1,721,072 research outputs found

    α(V)β3 integrin mediates the cell-adhesive capacity and biological activity of basic fibroblast growth factor (FGF-2) in cultured endothelial cells

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    Fibroblast growth factor-2 (FGF-2) immobilized on non-tissue culture plastic promotes adhesion and spreading of bovine and human endothelial cells that are inhibited by anti-FGF-2 antibody. Heat-inactivated FGF-2 retains its cell-adhesive activity despite its incapacity to bind to tyrosine-kinase FGF receptors or to cell-surface heparan sulfate proteoglycans. Recombinant glutathione-S-transferase-FGF-2 chimeras and synthetic FGF-2 fragments identify two cell-adhesive domains in FGF-2 corresponding to amino acid sequences 38-61 and 82-101. Both regions are distinct from the FGF-receptor- binding domain of FGF-2 and contain a DGR sequence that is the inverse of the RGD cell-recognition sequence. Calcium deprivation, RGD-containing eptapeptides, soluble vitronectin (VN), but not fibronectin (FN), inhibit cell adhesion to FGF-2. Conversely, soluble FGF-2 prevents cell adhesion to VN but not FN, thus implicating VN receptor in the cell-adhesive activity of FGF-2. Accordingly, monoclonal and polyclonal anti-α(v)β3 antibodies prevent cell adhesion to FGF-2. Also, purified human α(v)β3 binds to immobilized FGF-2 in a cation-dependent manner, and this interaction is competed by soluble VN but not by soluble FN. Finally, anti-α(v)β3 monoclonal and polyclonal antibodies specifically inhibit mitogenesis and urokinase-type plasminogen activator (uPA) up-regulation induced by free FGF- 2 in endothelial cells adherent to tissue culture plastic. These data demonstrate that FGF-2 interacts with α(v)β3 integrin and that this interaction mediates the capacity of the angiogenic growth factor to induce cell adhesion, mitogenesis, and uPA up-regulation in endothelial cells

    Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis

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    The present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed

    Variations on the Author

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    “Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship

    Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis

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    We provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis

    Role of TGFβ1 and WNT6 in FGF2 and BMP4-driven endothelial differentiation of murine embryonic stem cells

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    Embryonic stem cells (ES) are a valuable source of endothelial cells. By co-culturing ES cells with the stromal PA6 cells, the endothelial commitment can be achieved by adding exogenous FGF2 or BMP4. In this work, the molecular pathways that direct the differentiation of ES cells toward endothelium in response to FGF2 are evaluated and compared to those activated by BMP4. To this purpose the genes expression profiles of both ES/PA6 co-cultures and of pure cultures of PA6 cells were obtained by microarray technique at different time points. The bioinformatics processing of the data indicated TGFβ1 as the most represented upstream regulator in FGF2-induced endothelial commitment while WNT pathway as the most represented in BMP4-activated endothelial differentiation. Loss of function experiments were performed to validate the importance of TGFβ1 and WNT6 respectively in FGF2 and BMP4-induced endothelial differentiation. The loss of TGFβ1 expression significantly impaired the accomplishment of the endothelial commitment unless exogenous recombinant TGFβ1 was added to the culture medium. Similarly, silencing WNT6 expression partially affected the endothelial differentiation of the ES cells upon BMP4 stimulation. Such dysfunction was recovered by the addition of recombinant WNT6 to the culture medium. The ES/PA6 co-culture system recreates an in vitro complete microenvironment in which endothelial commitment is accomplished in response to alternative signals through different mechanisms. Given the importance of WNT and TGFβ1 in mediating the crosstalk between tumor and stromal cells this work adds new insights in the mechanism of tumor angiogenesis and of its possible inhibition

    Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts

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    We conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more sophisticated methods
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