This mini-review aims to introduce the association between Secretory clusterin/apolipoprotein J (sCLU) and diverse musculoskeletal diseases. A comprehensive review of the literature was performed to identify basic science and clinical studies, which implied the therapeutic and prognostic role of sCLU in diverse musculoskeletal diseases. sCLU is a multifunctional glycoprotein that is ubiquitously expressed in various tissues and is implicated in many pathophysiological processes. Dysregulated expression of sCLU had been reported to be assocaited with proliferative or apoptotic molecular processes and inflammatory responses, which participated in many pathophysiological processes such as degenerative musculoskeletal diseases including ischemic osteonecrosis, osteoarthritis (OA) and degenerative cervical myelopathy (spinal cord injury), neoplastic musculoskeletal diseases, inflammatory and autoimmune musculoskeletal diseases including Rheumatoid arthritis (RA), joint damage induced by Brucella abortus, Sjogren's syndrome, idiopathic inflammatory myopathies, muscle glucose metabolism, insulin sensitivity and traumatic musculoskeletal diseases. Recent findings of sCLU in these musculoskeletal diseases provides insights on the therapeutic and prognostic role of sCLU in these musculoskeletal diseases. sCLU may serve as a promising therapeutic target for ischemic osteonecrosis, OA and spinal cord injury as well as a potential prognostic biomarker for OA and RA. Moreover, sCLU could act as a prognostic biomarker for osteosarcoma (OS) and a promising therapeutic target for OS resistance. Although many studies support the potential therapeutic and prognostic role of sCLU in some inflammatory and autoimmune-mediated musculoskeletal diseases, more future researches are needed to explore the molecular pathogenic mechanism mediated by sCLU implied in these musculoskeletal diseases.
Prolonged agonist stimulation results in specific transfer of activated Gα subunits of Gqα/G11α family from particulate membrane fraction to soluble (cytosol) cell fraction isolated as 250 000 x g supernatant. In this study, we have used 2D electrophoresis for more defined resolution of Gα subunits of Gqα/G11α family and followed the time course of solubilization effect. The small signal of soluble G proteins was already detected in control, hormone-unexposed cells. Hormone stimulation resulted in a slow but continuous increase of both intensity and number of immunoreactive signals/spots of these G proteins (10, 30, 60, 120 and 240 min). At longer times of agonist exposure (>2 hours), a marked increase of Gqα/G11α proteins was detected. The maximal level of soluble Gqα/G11α proteins was reached after 16 hours of continuous agonist exposure. At this time interval, eight individual immunoreactive signals of Gqα/G1 α proteins could be resolved. The relative proportion among these spots was 15:42:10:11:7:7:2:5. Solubilization of this class of Gα proteins was thus observed after prolonged agonist stimulation only, induced by ultra high concentration of hormone and in cells expressing a large number of GPCRs. Our data therefore rather indicate tight/persisting binding of Gqα/G11α proteins to the membrane., D. Durchánková, J. Novotný, P. Svoboda., and Obsahuje bibliografii a bibliografické odkazy
Red wine polyphenols have been reported to possess beneficial properties for preventing cardiovascular diseases but their neuroprotective effects during chronic L-NAME treatment have not been elucidated. The aim of this study was to analyze a time course of Provinols
TM effects on brain NO synthase activity and oxidative damage in L-NAME-induced hypertension. Male Wistar rats, 12 weeks old, were divided into six groups: control groups, groups treated with N G-nitro-L-arginine methyl ester (L-NAME, 40 mg/kg/day) for 4 or 7 weeks and groups receiving ProvinolsTM (40 mg/kg/day) plus L-NAME for 4 or 7 weeks. At the end of the treatment, marker of membrane oxidative damage – conjugated dienes (CD) in the brain and NO synthase activity in the cerebral cortex, cerebellum and brainstem were determined. L-NAME treatment for 4 or 7 weeks led to the increase in blood pressure, elevation of CD concentration and decrease of NO synthase activity in the brain parts investigated. ProvinolsTM partially prevented blood pressure rise and elevation of CD concentration. Comparing to the L-NAME treated group, ProvinolsTM increased NO synthase activity after 4 weeks of treatment. However, the prolonged ProvinolsTM treatment for 7 weeks had no effect on NO synthase activity decreased by L-NAME treatment. In conclusion, ProvinolsTM partially prevents L-NAME induced hypertension via
the different mechanisms depending on the duration of treatment. Prevention of oxidative damage in the brain with modulating effect on NO synthase activity is suggested.
The article deals with the topic of socialist social policy as a special feature and an extremely important instrument of legitimating power and of guardianship. Drawing on his extensive archival research, the author compares the starting points of the social-policy measures of the Czechoslovak and the East German CP leaderships from 1970 to 1989. He discusses the fundamental systemic prerequisites and ambitions of social policy, points out the limits of economic policy, and outlines the individual stages in the development of social policy in the two countries in the period under scrutiny. The focal point of the article is a systematic comparison of the development of pension plans, to which the political establishment in each country paid considerable attention. Providing social security to their senior citizenswas a serious problem for both regimes right up to late 1989, and the implemented measures were only partly successful in dealing with it. The article identifi es the pitfalls of retirement insurance, and takes into account the standard of living of pensioners in both countries. From his research, he concludes that old-age pensions were the Achilles’ heel of East German Socialism. The unanticipated circumstances of senior citizens, the tangible decline in their standard of living, the considerable employment of people of a post-productive age, and the continuous violation of the publicly declared principle of merit are, however, among the problems the Czechoslovak regime also struggled with throughout the years of reinstating hardline Communism in the post-1969 policy of ''normalisation''.
The subject of this study is the issue of sickness, death and dying as approached in the first textbooks of pastoral theology. In the Catholic confessional environment of late 18th century Central Europe, pastoral theology was a new discipline that was about to be introduced into university curricula. The aim of this article is to outline and describe the concept of sickness and death with which the first textbooks of the new discipline worked in formulating new content and forms of spiritual care for the sick and dying. These, presented as binding on future spiritual administrators, defined itself against the older tradition and drew inspiration from Jansenist-Enlightenment approaches and thought. We mainly analyse two or three textbooks that were widely used in the Czech environment. They relied on the prescribed and most successful textbook of the Viennese pastoralist Franz Giftschütz, translated into Czech by the Olomouc teacher Václav Stach, and on the Czech scripts of Aegidius (Jiljí) Chládek, a Premonstratensian of Strahov Monastery and Prague university professor. The changes in the content and forms of Catholic preparation for death and of the concepts of illness and death must be understood in the context of the reforms that affected the field of spiritual education at this time, the new view of the person of the Catholic clergyman, and also the changes in religious and moral sentiments and the promotion and dissemination of medical knowledge and concepts also in the non-medical strata of society.
Studie Veroniky M. Mráčkové se zabývá problematikou přejímání středověkých hymnických melodií, ilustrovanou na konkrétním zvoleném příkladu., The hymn, one of the most frequently encountered songs in Western European sources, poses many questions with regard to the conflict between common and local traits. The Office hymns on which I focus were transmitted mainly in fourteenth- and fifteenth-century sources, which contain huge collections of hymns for different liturgical occasions, including those in honour of local saints. We still do not have a reasonable explanation of how or why the same tunes were adapted for different texts (or vice versa). The ‘Franciscan’ hymn melody Stäblein 752 (originally devoted to St Francis), for example, which occurs with different hymn texts in Austria, Germany, Bohemia, Poland and Spain, has many melodic variants reflecting regional characteristics. Why was this particular melody transferred to and adopted in other parts of Europe, where there was certainly no shortage of alternative hymn melodies? Is it a question of the adoption of favourite melodies in the Middle Ages? Were the same tunes used for hymns in honour of both male and female saints? What are the implications for us when the same ‘local’ tune can be identified in polyphonic hymn settings?, Veronika M. Mráčková., Rubrika: Studie, and České resumé na s. 32, anglický abstrakt na s. 19.
A strongly recommended conclusion in sociology about trends in class inequality has been summarised by Goldthorpe as a high degree of 'temporal constancy and cross-national communality'. This conclusion, here called 'the stability thesis', was first challenged by Ringen in 1987 and again, on more methodological grounds, by Ringen and Hellevik in two papers published in 1997. These challenges resulted in a process of debate and reassessment. It is now possible to sum up and conclude. The stability thesis rests on empirical results from odds-ratio readings of mobility table data. The authority of this methodology is re-examined in terms of normative significance and statistical validity. Mobility table data which have generated stability thesis findings are reanalysed with the standard gini-index methodology in the study of inequality, then yielding different findings which contradict the stability thesis. The main conclusion is that the stability thesis can now be considered overturned. Keywords: social inequality, social justice, social reform, class analysis, social stratification.
The effect of three different concentrations of amitrole (AM), a bleaching herbicide affecting carotenogenesis, on chloroplast ultrastructure, photosynthetic pigment contents, and photochemical activity was studied in two maize genotypes differing in photosynthetic characteristics. The content of photosynthetic pigments in leaves of plants treated with low (20 μM) AM concentration was similar to control plants and no damaging effect of the herbicide on the ultrastructure of either mesophyll (MC) or bundle-sheath (BSC) cell chloroplasts was observed. Higher (60 and 120 μM) concentrations of AM caused a significant decrease in the content of carotenoids (especially xanthophylls), which was followed by photooxidative destruction of chlorophylls and some alterations of chloroplast ultrastructure. MC chloroplasts appeared more sensitive to the damaging effect of AM compared to BSC chloroplasts. A significant decrease in the amount of both granal and intergranal thylakoids in MC chloroplasts was observed with the increasing concentration of AM. As regards BSC chloroplasts, rapid decrease in the volume density of starch inclusions was found in plants treated with higher concentrations of AM. When 120 μM AM was used, both MC and BSC chloroplasts contained just a few thylakoid membranes that were strongly altered. The changes in the ultrastructure of MC chloroplasts were accompanied by the changes in their photochemical activity. The formation of chloroplast protrusions after treatment of plants with AM as well as in control plants was also observed. and R. Pechová ... [et al.].