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“The mechanisms governing maintenance of quiescence during pregnancy remain largely unknown. The current study characterizes a stretch-activated, tetraethylammonium-insensitive

K+ current in smooth muscle cells isolated from pregnant Selleckchem ML323 human myometrium. This study hypothesizes that these K+ currents can be attributed to TREK-1 and that upregulation of this channel during pregnancy assists with the maintenance of a negative cell membrane potential, conceivably contributing to uterine quiescence until full term. The results of this study demonstrate that, in pregnant human myometrial cells, outward currents at 80 mV increased from 4.8 +/- 1.5 to 19.4 +/- 7.5 pA/pF and from 3.0 +/- 0.8 to 11.8 +/- 2.7 pA/pF with application of arachidonic acid (AA) and NaHCO3, respectively, causing intracellular acidification. Similarly, outward currents were inhibited following application of 10 mu M fluphenazine by 51.2 +/- 9.8% after activation by AA and by 73.9 +/- 4.2% after activation by

NaHCO3. In human embryonic kidney (HEK-293) cells stably expressing TREK-1, outward currents at 80 mV increased from 91.0 +/- 23.8 to 247.5 +/- 73.3 pA/pF and from 34.8 +/- 8.9 to 218.6 +/- 45.0 pA/pF with application of AA and NaHCO3, respectively. Correspondingly, outward currents www.selleckchem.com/products/LY2603618-IC-83.html were inhibited 89.5 +/- 2.3% by 10 mu M fluphenazine following activation by AA and by 91.6 +/- 3.4% following activation by NaHCO3. Moreover, currents in human myometrial cells were activated by stretch SBE-β-CD in vivo and were reduced by transfection with small interfering RNA or extracellular acidification. Understanding gestational regulation of expression and gating of TREK-1 channels could be important in determining appropriate maintenance of uterine quiescence during pregnancy.”
“Normal genome variation and pathogenic genome alteration frequently affect small regions in the genome. Identifying those genomic changes remains a technical

challenge. We report here the development of the DGS (Ditag Genome Scanning) technique for high-resolution analysis of genome structure. The basic features of DGS include (1) use of high-frequent restriction enzymes to fractionate the genome into small fragments; (2) collection of two tags from two ends of a given DNA fragment to form a ditag to represent the fragment; (3) application of the 454 sequencing system to reach a comprehensive ditag sequence collection; (4) determination of the genome origin of ditags by mapping to reference ditags from known genome sequences; (5) use of ditag sequences directly as the sense and antisense PCR primers to amplify the original DNA fragment.