Physiology Commons^™

The Pulmonary Effects Of Intravenous Adenosine In Asthmatic Subjects, Nausherwan K. Burki, Mahmud Alam, Lu-Yuan Lee

Physiology Faculty Publications

BACKGROUND: We have shown that intravenous adenosine in normal subjects does not cause bronchospasm, but causes dyspnea, most likely by an effect on vagal C fibers in the lungs [Burki et al. J Appl Physiol 2005; 98:180-5]. Since airways inflammation and bronchial hyperreactivity are features of asthma, it is possible that intravenous adenosine may be associated with an increased intensity of dyspnea, and may cause bronchospasm, as noted anecdotally in previous reports.

METHODS: We compared the effects of placebo and 10 mg intravenous adenosine, in 6 normal and 6 asthmatic subjects.

RESULTS: Placebo injection had no significant (p > 0.05) effect …

The Caenorhabditis Elegans F-Box Protein Sel-10 Promotes Female Development And May Target Fem-1 And Fem-3 For Degradation By The Proteasome, Sibylle Jager, Hillel T. Schwartz, H. Robert Horvitz, Barbara Conradt

Dartmouth Scholarship

The Caenorhabditis elegans F-box protein SEL-10 and its human homolog have been proposed to regulate LIN-12 Notch signaling by targeting for ubiquitin-mediated proteasomal degradation LIN-12 Notch proteins and SEL-12 PS1 presenilins, the latter of which have been implicated in Alzheimer's disease. We found that sel-10 is the same gene as egl-41, which previously had been defined by gain-of-function mutations that semidominantly cause masculinization of the hermaphrodite soma. Our results demonstrate that mutations causing loss-of-function of sel-10 also have masculinizing activity, indicating that sel-10 functions to promote female development. Genetically, sel-10 acts upstream of the genes fem-1, fem-2, and fem-3 and …

Impaired Fast-Spiking, Suppressed Cortical Inhibition, And Increased Susceptibility To Seizures In Mice Lacking Kv3.2 K+ Channel Proteins, David Lau, Eleazar Vega-Saenz De Miera, Diego Contreras, Alan Chow, Richard Paylor, Christopher S. Leonard, Bernardo Rudy

NYMC Faculty Publications

Voltage-gated K(+) channels of the Kv3 subfamily have unusual electrophysiological properties, including activation at very depolarized voltages (positive to -10 mV) and very fast deactivation rates, suggesting special roles in neuronal excitability. In the brain, Kv3 channels are prominently expressed in select neuronal populations, which include fast-spiking (FS) GABAergic interneurons of the neocortex, hippocampus, and caudate, as well as other high-frequency firing neurons. Although evidence points to a key role in high-frequency firing, a definitive understanding of the function of these channels has been hampered by a lack of selective pharmacological tools. We therefore generated mouse lines in which one …