These proteins could be potential biomarkers of individual vulnerability to cocaine abuse and may be helpful in designing new treatments for cocaine addiction. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.”
“Hepatitis B-virucidal testing of biocides in quantitative suspension tests using duck hepatitis B virus (DHBV) requires primary buy VE-821 duck embryonic hepatocytes for viral propagation. To improve the test system and availability of

these cells, commercial culture plates with different growth surfaces were tested for cell cultivation and different approaches for cryopreservation of hepatocyte suspension were examined. After 12 days of culture, the largest amounts of hepatocytes were grown in CellBIND and TTP plates and CellBIND surface showed the

lowest tendency of monolayer detachment nearly comparable with collagen 1-coated CELLCOAT plates. For cryopreservation of hepatocyte suspension, the use of growth medium supplemented with fetal calf serum (FCS) and dimethyl sulfoxide selleck products (ME(2)SO), FCS supplemented with ME(2)SO or cryosafe-1 as cryoprotective agents provided the highest rates of surviving cells after thawing. The freezing-thawing process did not significantly reduce the susceptibility of hepatocytes to infection with DHBV. In conclusion, plates without collagen I such as CellBIND are recommended for cultivation Afatinib of primary duck embryonic hepatocytes in infectivity

experiments of DHBV for virucidal testing of biocides. The use of cryopreserved hepatocytes is possible when freshly isolated cells from the liver of duck embryos are not available. (C) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.”
“Brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) and its receptor TrkB play an important function in neuronal development and synaptic plasticity. Recently we have established that cyclothiazide (07) is a novel convulsant drug inducing robust epileptiform activity in hippocampal neurons both in vitro and in vivo. However, the molecular mechanisms underlying such convulsant action of CTZ are unknown. Here, we investigated potential roles of BDNF-TrkB signaling pathway in the CTZ-induction of epileptiform activity. In anaesthetized rats, CTZ dose-dependently induced epileptiform activity characterized by progressing of multiple peaks of population spikes, spontaneous spiking events, and synchronized epileptiform bursts.