB-induced relaxation was significantly attenuated by pretreatment with tetraethylammonium (TEA), a nonselective K+ channel blocker, and charybdotoxin, a selective Ca2+-dependent K+ channel inhibitor. ESB increased the cGMP levels of rabbit corpus cavernosum in a concentration-dependent manner without changes in cAMP levels. In a perfusion model of penile tissue, ESB also relaxed penile corpus cavernosum smooth muscle in a dose-dependent manner. Conclusion. Taken together, these results suggest that ESB relaxed rabbit cavernous smooth muscle via the NO/cGMP system and Ca2+-sensitive K+ channels in the corpus cavernosum.
Li, Xiang; Oh, Hyun Cheol; Son, Su Bin; Lee, Yun Jung; Kang, Dae Gill; Lee, Ho Sub
The Nationwide Speech Project: A new corpus of American English dialects?
Perceptual and acoustic research on dialect variation in the United States requires an appropriate corpus of spoken language materials. Existing speech corpora that include dialect variation are limited by poor recording quality, small numbers of talkers, and/or small samples of speech from each talker. The Nationwide Speech Project corpus was designed to contain a large amount of speech produced by male and female talkers representing the primary regional varieties of American English. Five male and five female talkers from each of six dialect regions in the United States were recorded reading words, sentences, passages, and in interviews with an experimenter, using high quality digital recording equipment in a sound-attenuated booth. The resulting corpus contains nearly an hour of speech from each of the 60 talkers that can be used in future research on the perception and production of dialect variation.
Clopper, Cynthia G.; Pisoni, David B.
Abnormal White Matter Integrity in the Corpus Callosum among Smokers: Tract-Based Spatial Statistics
In the present study, we aimed to investigate the difference in white matter between smokers and nonsmokers. In addition, we examined relationships between white matter integrity and nicotine dependence parameters in smoking subjects. Nineteen male smokers were enrolled in this study. Eighteen age-matched non-smokers with no current or past psychiatric history were included as controls. Diffusion tensor imaging scans were performed, and the analysis was conducted using a tract-based special statistics approach. Compared with nonsmokers, smokers exhibited a significant decrease in fractional anisotropy (FA) throughout the whole corpus callosum. There were no significant differences in radial diffusivity or axial diffusivity between the two groups. There was a significant negative correlation between FA in the whole corpus callosum and the amount of tobacco use (cigarettes/day; R?=?? 0.580, p?=?0.023). These results suggest that the corpus callosum may be one of the key areas influenced by chronic smoking.
Umene-Nakano, Wakako; Yoshimura, Reiji; Kakeda, Shingo; Watanabe, Keita; Hayashi, Kenji; Nishimura, Joji; Takahashi, Hidehiko; Moriya, Junji; Ide, Satoru; Ueda, Issei; Hori, Hikaru; Ikenouchi-Sugita, Atsuko; Katsuki, Asuka; Atake, Kiyokazu; Abe, Osamu; Korogi, Yukunori; Nakamura, Jun
Corpus callosum abnormalities in women with borderline personality disorder and comorbid attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder
Objective Decreased brain volumes in prefrontal, limbic and parietal areas have been found in women with borderline personality disorder (BPD). Recent models suggest impaired structural and functional connectivity in this condition. To investigate this, we studied the thickness of the corpus callosum, the largest connecting fibre bundle in the human brain. Methods We acquired magnetic resonance imaging scans from 20 healthy women and 20 women with BPD and comorbid attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder. A novel computational mesh-based method was applied to measure callosal thickness at high spatial resolution. Results Women with BPD had a thinner isthmus of the corpus callosum, compared with healthy women. In the patient group, a history of childhood sexual abuse was associated with a thinner posterior body of the corpus callosum. Conclusion Interhemispheric structural connectivity involving parietal and temporal areas may be impaired in women with BPD and comorbid attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder.
Rusch, Nicolas; Luders, Eileen; Lieb, Klaus; Zahn, Roland; Ebert, Dieter; Thompson, Paul M.; Toga, Arthur W.; van Elst, Ludger Tebartz
Analysis of major ovine milk proteins by reversed-phase high-performance liquid chromatography and flow injection analysis with electrospray ionization mass spectrometry
Ovine milk proteins were analyzed both by coupling HPLC and electrospray ionization mass spectrometry (ESI-MS) and by flow injection analysis and ESI-MS detection after separation and collection of fractions from gel permeation chromatography. These methods resolved the four ovine caseins and whey proteins and made it possible to study the complexity of these proteins associated with genetic polymorphism, post-translational changes
Antonio-Jos� Trujillo; Isidre Casals; Buenaventura Guamis
Structural and functional analysis of the ovine laminin receptor gene ( RPSA ): Possible involvement of the LRP\\/LR protein in scrapie response
Scrapie is a prion disease affecting sheep and goats. Susceptibility to this neurodegenerative disease shows polygenic variance.\\u000a The involvement of the laminin receptor (LRP\\/LR) in the metabolism and propagation of prions has previously been demonstrated.\\u000a In the present work, the ovine laminin receptor gene (RPSA) was isolated, characterized, and mapped to ovine chromosome OAR19q13. Real-time RT-PCR revealed a significant decrease
Ane Marcos-Carcavilla; Jorge H. Calvo; Carmen Gonz�lez; Carmen Serrano; Katayoun Moazami-Goudarzi; Pascal Laurent; Maud Bertaud; H�l�ne Hayes; Anne E. Beattie; Jaber Lyahyai; Inmaculada Mart�n-Burriel; Juan Mar�a Torres; Magdalena Serrano
Modification of articular cartilage and subchondral bone pathology in an ovine meniscectomy model of osteoarthritis by avocado and soya unsaponifiables (ASU)
Objective To examine the effect of an oral preparation of avocado and soya unsaponifiables (ASU) on the development of joint pathology in an ovine model of osteoarthritis (OA), using computer-assisted histomorphometric methods.Design OA was induced in ovine knee joints by bilateral lateral meniscectomy (N=32). ASU (900mg\\/weekday) was given orally to half the group (MenX+ASU), the remainder receiving placebo (MenX). Sixteen
M. A Cake; R. A Read; B Guillou; P Ghosh
Treatment with hypotensive agents affects the impaired relaxation of the penile corpus cavernosum in hypertensive rats.
Treatment of erectile dysfunction (ED) in hypertensive subjects remains to be formally established. There is currently no standardized treatment for ED in hypertensive subjects. In this study, we tested our hypothesis that hypotensive drugs would improve impaired relaxation in the corpus cavernosum of spontaneously hypertensive rats (SHR). Ten-week-old SHR was treated with amlodipine, imidapril or hydralazine for 4 weeks. Although all three drugs achieved an equivalent decrease in systolic blood pressure (SBP), only amlodipine and imidapril induced an increase in relaxation in response to electrical field stimulation (EFS) of the corpus cavernosum. In the case of amlodipine, this effect was dose- and SBP-dependent. Nitric oxide (NO)-dependent relaxation was increased by amlodipine over a wide range of EFS frequencies, was increased by imidapril at low EFS frequencies, and was decreased by hydralazine. Carbon monoxide (CO)-dependent relaxation was only increased by hydralazine, and this increase occurred over a wide range of frequencies. The NOx and cGMP levels in the EFS-stimulated corpus cavernosum were increased by amlodipine. Amlodipine did not affect the thiobarbituric acid-reacting substance levels in the serum and the corpus cavernosum, but did decrease superoxide dismutase activity in the tissue. Imidapril and hydralazine inhibited the acetylcholine-induced relaxation in the corpus cavernosum. Sodium nitroprusside-induced relaxation in the tissue was increased by amlodipine. All three agents similarly inhibited the phenylephrine-induced contraction. These results suggest that impaired neurogenic relaxation in the corpus cavernosum of SHR is improved by amlodipine and imidapril through an increase in the synthesis and/or release of neuronal NO, but not CO, and presumably the inhibited detumescence of erection, which is induced by norepinephrine being released from sympathetic neuron. These findings indicate that amlodipine and imidapril may ameliorate the decreased relaxation of cavernous smooth muscle in the setting of hypertension. PMID:17044665
Ushiyama, Masayuki; Kuramochi, Tomoya; Katayama, Shigehiro
NCBI disease corpus: a resource for disease name recognition and concept normalization.
Information encoded in natural language in biomedical literature publications is only useful if efficient and reliable ways of accessing and analyzing that information are available. Natural language processing and text mining tools are therefore essential for extracting valuable information, however, the development of powerful, highly effective tools to automatically detect central biomedical concepts such as diseases is conditional on the availability of annotated corpora. This paper presents the disease name and concept annotations of the NCBI disease corpus, a collection of 793 PubMed abstracts fully annotated at the mention and concept level to serve as a research resource for the biomedical natural language processing community. Each PubMed abstract was manually annotated by two annotators with disease mentions and their corresponding concepts in Medical Subject Headings (MeSH�) or Online Mendelian Inheritance in Man (OMIM�). Manual curation was performed using PubTator, which allowed the use of pre-annotations as a pre-step to manual annotations. Fourteen annotators were randomly paired and differing annotations were discussed for reaching a consensus in two annotation phases. In this setting, a high inter-annotator agreement was observed. Finally, all results were checked against annotations of the rest of the corpus to assure corpus-wide consistency. The public release of the NCBI disease corpus contains 6892 disease mentions, which are mapped to 790 unique disease concepts. Of these, 88% link to a MeSH identifier, while the rest contain an OMIM identifier. We were able to link 91% of the mentions to a single disease concept, while the rest are described as a combination of concepts. In order to help researchers use the corpus to design and test disease identification methods, we have prepared the corpus as training, testing and development sets. To demonstrate its utility, we conducted a benchmarking experiment where we compared three different knowledge-based disease normalization methods with a best performance in F-measure of 63.7%. These results show that the NCBI disease corpus has the potential to significantly improve the state-of-the-art in disease name recognition and normalization research, by providing a high-quality gold standard thus enabling the development of machine-learning based approaches for such tasks. The NCBI disease corpus, guidelines and other associated resources are available at: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/CBBresearch/Dogan/DISEASE/. PMID:24393765
Do?an, Rezarta Islamaj; Leaman, Robert; Lu, Zhiyong
Patterns of lesions of corpus callosum in inner cerebral trauma visualized by computed tomography.
Computed tomographic analysis of lesions of the corpus callosum in 13 patients with "inner cerebral trauma" showed significant congruence of linear translation of acceleration and the topographic distribution of such lesions. This congruence permits computed tomography to be used to reconstruct the course of linear translation and the site of the main blow, which can be important for forensic use. The findings of even a small lesion in the corpus callosum indicates the need for further investigation of other structures which are usually involved in inner cerebral trauma, such as the hippocampus and brain stem. PMID:1603310
Besenski, N; Jadro-Santel, D; Grcevi?, N
Primary cervical and uterine corpus lymphoma; a case report and literature review
Primary lymphoma of the uterine corpus and cervix is rare. We present a case of primary non-Hodgkin follicular lymphoma isolated to uterine corpus and parametria with focal spread to ovaries and fallopian tubes, incidentally found on the background of endometrial malignancy. A summary of the published cases focusing on the presentation and prognosis as well as a review of current management are discussed. The rising incidence of extra-nodal lymphoma and recent changes in classification and therapeutic approach, require clinical vigilance. In the absence of prospective studies assessing the value of the available therapeutic options, data from retrospective series and scattered case reports are presented in this review.
Anagnostopoulos, Antonios; Mouzakiti, Niki; Ruthven, Stuart; Herod, Jonathan; Kotsyfakis, Michail
Effect of whey concentration on protein recovery in fresh ovine ricotta cheese.
Ricotta cheese, particularly the ovine type, is a typical Italian dairy product obtained by heat-coagulation of the proteins in whey. The aim of this work was to investigate the influence of whey protein concentration, obtained by ultrafiltration, on yield of fresh ovine ricotta cheese. Ricotta cheeses were obtained by thermocoagulation of mixtures with protein content of 1.56, 3.10, 4.16, and 7.09g/100g from the mixing of skim whey and ultrafiltered skim whey. A fat-to-protein ratio of 1.1 (wt/wt) was obtained for all mixtures by adding fresh cream. The initial mixtures, as well as the final ricotta cheeses, were analyzed for their composition and by SDS-PAGE. Protein bands were quantified by QuantityOne software (Bio-Rad, Hercules, CA) and identified by liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry. Significant differences in the composition of the ricotta cheese were observed depending on protein concentration. Particularly, ricotta cheese resulting from the mixture containing 7.09g/100g of protein presented higher moisture (72.88�1.50g/100g) and protein (10.18�0.45g/100g) contents than that prepared from the mixture with 1.56g/100g of protein (69.52�1.75 and 6.70�0.85g/100g, respectively), and fat content was lower in this sample (12.20�1.60g/100g) compared with the other treatments, with mean values between 15.72 and 20.50g/100g. Each protein fraction presented a different behavior during thermocoagulation. In particular, the recovery of ?-lactoglobulin and ?-lactalbumin in the cheese increased as their content increased in the mixtures. It was concluded that concentrating ovine rennet whey improved the extent of heat-induced protein aggregation during the thermal coagulation process. This resulted in a better recovery of each protein fraction in the product, and in a consequent increase of ricotta cheese yield. PMID:24856986
Salvatore, E; Pes, M; Falchi, G; Pagnozzi, D; Furesi, S; Fiori, M; Roggio, T; Addis, M F; Pirisi, A
Evidence for gene transcription of adenohypophyseal hormones in the ovine pars tuberalis.
Specific cells of the hypophyseal pars tuberalis (PT) have been associated with the transmission of photoperiodic stimuli to the endocrine system. However, their principal secretory products have not been identified yet. Therefore we studied the expression of several adenohypophyseal hormones and their subunits (TSH, FSH, LH, common alpha-chain, GH, ACTH, PRL, alpha- and gamma-MSH, beta-lipotropin) by immunocytochemistry, Northern blot analysis and in situ hybridization in the sheep pituitary. Only the common alpha-chain of glycoprotein hormones could be detected in ovine PT-specific cells by immunocytochemistry while antibodies directed against the beta-chains of LH, FSH, TSH and beta-lipotropin labeled single cells in the PT but failed to detect these antigens in PT-specific cells. In situ hybridization and Northern blot analysis with antisense oligonucleotides against the common alpha-chain, beta-LH, beta-FSH, beta-TSH, PRL and POMC revealed the expression of these subunits in the ovine PT. The mRNA of the common alpha-chain, beta-TSH and, to a far lower extent, PRL and POMC were found throughout the entire pars tuberalis while beta-FSH and beta-LH could only be detected in cells of the caudal PT. Hence, GH-mRNA and GH immunoreactivity were exclusively found in the pituitary pars distalis. Compared to these results--obtained under the short photoperiod (winter)--we found clear ultrastructural signs of altered secretory activity in PT-specific cells of animals exposed to the long photoperiod (summer); the common alpha-chain immunoreactivity was nearly absent in PT-specific cells of summer animals. However, no seasonal influence on gene transcription or translation for other adenohypophyseal hormone was observed. These findings suggest that ovine PT-specific cells, which are only immunopositive for the common alpha-chain, are capable to express different mRNAs of adenohypophyseal hormones. Although it remains elusive how gene transcription and translation are related in this cell type, the presence of an mRNA pool for hormone subunits leads to the speculation that--at least in the sheep--hormone synthesis is mainly regulated at the translational level and that secretion of hormones may be primarily constitutive. PMID:8839351
B�ckers, T M; Bockmann, J; Fauteck, J D; Wittkowski, W; Sabel, B A; Kreutz, M R
Evidence from fluorescence microscopy and comparative studies that rat, ovine and bovine colonic crypts are absorptive.
1. To test whether colonic crypts are secretory or absorptive interstitial [Na+] in rat descending colonic mucosa is determined using video-enhanced imaging of the impermeant acid form of the fluorescent Na+ probe SBFI (Molecular Probes) and intracellular [Na+] is monitored with SBFI (AM form). In rat descending colonic mucosa perifused with isotonic Tyrode solution interstitial [Na+] = 500-650 mM. Following exposure to Tyrode solution containing theophylline (10 mM) interstitial [Na+] falls by 300-450 mM within 1 min. Exposure to amiloride (0.2 mM) reduces the intracellular [Na+] from ca 25 to 12 mM within 15 min and concurrently decreases [Na+] in the interstitial fluid surrounding the crypts at the mucosal surface by approximately 200 mM. 2. The route of fluid inflow across the rat colonic mucosa is directly traced by perifusing with Tyrode solution containing the impermeant fluorescent dye, fluorescein disulphonate (FS). FS accumulates rapidly within crypt lumens of control tissues to a 2-fold higher concentration than in the external bathing solution, but FS does not accumulate in crypts of tissues treated with azide (2 mM). The increment in FS accumulation within the crypt lumen above the bulk solution decreases by 80% within 1 min following exposure to theophylline (10 mM), indicating that fluid absorption into crypts is reduced. Estimates of the total fluid influx from the rate and extent of FS concentration polarization within crypts indicate that it is sufficient to account for the entire transcolonic fluid absorption. 3. Comparative studies of isolated bovine and ovine colon were also undertaken to investigate the failure of bovine colon to generate a hypertonic absorbate and hence its incapacity to produce hard faeces. The interstitial fluid surrounding ovine colonic crypts is hypertonic to the bulk solution, whereas the interstitial fluid surrounding bovine colonic crypts is nearly isotonic with the bathing solution. Additionally, fluorescein disulphonate accumulates within ovine colonic crypt lumens by concentration polarization, whereas no concentration of FS occurs within bovine colonic crypt lumens. This corroborates the view that a hypertonic interstitial fluid is absent from bovine colon mainly because of a high rate of transepithelial leakage of low molecular weight solutes via paracellular routes. Images Fig. 1 Fig. 2 Fig. 3 Fig. 5 Fig. 7 Fig. 8 Fig. 9 Fig. 10 Fig. 13
Pedley, K C; Naftalin, R J
Osteocalcin as an index of osteoblast function during and after ovine pregnancy.
Fetal and neonatal calcium requirements impose heavy demands on maternal bone and mineral homeostasis. The functional response of maternal osteoblasts to this stress is poorly understood. Therefore, plasma osteocalcin (OC) levels were measured by homologous RIA in age-matched nonpregnant, pregnant, and postpartum ewes to evaluate osteoblast function. In pregnant ewes from day 35 of gestation to term, the plasma OC level was suppressed to 8.2 +/- 0.5 micrograms/liter (mean +/- SEM; n = 36) compared with age-matched nonpregnant ewes (18.3 +/- 1.1 micrograms/liter; n = 39; P less than 0.0005). Plasma OC rose to the nonpregnant value by day 20 postpartum and was elevated above this level for the following 40 days (e.g. 44.0 +/- 5.0 micrograms/liter at 48-53 days; P less than 0.0005). The timing of changes in plasma OC levels and weaning did not correlate. The validity of plasma OC measurement as a marker of osteoblast function was assessed by determining the OC plasma production and clearance rates using an [125I]ovine OC infusion method. The OC plasma production rates in matched controls (n = 6), pregnant (n = 9), and 48-53-day postpartum sheep (n = 7) were 1.5 +/- 0.2, 0.5 +/- 0.04 (P less than 0.001 vs. control), and 3.6 +/- 0.6 mg/day (P less than 0.005 vs. pregnant sheep), respectively. In one ewe studied longitudinally, the OC plasma production rate increased by 15 days after parturition and achieved a 10-fold elevation at 49 days postpartum. The OC plasma clearance rate (3.3 +/- 0.3 liters/h) was the same in control, pregnant, and postpartum ewes. It is concluded that 1) changes in plasma OC levels during and after ovine pregnancy reflected changes in OC production, 2) plasma OC measurements are likely to be a useful index of osteoblast function in pregnancy, and 3) osteoblast function appears to be depressed during ovine pregnancy and enhanced markedly in the interval 20-60 days postpartum. The relationship between osteoblast function, as indicated by OC production, and bone formation remains to be clarified. PMID:2788077
Farrugia, W; Fortune, C L; Heath, J; Caple, I W; Wark, J D
Polymorphic distribution of the ovine prion protein ( PrP) gene in scrapie-infected sheep flocks in which embryo transfer was used to circumvent the transmissions of scrapie
The genetic sequence of the ovine prion protein (PrP) gene between codons 102 and 175 with emphasis on ovine PrP gene codons 136 and 171 was determined, and the polymorphic distribution of the ovine PrP gene in the scrapie-exposed Suffolk embryo donors and offspring from these donors that were transferred to scrapie-free recipient ewes was investigated in this study. The
Shiquan Wang; Noelle E. Cockett; Janice M. Miller; Tracy L. Shay; Alma Maciulis; Diane L. Sutton; Warren C. Foote; Gilbert R. Holyoak; Ronald C. Evans; Thomas D. Bunch; Jonathan E. Beever; Jay W. Call; William D. Taylor; Michael R. Marshall
Chinese Word Sketch and Mapping Principles: a Corpus-Based Study of Conceptual Metaphors Using the Building Source Domain
The goal of this paper is to use a large- scale corpus, i.e. the Gigaword Corpus via the interface of Chinese Sketch Engine, to determine underlying reasons between source and target domain pairings for con- ceptual metaphors, called Mapping Princi- ples. In particular, we will employ a fre- quency-based collocational approach to ex- amine metaphors that use the source do-
Shu-ping Gong; Kathleen Ahrens; Chu-ren Huang
An Analysis Method of the Fiber Tractography of Corpus Callosum in Autism Based on Diffusion Tensor Imaging Data
OBJECTIVE: A new method of segmentation and fiber tractography of corpus callosum in diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) is provided, and applied in the study of children with high functioning autism. METHOD: Diffusion tensor imaging data has been used to analyze the fiber tractography of corpus callosum, which has been manually extracted out and subdivided into five subregions in the scheme
Xiaoyan Ke; Shanshan Hong; Tianyu Tang; Haiqing Huang; Bing Zou; Huiguo Li; Yueyue Hang; Zuhong Lu
A Corpus-Based Evaluation of Syntactic Complexity Measures as Indices of College-Level ESL Writers' Language Development
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
This article reports results of a corpus-based evaluation of 14 syntactic complexity measures as objective indices of college-level English as a second language (ESL) writers' language development. I analyzed large-scale ESL writing data from the Written English Corpus of Chinese Learners (Wen, Wang, & Liang, 2005) using a computational system�
Lu, Xiaofei
34 CFR 628.44 - When and for what purposes may a grantee use the endowment fund corpus?
Code of Federal Regulations, 2013 CFR
...false When and for what purposes may a grantee use the endowment fund corpus? 628...GRANT PROGRAM What Conditions Must a Grantee Meet Under the Endowment Challenge Grant...44 When and for what purposes may a grantee use the endowment fund corpus?...
Variation in Citational Practice in a Corpus of Student Biology Papers: From Parenthetical Plonking to Intertextual Storytelling
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
This is a corpus-based study of a key aspect of academic writing in one discipline (biology) by final-year undergraduates and first-, second-, and third-year graduate students. The papers come from the Michigan Corpus of Upper-level Student Papers, a freely available electronic database. The principal aim of the study is to examine the extent of�
Swales, John M.
Sketching Muslims: A Corpus Driven Analysis of Representations around the Word "Muslim" in the British Press 1998-2009
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
This article uses methods from corpus linguistics and critical discourse analysis to examine patterns of representation around the word "Muslim" in a 143 million word corpus of British newspaper articles published between 1998 and 2009. Using the analysis tool Sketch Engine, an analysis of noun collocates of "Muslim" found that the following�
Baker, Paul; Gabrielatos, Costas; McEnery, Tony
Investigation of ground-water contamination at a drainage ditch, Installation Restoration Site 4, Naval Air Station Corpus Christi, Corpus Christi, Texas, 2005�06
The U.S. Geological Survey, in cooperation with the Naval Facilities Engineering Command Southeast, used newly developed sampling methods to investigate ground-water contamination by chlorobenzenes beneath a drainage ditch on the southwestern side of Installation Restoration Site 4, Naval Air Station Corpus Christi, Corpus Christi, Texas, during 2005-06. The drainage ditch, which is a potential receptor for ground-water contaminants from Installation Restoration Site 4, intermittently discharges water to Corpus Christi Bay. This report uses data from a new type of pore-water sampler developed for this investigation and other methods to examine the subsurface contamination beneath the drainage ditch. Analysis of ground water from the samplers indicated that chlorobenzenes (maximum detected concentration of 160 micrograms per liter) are present in the ground water beneath the ditch. The concentrations of dissolved oxygen in the samples (less than 0.05-0.4 milligram per liter) showed that the ground water beneath and near the ditch is anaerobic, indicating that substantial chlorobenzene biodegradation in the aquifer beneath the ditch is unlikely. Probable alternative mechanisms of chlorobenzene removal in the ground water beneath the drainage ditch include sorption onto the organic-rich sediment and contaminant depletion by cattails through uptake, sorption, and localized soil aeration.
Vroblesky, Don A.; Casey, Clifton C.
Pregnancy-associated changes in the physical and microscopic characteristics of the ovine cervix.
Ovine cervices were obtained at slaughter from 18 sheep comprising six groups of three--cycling ewe lambs, non-pregnant, and four groups of pregnant animals of progressively longer gestation PI to PIV. Physical and microscopic analyses carried out on these cervices showed consistent results throughout any individual tissue. A number of factors changed with increasing gestational age and some of these changes were noted from early gestation. No significant change in water content was observed through pregnancy. With increasing length of gestation the cervix increased in length and width, there were relative increases in fibroblasts, smooth muscle and softening of the tissue, and relative decreases in collagen and fibrocytes. An increased vascularity was observed in the tissues from late gestation sheep, and a change in the nature of the epithelial secretion, from neutral to acidic mucins, was also associated with late pregnancy. PMID:6853351
Aughey, E; Calder, A A; Coutts, J R; Fleming, R; McManus, T J; Munro, C D
Analysis of cerebrospinal fluid from field cases of some common ovine neurological diseases.
Analysis of cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) samples from normal sheep and from cases of some common neurological diseases revealed a significant increase (P less than 0.05) in the group mean CSF protein concentration for meningitis, listeriosis and spinal abscess but not for scrapie, spinal injury, ovine pregnancy toxaemia or polioencephalomalacia. The CSF white blood cell count (WBC) was significantly increased (P less than 0.05) in the meningitis group and in those cases of listeriosis which failed to respond to antibiotic therapy. All cases of bacterial infection of the central nervous system (CNS) could be identified by the combined interpretation of the protein concentration and the differential WBC count. It is concluded that CSF analysis is useful clinically in differentiating traumatic from infective spinal lesions and toxic or metabolic lesions from bacterial meningitis in sheep. PMID:1551009
Scott, P R
Determination of trace elements in goat and ovine milk from Calabria (Italy) by ICP-AES.
There are many sources of contamination to which milk could be exposed: grazing animals can ingest contaminants present in nature, such as lead in soil, or that have been deposited on grass, resulting from industrial emissions. Another possible route of contamination is represented by feed for animals, which may contain heavy and essential metals. The potential of high-resolution inductively coupled plasma spectrometry was evaluated to quantify reliably various toxic and essential elements (Fe, Zn, Pb, Cr, Ni, Cu, As, Se, Cd) in 47 samples of goat and ovine milk from various farms in Calabria (southern Italy). The results showed that concentrations of cadmium were below the limit of detection. Lead levels were below the maximum limits as set by the EC in almost all samples tested. The highest values were those of Zn followed by Fe, Cu and Se. PMID:24786408
Licata, P; Di Bella, G; Potort�, A G; Lo Turco, V; Salvo, A; Dugo, G Mo
Changes in meat quality of ovine longissimus dorsi muscle in response to repeated freeze and thaw.
Changes in eating and technological quality attributes of ovine longissimus dorsi muscle during repeated freeze and thaw were investigated. Shear force value, L* value, a* value and fiber diameter decreased (P<0.05) but lipid oxidation increased (P<0.05) with repeated freeze-thaw cycles. Sarcomere length and pH decreased (P<0.05) within the first 10 freeze-thaw cycles but increased (P<0.05) after 5 further cycles. Total and myofibrillar protein solubility, and intramuscular free fatty acids concentration decreased (P<0.05) after 1 cycle of freeze and thaw but then increased (P<0.05) gradually with further cycles. Hardness, chewiness, cohesiveness and resilience of comminuted lamb products decreased (P<0.05) with increased freeze-thaw cycles. And therefore, repeated freeze and thaw should be minimized in terms of meat color for commercial value and water holding capacity for further processing. PMID:22749539
Qi, Jun; Li, Chunbao; Chen, Yinji; Gao, Feifei; Xu, Xinglian; Zhou, Guanghong
Unlocked and locked elastic stable intramedullary nailing in an ovine tibia fracture model: A biomechanical study.
In the present study, four different systems of elastic stable intramedullary nails (unlocked, Ender stainless steel nails locked with 3-mm screws, titanium nails locked with end caps, titanium nails locked with plugs and 3-mm screws) were implanted in cadaveric ovine tibiae. Fractures were simulated by a transverse diaphyseal osteotomy. The specimens were subjected to simultaneous axial and torsional fatigue loading of 5000 and 1000cycles, respectively. The unlocked systems failed at an axial load of 200N peak amplitude. End caps systems withstood axial loads up to 800N for 1000cycles, and ender nails and plugs lasted up to 1000N for 1000cycles. All systems showed a decrease of axial stiffness with higher loads and endured cycles. Ender nails and nails locked with plugs failed by penetration of the distal epiphysis rather than by loosening of the interlocking system. Overall, the titanium nails locked with plugs and 3-mm screws exhibited superior test results. PMID:24857493
Berger, Leopold; Fischerauer, Stefan; Wei�, Barbara; Celarek, Anna; Castellani, Christoph; Weinberg, Annelie-Martina; Tschegg, Elmar
Biomechanical performance of an ovine model of intradural spinal cord stimulation.
Abstract The authors are developing a novel type of spinal cord stimulator, designed to be placed directly on the pial surface of the spinal cord, for more selective activation of target tissues within the dorsal columns. For pre-clinical testing of the device components, an ovine model has been implemented which utilizes the agility and flexibility of a sheep's cervical and upper thoracic regions, thus providing an optimal environment of accelerated stress-cycling on small gauge lead wires implanted along the dorsal spinal columns. The results are presented of representative biomechanical measurements of the angles of rotation and the angular velocities and accelerations associated with the relevant head, neck and upper back motions, and these findings are interpreted in terms of their impact on assessing the robustness of the stimulator implant systems. PMID:24841845
Safayi, S; Jeffery, N D; Fredericks, D C; Viljoen, S; Dalm, B D; Reddy, C G; Wilson, S; Gillies, G T; Howard, M A
Expression of genes associated with allantois emergence in ovine and bovine conceptuses.
In the development of ruminant embryos, the emergence and growth of the allantois is critical for the establishment of the chorioallantoic placenta. The allantoic membrane contributes to all the vasculature that perfuses the placental tissues and the fetal membranes. Using suppressive subtractive hybridization to compare mRNA from Day 13 ovine preimplantation conceptuses (prior to allantoic emergence) with Day 17 allantoic membrane, we identified nine genes whose expression was associated with the emergence of the allantoic sac. Collagen alpha 1 type XII, collagen alpha 2 type I, collagen alpha 2 type V, epsilon 4 beta-globin, osteonectin, and uroplakin were expressed at significantly greater levels in ovine Day 17 allantois compared to Day 13 conceptuses. These genes are associated with the extracellular matrix and most likely are involved in establishing and strengthening the structural integrity of the allantoic sac and in the development of the blood vessels. RalB expression increased with development although at significantly greater levels in the allantois only at Day 19. Hoxa-10 and RhoA showed no differential expression during this period. All these genes showed a similar temporal pattern of expression in bovine conceptuses at equivalent stages of development with significantly greater expression of all these genes, except for Hoxa-10, found in Day 24 allantois compared to Day 14 conceptuses. This suggests that the role they play in allantoic emergence, growth and function is conserved in both ruminant species and that their expression is regulated in a similar manner. The interactions and regulation of this process remains to be fully explained. PMID:16804885
Ledgard, A M; Lee, R S-F; Peterson, A J
Indomethacin inhibits the uptake of 22sodium by ovine trophoblastic tissue in vitro
Blastocysts from several species synthesize prostaglandins in vitro, but the exact functions of the prostaglandins are unknown. The purpose of this study was to determine if indomethacin, an inhibitor of prostaglandin synthesis, would inhibit the uptake of 22sodium ((22Na)) by ovine trophoblastic tissue. To determine the concentration of indomethacin that would inhibit the synthesis of PGF2 alpha and 13,14-dihydro-15-keto-PGF2 alpha (PGFM) by blastocysts, blastocysts were collected from ewes 16 days after mating, sliced into pieces approximately 2 mm in length and incubated for 48 h at 37 degrees C in 2 ml of medium containing either 0, 0.2, 0.4, 0.8 or 1.6 mM of indomethacin. Concentrations of indomethacin greater than or equal to 0.2 mM reduced (P less than .01) trophoblastic release (ng/micrograms DNA) of PGF2 alpha from 205 +/- 71.2 to less than or equal to 3.3 +/- 0.2, reduced PGFM from 0.7 +/- 0.1 to less than or equal to 0.17 +/- 0.01, and inhibited formation of trophoblastic vesicles. In a second experiment, blastocysts were recovered from ewes 16 days after mating and pieces of trophoblast were incubated with (22Na) and either 0 or 0.4 mM of indomethacin. Indomethacin reduced the uptake of (22Na), which is an indirect measure of the transport of water across epithelia, from 3680 +/- 1118 to 934 +/- 248 cpm/micrograms DNA (P less than .03) and prevented formation of trophoblastic vesicles. Prostaglandins produced by ovine blastocysts might be involved in controlling uptake of water, which is essential for expansion of blastocysts.
Lewis, G.S.
Suppression of ovine lymphocyte activation by Teladorsagia circumcincta larval excretory-secretory products
Teladorsagia circumcincta is an important pathogenic nematode of sheep. It has been demonstrated previously that stimulation of murine T lymphocytes with excretory-secretory (ES) products derived from fourth stage larvae of T. circumcincta (Tci-L4-ES) results in de novo expression of Foxp3, a transcription factor intimately involved in regulatory T cell function. In the current study, Foxp3+ T cell responses in the abomasum and the effects of Tci-L4-ES on ovine peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) following T. circumcincta infection were investigated. T. circumcincta infection resulted in a significant increase in numbers of abomasal Foxp3+ T cells, but not an increase in the proportion of T cells expressing Foxp3. Unlike in mice, Tci-L4-ES was incapable of inducing T cell Foxp3 expression but instead suppressed mitogen-induced and antigen-specific activation and proliferation of ovine PBMC in vitro. This effect was heat labile, suggesting that it is mediated by protein(s). Suppression was associated with up-regulation of interleukin-10 (IL-10) mRNA, and specific monoclonal antibody neutralisation of IL-10 resulted in a 50% reduction in suppression, indicating involvement of the IL-10 signaling pathway. Suppression was significantly reduced in PBMC isolated from T. circumcincta infected vs. helminth-na�ve lambs, and this reduction in suppression was associated with an increase in Tci-L4-ES antigen-specific T cells within the PBMC. In conclusion, we have identified a mechanism by which T. circumcincta may modulate the host adaptive immune response, potentially assisting survival of the parasite within the host. However, the impact of Tci-L4-ES-mediated lymphocyte suppression during T. circumcincta infection remains to be determined.
Suppression of ovine lymphocyte activation by Teladorsagia circumcincta larval excretory-secretory products.
Teladorsagia circumcincta is an important pathogenic nematode of sheep. It has been demonstrated previously that stimulation of murine T lymphocytes with excretory-secretory (ES) products derived from fourth stage larvae of T. circumcincta (Tci-L4-ES) results in de novo expression of Foxp3, a transcription factor intimately involved in regulatory T cell function. In the current study, Foxp3? T cell responses in the abomasum and the effects of Tci-L4-ES on ovine peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) following T. circumcincta infection were investigated. T. circumcincta infection resulted in a significant increase in numbers of abomasal Foxp3? T cells, but not an increase in the proportion of T cells expressing Foxp3. Unlike in mice, Tci-L4-ES was incapable of inducing T cell Foxp3 expression but instead suppressed mitogen-induced and antigen-specific activation and proliferation of ovine PBMC in vitro. This effect was heat labile, suggesting that it is mediated by protein(s). Suppression was associated with up-regulation of interleukin-10 (IL-10) mRNA, and specific monoclonal antibody neutralisation of IL-10 resulted in a 50% reduction in suppression, indicating involvement of the IL-10 signaling pathway. Suppression was significantly reduced in PBMC isolated from T. circumcincta infected vs. helminth-na�ve lambs, and this reduction in suppression was associated with an increase in Tci-L4-ES antigen-specific T cells within the PBMC. In conclusion, we have identified a mechanism by which T. circumcincta may modulate the host adaptive immune response, potentially assisting survival of the parasite within the host. However, the impact of Tci-L4-ES-mediated lymphocyte suppression during T. circumcincta infection remains to be determined. PMID:23964850
McNeilly, Tom N; Rocchi, Mara; Bartley, Yvonne; Brown, Jeremy K; Frew, David; Longhi, Cassandra; McLean, Louise; McIntyre, Jenni; Nisbet, Alasdair J; Wattegedera, Sean; Huntley, John F; Matthews, Jacqueline B
Percutaneous osseointegrated prostheses for amputees: Limb compensation in a 12-month ovine model.
Percutaneous osseointegrated prostheses are being investigated as an alternative strategy to attach prosthetic limbs to patients. Although the use of these implants has shown to be promising in clinical trials, the ability to maintain a skin seal around an osseointegrated implant interface is a major challenge to prevent superficial and deep periprosthetic infections. The specific aim of this study was to establish a translational load-bearing ovine model to assess postoperative limb compensation and gait symmetry following a percutaneous osseointegrated implant. We tested the following hypotheses: (1) the animals would return to pre-amputation limb loads within 12-months; (2) the animals would return to a symmetrical gait pattern (stride length and time in stance) within 12-months. The results demonstrated that one month following surgery, the sheep loaded their amputated limb to a mean value of nearly 80% of their pre-amputation loading condition; by 12-months, this mean had dropped to approximately 74%. There was no statistical differences between the symmetry of the amputated forelimb and the contralateral forelimb at any time point for the animals stride length or the time spent in the stance phase of their gait cycle. Thus, the data showed that while the animals maintained symmetric gait patterns, they did not return to full weight-bearing after 12-months. The results of this study showed that a large animal load-bearing model had a symmetric gait and was weight bearing for up to 12 months. While the current investigation utilizes an ovine model, the data show that osseointegrated implant technology with postoperative follow-up can help our human patients return to symmetric gait and maintain an active lifestyle, leading to an improvement in their quality of life following amputation. PMID:21920525
Shelton, Trevor J; Beck, J Peter; Bloebaum, Roy D; Bachus, Kent N
Percutaneous Osseointegrated Prostheses for Amputees: Limb Compensation in a 12-Month Ovine model
Percutaneous osseointegrated prostheses are being investigated as an alternative strategy to attach prosthetic limbs to patients. Although the use of these implants has shown to be promising in clinical trials; the ability to maintain a skin seal around an osseointegrated implant interface is a major challenge to prevent superficial and deep periprosthetic infections. The specific aim of this study was to establish a translational load-bearing ovine model to assess postoperative limb compensation and gait symmetry following a percutaneous integrated implant. We tested the following hypotheses: (1) the animals would return to pre-amputation limb loads within 12-months; (2) the animals would return to a symmetrical gait pattern (stride length and time in stance) within 12-months. The results demonstrated that one month following surgery, the sheep loaded their amputated limb to a mean value of nearly 80% of their pre-amputation loading condition; by 12-months, this mean had dropped to approximately 74%. There were no statistical differences between the symmetry of the amputated forelimb and the contralateral forelimb at any time point for the animals stride length or the time spent in the stance phase of their gait cycle. Thus, the data showed that while the animals maintained symmetric gait patterns, they did not return to full weight-bearing after 12-months. The results of this study showed that a large animal load-bearing model had a symmetric gait and was weight bearing for up to 12 months. While the current investigation utilizes an ovine model, there data show that osseointegrated implant technology with postoperative follow-up can help our human patients return to symmetric gait and maintain an active lifestyle, leading to an improvement in their quality of life following amputation.
Shelton, Trevor J.; Beck, J. Peter; Bloebaum, Roy D.; Bachus, Kent N.
Genomics of estradiol-3-sulfate action in the ovine fetal hypothalamus
In fetal sheep during late gestation sulfoconjugated estrogens in plasma reach a concentration 40�100 times greater than unconjugated estrogens. The objective of the present study was to determine the genomics of estradiol-3-sulfate (E2S) action in the ovine fetal brain. The hypothesis was that E2S stimulates genes involved in the neuroendocrine pathways that direct or facilitate fetal development at the end of gestation. Four sets of chronically catheterized ovine twin fetuses were studied (gestational age: 120�127 days gestation) with one infused with E2S intracerebroventricularly (1 mg/day) and the other remaining untreated (control). After euthanasia, mRNA samples were extracted from fetal brains. Only hypothalamic samples were employed for this study given the important function of this brain region in the control of the hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal axis. Microarray analysis was performed following the Agilent protocol for one-color 8 � 15 microarrays, designed for Ovis aries. A total of 363 known genes were significantly upregulated by the E2S treatment (P < 0.05). Network and enrichment analyses were performed using the Cytoscape/Bingo software, and the results validated by quantitative real-time PCR. The main overrepresented biological processes resulting from this analysis were feeding behavior, hypoxia response, and transforming growth factor signaling. Notably, the genes involved in the feeding behavior (neuropeptide Y and agouti-related protein) were the most strongly induced by the E2S treatment. In conclusion, E2S may be an important component of the mechanism for activating orexigenic, hypoxia responsiveness and neuroprotective pathways in the lamb as it approaches postnatal life.
Rabaglino, Maria Belen; Richards, Elaine; Denslow, Nancy; Wood, Charles E.
Ovine oocytes vitrified at germinal vesicle stage as cytoplast recipients for somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT).
The development of embryos produced by somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT) using vitrified oocytes as cytoplast recipients has been reported in cattle but not in sheep. This study investigated the parthenogenetic development of ovine oocytes vitrified and thawed at the germinal vesicle (GV) stage, matured in vitro, and then activated using two activation protocols. The optimal activation protocol was then used to assess development when vitrified oocytes were used as cytoplast recipients for SCNT. No blastocysts were obtained from vitrified oocytes activated by CA+CHX/CB (calcium ionophore A23187?+?cycloheximide, and cytochalasin B); in contrast, vitrified oocytes activated by Sr/CB (strontium chloride (SrCl(2))?+?cytochalasin B) developed to blastocyst, although the number was significantly lower (p?0.05) than in toxicity and control groups (3.8 vs. 20.0 and 27.3%, respectively). In SCNT embryos, cleavage at both 24 and 48?h postactivation (31.0 vs. 55.1% and 48.0 vs. 85.0%) was significantly lower (p?0.05) in vitrified oocytes compared to controls. However, no significant differences were observed in the frequency of development to blastocyst (13.0 vs. 23.4%), the number of hatched blastocysts (7.0 vs. 10.3%), total cell numbers (90.3?�?4.9 vs. 97.6?�?4.6), number of apoptotic nuclei (13.1?�?0.9 vs. 13.2?�?1.4), or the proportion of diploid embryos (60.0 vs. 75.0%). This study demonstrates for the first time that ovine oocytes vitrified at the GV stage can be used successfully as recipient cytoplasts for SCNT. PMID:21718110
Moawad, Adel R; Choi, Inchul; Zhu, Jie; Campbell, Keith H S
Calcium concentration in vitrification medium affects the developmental competence of in vitro matured ovine oocytes.
The present study was designed to determine whether different calcium concentrations in the vitrification solutions could improve the developmental competence of in vitro matured ovine oocytes after cryopreservation. In vitro matured oocytes were vitrified with 16.5% ethylene glycol (EG) + 16.5% dimethylsulfoxide (DMSO) vitrification media. The base media contain different calcium concentrations, so that five experimental groups were obtained: TCM/FCS (TCM 199 + 20% fetal calf serum (FCS), [Ca(2+)] 9.9 mg/dl); PBS/FCS (Dulbecco Phosphate Buffered Saline (PBS) + 20% FCS, [Ca(2+)] 4.4 mg/dl); PBS(CaMg free)/FCS (PBS without Ca(2+) and Mg(2+) + 20% FCS [Ca(2+)] 2.2 mg/dl); PBS/BSA (PBS + 0.4% bovine serum albumin (BSA), [Ca(2+)] 3.2 mg/dl) and PBS(CaMg free)/BSA (PBS without Ca(2+) and Mg(2+) +0.4% BSA, [Ca(2+)] 0.4 mg/dl). After warming, the oocytes from the five experimental groups were assessed for survival, spontaneous parthenogenetic activation and developmental capacity via in vitro fertilization. Oocyte survival after vitrification procedures was better preserved in group PBS(CaMg free)/FCS compared to the others (P < 0.05). In addition, a positive correlation was found between calcium concentration in vitrification solutions and spontaneous parthenogenetic activation (correlation index 0,82; P < 0.001). Development of vitrified oocytes was significantly affected by vitrification media composition (P < 0.01). In particular, oocytes from group PBS(CaMg free)/FCS led to higher cleavage rates and blastocyst rate compared to the others. Our data showed that lowering calcium concentration in the vitrification medium improves the blastocyst rate of vitrified ovine oocytes, probably reducing the effect of EG + DMSO during vitrification. On the contrary, the replacement of FCS with BSA dramatically reduces the developmental potential of these oocytes. PMID:21144566
Succu, Sara; Berlinguer, Fiammetta; Leoni, Giovanni G; Bebbere, Daniela; Satta, Valentina; Marco-Jimenez, Francisco; Pasciu, Valeria; Naitana, Salvatore
How do Annuloplasty Rings Affect Mitral Annular Strains in the Normal Beating Ovine Heart?
Background We hypothesized that annuloplasty ring implantation alters mitral annular strains in a normal beating ovine heart preparation. Methods and Results Sheep had 16 radiopaque markers sewn equally spaced around the mitral annulus. Edwards Cosgrove partial flexible band (COS, n=12), St. Jude complete rigid saddle-shaped annuloplasty ring (RSA, n=10), Carpentier-Edwards Physio (PHY, n=11), IMR ETlogix (ETL, n=11), and GeoForm (GEO, n=12) annuloplasty rings were implanted in a releasable fashion. Four-dimensional marker coordinates were obtained using biplane videofluoroscopy with the ring inserted (Ring) and after ring release (Control). From marker coordinates, a functional spatio-temporal representation of each annulus was generated through a best fit using 16 piecewise cubic Hermitian splines. Absolute total mitral annular strains were calculated from the relative change in length of the tangent vector to the annular curve as strains occurring from Control to Ring state at end-systole. In addition, average Green-Lagrange strains occurring from Control to Ring state at end-systole along the annulus were calculated. Absolute total mitral annular ring strains were smallest for COS and greatest for ETL. Strains for RSA, PHY and GEO were similar. Except for COS in the septal mitral annular segment, all rings induced compressive strains along the entire annulus with greatest values occurring at the lateral mitral annular segment. Conclusions In healthy, beating ovine hearts, annuloplasty rings (COS; RSA, PHY, ETL and GEO) induce compressive strains that are: 1.) Predominate in the lateral annular region; 2.) Smallest for flexible partial bands (COS) and greatest for an asymmetric rigid ring type with intrinsic septal-lateral downsizing (ETL). However, the ring type with the most drastic intrinsic septal-lateral downsizing (GEO) introduced strains similar to physiologically shaped rings (RSA and PHY) indicating that rings effects on annular strain profiles cannot be estimated from the degree of septal-lateral downsizing.
Bothe, Wolfgang; Rausch, Manuel K.; Kvitting, John P.; Echtner, Dominique K.; Walther, Mario; Ingels, Neil B.; Kuhl, Ellen; Miller, D. Craig
Pre- and postjunctional alpha(2)-adrenergic receptors in fetal and adult ovine cerebral arteries.
In ovine cerebral arteries, adrenergic-mediated vasoconstrictor responses differ significantly with developmental age. We tested the hypothesis that, in part, these differences are a consequence of altered alpha(2)-adrenergic receptor (alpha(2)-AR) density and/or affinity. In fetal (approximately 140 days) and adult sheep, we measured alpha(2)-AR density and affinity with the antagonist [(3)H]idazoxan in main branch cerebral arteries and other vessels. We also quantified contractile responses in middle cerebral artery (MCA) to norepinephrine (NE) or phenylephrine in the presence of the alpha(2)-AR antagonists yohimbine and idazoxan and contractile responses to the alpha(2)-AR agonists clonidine and UK-14304. In fetal and adult cerebral artery homogenates, alpha(2)-AR density was 201 +/- 18 and 52 +/- 6 fmol/mg protein, respectively (P < 0.01); however, antagonist affinity values did not differ. In fetal, but not adult, MCA, 10(-7) M yohimbine significantly decreased the pD(2) for NE-induced tension in the presence of 3 x 10(-5) M cocaine, 10(-5) M deoxycorticosterone, and 10(-6) M tetrodotoxin. In fetal, but not adult, MCA, UK-14304 induced a significant decrease in pD(2) for the phenylephrine dose-response relation. In addition, stimulation-evoked fractional NE release was significantly greater in fetal than in adult cerebral arteries. In the presence of 10(-6) M idazoxan to block alpha(2)-AR-mediated inhibition of prejunctional NE release, the fractional NE release was significantly increased in both age groups. We conclude that in fetal and adult ovine cerebral arteries, alpha(2)-AR appear to be chiefly prejunctional. Nonetheless, the fetal cerebral arteries appear to have a significant component of postjunctional alpha(2)-AR. PMID:12010747
Bishai, John M; Penninga, Luit; Nijland, Roel; Meulenaar, Rogier; Gheorghe, Ciprian P; Zhao, Yu; Buchholz, John N; Zhang, Lubo; Longo, Lawrence D
Influence of Reproductive Status on Tissue Composition and Biomechanical Properties of Ovine Vagina
Objective To undertake a comprehensive analysis of the biochemical tissue composition and passive biomechanical properties of ovine vagina and relate this to the histo-architecture at different reproductive stages as part of the establishment of a large preclinical animal model for evaluating regenerative medicine approaches for surgical treatment of pelvic organ prolapse. Methods Vaginal tissue was collected from virgin (n?=?3), parous (n?=?6) and pregnant sheep (n?=?6; mean gestation; 132 d; term?=?145 d). Tissue histology was analyzed using H+E and Masson's Trichrome staining. Biochemical analysis of the extracellular matrix proteins used a hydroxyproline assay to quantify total collagen, SDS PAGE to measure collagen III/I+III ratios, dimethylmethylene blue to quantify glycosaminoglycans and amino acid analysis to quantify elastin. Uniaxial tensiometry was used to determine the Young's modulus, maximum stress and strain, and permanent strain following cyclic loading. Results Vaginal tissue of virgin sheep had the lowest total collagen content and permanent strain. Parous tissue had the highest total collagen and lowest elastin content with concomitant high maximum stress. In contrast, pregnant sheep had the highest elastin and lowest collagen contents, and thickest smooth muscle layer, which was associated with low maximum stress and poor dimensional recovery following repetitive loading. Conclusion Pregnant ovine vagina was the most extensible, but the weakest tissue, whereas parous and virgin tissues were strong and elastic. Pregnancy had the greatest impact on tissue composition and biomechanical properties, compatible with significant tissue remodeling as demonstrated in other species. Biochemical changes in tissue protein composition coincide with these altered biomechanical properties.
Ulrich, Daniela; Edwards, Sharon L.; Su, Kai; White, Jacinta F.; Ramshaw, John A. M.; Jenkin, Graham; Deprest, Jan; Rosamilia, Anna
Effect of phosphodiesterase type 3 inhibitor on nuclear maturation and in vitro development of ovine oocytes.
The present study aims to investigate if prematuration culture (PMC) of ovine oocytes in the presence of a phosphodiesterase type 3 (PDE3) inhibitor cilostamide can improve the shortcomings of conventional in vitro maturation (IVM) system. Therefore, a two-step culture system consisting of 22 hours culture in the presence of 1, 10, and 20 ?M cilostamide (PMC medium), followed by 22 hours culture in maturation medium, was designed. The effect of cilostamide on gap junction communications and nuclear status was studied. The variables assessed were chromosome organization, spindle pattern, polar body extrusion, and embryonic development. According to the results, inhibition of PDE3 could not permanently block nuclear maturation in ovine oocytes but it delayed the process of nuclear maturation. Elevation of intra-oocyte cAMP concentration could inhibit cumulus cells expansion and maintain gap junction communications between oocyte and cumulus cells. Deletion of cilostamide and refreshing maturation medium after 22 hours culture revealed that cumulus cells were completely expanded. The inhibitory effect induced by 1 ?M cilostamide was reversible, and it increased the number of mature oocytes with aligned chromosomes and normal spindle. However, the inhibitory effects of 10 and 20 ?M cilostamide was not fully reversible and was associated with deleterious effects on chromosome organization and spindle pattern. Investigation of embryonic development via parthenogenetic activation and in vitro fertilization revealed that the blastocyst rate of oocytes that were prematured with 1 ?M cilostamide was not significantly different from oocytes that underwent conventional IVM but it was significantly reduced in oocytes that were prematured with 10 and 20 ?M cilostamide. Our results provide the evidence that reduced cAMP via PDE3 is not the only mechanism that controls the progress of nuclear maturation in sheep oocytes, and that alternative or additional mechanisms may also exist. PMID:23683693
Gharibi, Sh; Hajian, M; Ostadhosseini, S; Hosseini, S M; Forouzanfar, M; Nasr-Esfahani, M H
Different responses to mechanical injury in neonatal and adult ovine articular cartilage
Background Articular cartilage injury remains a major challenge in orthopedic surgery. This study aimed to identify differences in gene expression and molecular responses between neonatal and adult articular cartilage during the healing of an injury. Methods An established in vitro model was used to compare the transcriptional response to cartilage injury in neonatal and adult sheep by microarray analysis of gene expression. Total RNA was isolated from tissue samples, linearly amplified, and 15,208 ovine probes were applied to cDNA microarray. Validation for selected genes was obtained by real-time quantitative polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR). Results We found 1,075 (11.6%) differentially expressed probe sets in adult injured cartilage relative to normal cartilage. A total of 1,016 (11.0%) probe sets were differentially expressed in neonatal injured cartilage relative to normal cartilage. A total of 1,492 (16.1%) probe sets were differentially expressed in adult normal cartilage relative to neonatal normal cartilage. A total of 1,411 (15.3%) probe sets were differentially expressed in adult injured cartilage relative to neonatal injured cartilage. Significant functional clusters included genes associated with wound healing, articular protection, inflammation, and energy metabolism. Selected genes (PPARG, LDH, TOM, HIF1A, SMAD7, and NF-?B) were also found and validated by RT-qPCR. Conclusions There are significant differences in gene expression between neonatal and adult ovine articular cartilage following acute injury. They are partly due to intrinsic differences in the process of development, and partly to different biological responses to mechanical trauma between neonatal and adult articular cartilage.
Using the Web as a Phonological Corpus: a case study from Tagalog
Some languages' orthographic properties allow written data to be used for phono- logical research. This paper reports on an on-going project that uses a web-derived text corpus to study the phonology of Tagalog, a language for which large cor- pora are not otherwise available. Novel findings concerning the phenomenon of intervocalic tapping are discussed in de- tail, and an overview
Kie Zuraw
Teaching English as a Friendly Language: Lessons from the SCOTS Corpus
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
This paper uses the interactional spoken data contained in the Scottish Corpus of Texts & Speech (SCOTS) to investigate "friendly" language and shows how its principles can inform a model of language for learners of English as a second or foreign language. Pragmatic markers used in local speech varieties are in danger of being neglected in an�
Anderson, Wendy; Corbett, John
Humor (High-Speed Unification Morphology): A Morphological System for Corpus Analysis.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Humor, a reversible, string-based unification approach for lemmatizing and disambiguating language data, has been used for both language corpus analysis and creation of a variety of linguistic software applications such as spell-checking. The system is language-independent, allowing multilingual applications for a variety of language types. Its�
Proszeky, Gabor
Discourse Particles in Corpus Data and Textbooks: The Case of "Well"
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Discourse particles are ubiquitous in spoken discourse. Yet despite their pervasiveness very few studies attempt to look at their use in the pedagogical setting. Drawing on data from an intercultural corpus of speech and a textbook database, the present study compares the use of discourse particles by expert users of English in Hong Kong with�
Lam, Phoenix W. Y.
Cognitive Genre Structures in Methods Sections of Research Articles: A Corpus Study
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
This paper reports a corpus investigation of the Methods sections of research-reporting articles in academic journals. In published pedagogic materials, Swales and Feak [Swales, J. M., & Feak, C. (1994). Academic writing for graduate students. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; Swales, J. M., & Feak, C. (2000). English in today's research�
Bruce, Ian
Academic Vocabulary in Agriculture Research Articles: A Corpus-Based Study
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Recent critical views on the usefulness of a general academic vocabulary have heightened the relevance of developing discipline specific academic wordlists to meet the needs of non-native English writers who must read and publish articles in English. Using Coxhead's (2000) Academic Word List, we set out to identify the academic words in a corpus�
Martinez, Iliana A.; Beck, Silvia C.; Panza, Carolina B.
The Modulation of Cooperation and Emotion in Dialogue: The REC Corpus
In this paper we describe the Rovereto Emotive Corpus (REC) which we collected to investigate the relationship between emotion and coopera- tion in dialogue tasks. It is an area where still many unsolved questions are present. One of the main open issues is the annotation of the so- called \\
Federica Cavicchio
A Two-Year Longitudinal MRI Study of the Corpus Callosum in Autism
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
A growing body of literature has identified size reductions of the corpus callosum (CC) in autism. However, to our knowledge, no published studies have reported on the growth of CC volumes in youth with autism. Volumes of the total CC and its sub-divisions were obtained from 23 male children with autism and 23 age- and gender-matched controls at�
Frazier, Thomas W.; Keshavan, Matcheri S.; Minshew, Nancy J.; Hardan, Antonio Y.
Subjunctive "Were" and Indicative "Was": A Corpus Analysis for English Language Teachers and Textbook Writers
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
This paper illustrates how corpus research can inform language teachers and textbook writers about contemporary usage. This study provides evidence from various corpora, including a collection of language practice books and textbooks, and electronic databases that contain contemporary language data on how English is actually used. The data found�
Lee, Jackie
"It's Just Real Messy": The Occurrence and Function of "Just" in a Corpus of Academic Speech.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Investigates the roles of "just," a lexical item that is among the most frequent in distinguishing academic speech data from roughly comparable written data in the Michigan Corpus of Academic English. Concordance analysis showed that "just" frequently co-occurs with metadiscourse and hedging; a closer functional analysis in selected speech events�
Lindemann, Stephanie; Mauranen, Anna
Un Corpus de Transcriptions Phonetiques: Constitution et Exploitation Statistique (Phonetic Transcription Statistics: Constitution and Statistical Utilization).
National Technical Information Service (NTIS)
Statistics gathered from a very large corpus of French phonetic texts ( 300,000 phones) are presented. The results are valuable to study distributional phenomena in the spoken language. Detailed results on phones and sequences of two phones are given, as ...
J. P. Tubach L. J. Boe
Diffusion tensor tractography quantification of the human corpus callosum fiber pathways across the lifespan
Several anatomical attributes of the human corpus callosum (CC) including the midsagittal cross-sectional area, thickness, and volume, have been used to assess CC integrity. We extended our previous lifespan quantitative diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) study of the regional CC midsagittal areas to include the CC volumes obtained from DTI fiber tracking. In addition to the entire CC tracked subvolumes we
Khader M. Hasan; Arash Kamali; Amal Iftikhar; Larry A. Kramer; Andrew C. Papanicolaou; Jack M. Fletcher; Linda Ewing-Cobbs
Listen, Listen, Listen and Listen: Building a Comprehension Corpus and Making It Comprehensible
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Listening comprehension input is necessary for language learning and acculturation. One approach to developing listening comprehension skills is through exposure to massive amounts of naturally occurring spoken language input. But exposure to this input is not enough; learners also need to make the comprehension corpus meaningful to their learning�
Mordaunt, Owen G.; Olson, Daniel W.
Early-life stress, corpus callosum development, hippocampal volumetrics, and anxious behavior in male nonhuman primates
Male bonnet monkeys (Macaca radiata) were subjected to the variable foraging demand (VFD) early stress paradigm as infants, MRI scans were completed an average of 4years later, and behavioral assessments of anxiety and ex-vivo corpus callosum (CC) measurements were made when animals were fully matured. VFD rearing was associated with smaller CC size, CC measurements were found to correlate with
Andrea Jackowski; Tarique D. Perera; Chadi G. Abdallah; Griselda Garrido; Cheuk Y. Tang; Jose Martinez; Sanjay J. Mathew; Jack M. Gorman; Leonard A. Rosenblum; Eric L. P. Smith; Andrew J. Dwork; Dikoma C. Shungu; Arie Kaffman; Joel Gelernter; Jeremy D. Coplan; Joan Kaufman
Measurement of negativity bias in personal narratives using corpus-based emotion dictionaries.
This study presents a novel methodology for the measurement of negativity bias using positive and negative dictionaries of emotion words applied to autobiographical narratives. At odds with the cognitive theory of mood dysregulation, previous text-analytical studies have failed to find significant correlation between emotion dictionaries and negative affectivity or dysphoria. In the present study, an a priori list dictionary of emotion words was refined based on the actual use of these words in personal narratives collected from close to 500 college students. Half of the corpus was used to construct, via concordance analysis, the grammatical structures associated with the words in their emotional sense. The second half of the corpus served as a validation corpus. The resulting dictionary ignores words that are not used in their intended emotional sense, including negated emotions, homophones, frozen idioms etc. Correlations of the resulting corpus-based negative and positive emotion dictionaries with self-report measures of negative affectivity were in the expected direction, and were statistically significant, with medium effect size. The potential use of these dictionaries as implicit measures of negativity bias and in the analysis of psychotherapy transcripts is discussed. PMID:20972887
Cohen, Shuki J
A Corpus-Based Hybrid Approach to Music Analysis and Composition
We present a corpus-based hybrid approach to music analysis and composition, which incorporates statistical, connectionist, and evolutionary components. Our framework employs artificial music critics ,w hich may be trained on large music corpora, and then pass aesthetic judgment on music artifacts. Music artifacts are generated by an evolutionary music composer, which utilizes music critics as fitness functions. To evaluate this
Bill Z. Manaris; Patrick Roos; Penousal Machado; Dwight Krehbiel; Luca Pellicoro; Juan Romero
Quantitative Analysis of the Shape of the Corpus Callosum in Patients with Autism and Comparison Individuals
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Multiple studies suggest that the corpus callosum in patients with autism is reduced in size. This study attempts to elucidate the nature of this morphometric abnormality by analyzing the shape of this structure in 17 high-functioning patients with autism and an equal number of comparison participants matched for age, sex, IQ, and handedness. The�
Casanova, Manuel F.; El-Baz, Ayman; Elnakib, Ahmed; Switala, Andrew E.; Williams, Emily L.; Williams, Diane L.; Minshew, Nancy J.; Conturo, Thomas E.
Linguistic Markers of Stance in Early and Advanced Academic Writing: A Corpus-Based Comparison
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
This article uses corpus methods to examine linguistic expressions of stance in over 4,000 argumentative essays written by incoming first-year university students in comparison with the writing of upper-level undergraduate students and published academics. The findings reveal linguistic stance markers shared across the first-year essays despite�
Aull, Laura L.; Lancaster, Zak
Grammar and Lexicon in Individuals with Autism: A Quantitative Analysis of a Large Italian Corpus
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Statistical and linguistic procedures were implemented to analyze a large corpus of texts written by 37 individuals with autism and 92 facilitators (without disabilities), producing written conversations by means of PCs. Such texts were compared and contrasted to identify the specific traits of the lexis of the group of individuals with autism and�
Tuzzi, Arjuna
Spatial attention in agenesis of the corpus callosum: shifting attention between visual fields.
The role of the corpus callosum in spatially selective visual attention is uncertain. Research using commissurotomy and callosotomy patients has attempted to determine if the corpus callosum plays a role in reorienting attention between visual fields, as if spatial attention is unitary or divisible between the cerebral hemispheres. Reorienting of selective visuospatial attention within versus between visual fields was tested in 10 individuals with agenesis of the corpus callosum (ACC) and nine matched controls. Spatially focused attention to the most likely location of target appearance was created using both peripheral sensory cues and central symbolic cues in separate tests. Results demonstrated that individuals with ACC have significantly greater difficulty reorienting attention to an invalidly cued target stimulus occurring in the opposite visual field. However, this effect did not interact with the type of cueing (sensory or symbolic). Individuals with ACC did not differ from controls either with respect to the laterality of within-field reorientation of attention, or with respect to the most efficient direction of between-field shifting of attention. Since congenital absence of the corpus callosum significantly reduces efficiency in the reorienting of attention between visual fields, spatial attention cannot be completely unified based on a subcortical mechanism and the mobilization of attentional resources within each hemisphere must depend on callosal processes. PMID:12062892
Hines, Robert J; Paul, Lynn K; Brown, Warren S
Issues Related to the Construction of a Purpose-Built Domain-Specific Word Corpus
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
There is growing interest in the use of semantic collections in order to identify and analyse domain knowledge. This paper describes some technical issues to consider when contemplating research which incorporates small-to-medium domain-specific word sets. The purpose of the corpus construction described was to provide an external word collection�
Thomas, Lisa; Pfister, H. Peter; Peterson, Peter
A Corpus Analysis of "Would"-Clauses Without Adjacent "If"-Clauses.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Reports findings of a corpus analysis of a grammatical structure taught in intermediate- or advanced-level English-as-a-Second-/Foreign-Language texts: clauses that contain the modal "would" to signify hypothetical and counterfactual meaning. Categorizes the conditional and hypothetical uses of would-clauses in spoken and written corpora and�
Frazier, Stefan
Using SVM and error-correcting codes for multiclass dialog act classification in meeting corpus
Accurate classification of dialog acts (DAs) is important for many spoken language applications. Different methods have been pro- posed such as hidden Markov models (HMM), maximum entropy (Maxent), graphical models, and support vector machines (SVMs). In this paper, we investigate using SVMs for multiclass DA classi- fication in the ICSI meeting corpus. We evaluate (1) representing DA tagging directly as
Yang Liu
[A case of autosomal dominant, pure form spastic paraplegia with thinning of the corpus callosum].
Autosomal dominant hereditary spastic paraplegia (HSP) is genetically classified into three types, all of which are characterized by insidiously progressive spasticity of the lower extremities. Patients with a complicated form of autosomal recessive HSP associated with hypoplasia of the corpus callosum have been reported by Iwabuchi et al. Here we report a 64-year-old patient with a pure form of autosomal dominant HSP with thinning of the corpus callosum. He had been well until 12 years of age, when spasticity and weakness of the lower extremities began to develop. His symptoms gradually worsened and he had difficulty in walking at the age of 44. When he was 56 years old, he visited our hospital. Eleven family members over five generations have been affected, and anticipation, i.e., an apparent decrease in age of onset, has been observed. On admission, he had mild cataracts, equinovarus and pes cavus, and neurological examination revealed spastic paraplegia. However, the intelligence test was normal, and nystagmus, ataxia of the extremities, involuntary movement, orthostatic hypotension or urinary disturbance was not observed. Trinucleotide repeat diseases, such as Huntington's disease, spinocerebellar ataxia type 1, spinocerebellar ataxia type 2, Machado-Joseph disease and dentatorubral-pallidoluysian atrophy, were excluded by DNA analysis. Brain MRI at the age of 64 revealed marked thinning of the corpus callosum. We considered this patient had a pure form of HSP. However, thinning of the corpus callosum has never been reported in autosomal dominant HSP. PMID:9805990
Tomiyasu, H; Hayashi, R; Watanabe, R; Honda, M; Yoshii, F
The SAMMIE Corpus of Multimodal Dialogues with an MP3 Player
We describe a corpus of multimodal dialogues with an MP3 player collected in Wizard-of-Oz experiments and annotated with a rich feature set at several layers. We are using the Nite XML Toolkit (NXT) (Carletta et al., 2003) to represent and further process the data. We designed an NXT data model, converted experiment log file data and manual transcriptions into NXT,
Ivana Kruijff-Korbayov; Tilman Becker; Nate Blaylock; Ciprian Gerstenberger; Peter Poller; Verena Rieser; Jan Schehl
Creating a Chinese emotion lexicon based on corpus Ren-CECps
As a basic emotion resource, an emotion lexicon plays a very important role in the classification and recognition of emotion in text. This paper proposes an automatic approach to create a Chinese emotion lexicon with tag of emotion intensity based on the emotion corpus Ren-CECps 1.0. We present a new algorithm of emotion vector computation by making use of two
Ji Li; Fuji Ren
Lexical Bundles in Discourse Structure: A Corpus-Based Study of Classroom Discourse
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
The present study applies corpus-based methods to document the distributional patterns of previously reported lexical bundle functions as they relate to discourse structure. Specifically, 84 lexical bundles and their discourse functions (Biber "et al." 2004a) were tracked in 1,176 discourse units extracted from the initial phases of 196 university�
Csomay, Eniko
A Corpus-Based Investigation into the Validity of the CET-SET Group Discussion
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
This article reports the results of an investigation, based on a 170,000-word corpus of test performance, of the validity of College English Test-Spoken English Test (CET-SET) group discussion by examining the degree of interaction among candidates in the group discussion task with respect to a set of interactional language functions (ILFs) to be�
He, Lianzhen; Dai, Ying
The Development of Second Language Writing Complexity in Groups and Individuals: A Longitudinal Learner Corpus Study
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
This study explores the development of multiple dimensions of linguistic complexity in the writing of beginning learners of German both as a group and as individuals. The data come from an annotated, longitudinal learner corpus. The development of lexicogrammatical complexity is explored at 2 intersections: (a) between cross-sectional trendlines�
Vyatkina, Nina
MRI Findings of Coexistence of Ectopic Neurohypophysis, Corpus Callosum Dysgenesis, and Periventricular Neuronal Heterotopia
Ectopic neurohypophysis is a pituitary gland abnormality, which can accompany growth hormone deficiency associated with dwarfism. Here we present magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) findings of a rare case of ectopic neurohypophysis, corpus callosum dysgenesis, and periventricular neuronal heterotopia coexisting, with a review of the literature.
Arslan, Harun; Sayl?k, Metin; Akdeniz, Huseyin
Expanding the Scope of the ATIS Task: The ATIS-3 Corpus
The Air Travel Information System (ATIS) domain serves as the common evaluation task for ARPA spoken language system developers. To support this task, the Multi-Site ATIS Data COllection Working group (MADCOW) coordinates data collection activities. This paper describes recent MADCOW activities. In particular, this paper describes the migration of the ATIS task to a richer relational database and development corpus
Deborah A. Dahl; Madeleine Bates; Michael Brown; William Fisher; Kate Hunicke-Smith; David Pallett; Christine Pao; Alexander Rudnicky; Elizabeth Shriberg
Large scale evaluation of corpus-based synthesizers: results and lessons from the blizzard challenge 2005
The Blizzard Challenge 2005 was a large scale international evaluation of various corpus-based speech synthesis systems using common datasets. Six sites from around the world, both academic and industrial, participated in this evaluation, the first ever to compare voices built by different systems using the same data. Here we describe results of the evaluation and many of the observations and
Christina L. Bennett
The blizzard challenge - 2005: evaluating corpus-based speech synthesis on common datasets
In order to better understand different speech synthesis tech- niques on a common dataset, we devised a challenge that will help us better compare research techniques in building corpus- based speech synthesizers. In 2004, we released the first two 1200-utterance single-speaker databases from the CMU ARC- TIC speech databases, and challenged current groups working in speech synthesis around the world
Alan W. Black; Keiichi Tokuda
A magnetization transfer imaging study of corpus callosum myelination in young children with autism
Background Several lines of evidence suggest that autism may be associated with abnormalities in white matter development. However, inconsistencies remain in the literature regarding the nature and extent of these abnormalities, partly due to the limited types of measurements that have been used. Here, we used Magnetization Transfer Imaging (MTI) to provide insight into the myelination of the corpus callosum in children with autism. Methods MTI scans were obtained in 101 children with autism and 35 typically developing children who did not significantly differ with regard to gender or age. The midsagittal area of the corpus callosum was manually traced and the magnetization transfer ratio (MTR) was calculated for each voxel within the corpus callosum. Mean MTR and height and location of the MTR histogram peak were analyzed. Results Mean MTR and MTR histogram peak height and location were significantly higher in children with autism than typically developing children, suggesting abnormal myelination of the corpus callosum in autism. Conclusions The differences in callosal myelination suggested by these results may reflect an alteration in the normally well-regulated process of myelination of the brain, with broad implications for neuropathology, diagnosis, and treatment of autism.
Gozzi, Marta; Nielson, Dylan M.; Lenroot, Rhoshel K.; Ostuni, John L.; Luckenbaugh, David A.; Thurm, Audrey E.; Giedd, Jay N.; Swedo, Susan E.
The Penn Arabic Treebank: Building a Large-Scale Annotated Arabic Corpus
From our three year experience of developing a large-scale corpus of annotated Arabic text, our paper will address the following: (a) review pertinent Arabic language issues as they relate to methodology choices, (b) explain our choice to use the Penn English Treebank style of guidelines, (requiring the Arabic-speaking annotators to deal with a new grammatical system) rather than doing the
Mohamed Maamouri; Ann Bies; Tim Buckwalter; Wigdan Mekki
A Narrow-Angled Corpus Analysis of Moves and Strategies of the Genre: "Letter of Application."
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Many genre analyses have been carried out in English for specific purposes settings, but none has made full use of computer analysis to obtain exact linguistic information on the moves and strategies of a genre. This article reports a genre analysis, complemented by the Wordsmith suite of computer programs for corpus analysis, of the moves and�
Henry, Alex; Roseberry, Robert L.
Urease-Based Mucosal Immunization against Helicobacter heilmannii Infection Induces Corpus Atrophy in Mice
Mucosal immunization with Helicobacter heilmannii urease B or Helicobacter pylori urease, given nasally with cholera toxin, protects BALB/c mice against H. heilmannii infection and significantly reduces a preexisting infection. However, immunization aggravates gastric corpus atrophy. Our results underline the necessity of defining immunization regimens that do not enhance mucosal damage.
Dieterich, Christine; Bouzourene, Hanifa; Blum, Andre L.; Corthesy-Theulaz, Irene E.
Tracking Learners' Actual Uses of Corpora: Guided vs Non-Guided Corpus Consultation
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Much of the research into language learners' use of corpus resources has been conducted by means of indirect observation methodologies, like questionnaires or self-reports. While this type of study provides an excellent opportunity to reflect on the benefits and limitations of using corpora to teach and learn language, the use of indirect�
Perez-Paredes, Pascual; Sanchez-Tornel, Maria; Calero, Jose Maria Alcaraz; Jimenez, Pilar Aguado
A corpus analysis of discourse relatio ns for Natural Language Generation
We are developing a Natural Language Generation (NLG) system that generates texts tailored for the reading ability of individual readers. As part of building the system, GIRL (Generator for Individual Reading Levels), we carried out an analysis of the RST Discourse Treebank Corpus to find out how human writers linguistically realise discourse relations. The goal of the analysis was (a)
Sandra Williams; Ehud Reiter
Tracking Learners' Progress: Adopting a Dual "Corpus cum Experimental Data" Approach
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
The article discusses the potential of combining learner corpus research with experimental studies in order to fine-tune the understanding of learner language development. It illustrates the complementarity of the two methodological approaches with data from an ongoing study of the acquisition of the English tense and aspect system by French�
Meunier, Fanny; Littre, Damien
This paper translates and analyzes referencesto eclipses in two seventeenth-century Zapotec calendrical booklets. 1These booklets are part of a corpus of 106 separate calendrical texts and four collections of ritual songs that were turned over to ecclesiastical authorities in 1704 and 1705 as part of an ambitious campaign against traditional indigenous ritual practices conducted in the province of Villa Alta
David Tav�rez; John Justeson
"Wireless": Some Facts and Figures from a Corpus-Driven Study
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
"Wireless" is the word selected to illustrate a model of analysis designed to determine the specialized character of a lexical unit. "Wireless" belongs to the repertoire of specialized vocabulary automatically extracted from a corpus of telecommunication engineering English (TEC). This paper describes the procedure followed in the analysis which�
Rizzo, Camino Rea
A Text Corpus Approach to an Analysis of the Shared Use of Core Terminology.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Investigates the shared use of core Ophthalmology terms in the domains of Ophthalmology, Family Practice and Radiology. Core terms were searched for in a text corpus of 38,695 MEDLINE abstracts covering 1970-1999 from journals representing the three domains. Findings indicated core Ophthalmology terms were used significantly more by Ophthalmology�
Patrick, Timothy B.; Sievert, MaryEllen; Reid, John C.; Rice, Frances Ellis; Gigantelli, James W.; Schiffman, Jade S.; Shelton, Mark E.
Moebius syndrome with Dandy-Walker variant and agenesis of corpus callosum.
Moebius syndrome is a rare congenital neurological disorder. The most frequent mode of presentation is facial diplegia with bilateral lateral rectus palsy, but there are variations. Here, we report a rare case of Moebius syndrome in a 15-month-old child with unilateral facial palsy, bilateral abducens nerve palsy with Dandy Walker variant, and complete agenesis of corpus callosum. PMID:24470815
John, Jomol Sara; Vanitha, R
A 23-Year Review of Communication Development in an Individual with Agenesis of the Corpus Callosum.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Twenty-three years of observation and testing of the communication skills of a male with agenesis of the corpus callosum and normal IQ revealed initial weakness in language. Difficulties with fluent speech persisted into young adulthood. With intensive intervention, communication and academic skills developed and the participant completed high�
Stickles, Judith L.; Schilmoeller, Gary L.; Schilmoeller, Kathryn J.
Effects of prenatal irradiation on the development of cerebral cortex and corpus callosum of the mouse
Defects of the cerebral cortex and corpus callosum of mice subjected prenatally to gamma irradiation were evaluated as a function of dose and of embryonic age at irradiation. Pregnant mice were exposed to a gamma source at 16, 17, and 19 days of gestation (E16, E17, and E19, respectively), with total doses of 2 Gy and 3 Gy, in order
Sergio L. Schmidt; Roberto Lent
Decay in juvenile hormone biosynthesis by insect corpus allatum after nerve transection
THE ability of the insect corpus allatum (CA) to synthesise and release juvenile hormone (JH) is believed to be controlled by various neural and humoral influences of both stimulatory and inhibitory nature1. In last instar Galleria mellonella, a CA stimulatory neurohormone (allatotropin) originating in the medial neurosecretory cells of the brain and operating during the early part of the instar
S. S. Tobe; C. S. Chapman; G. E. PRATT