University of Maribor

About: University of Maribor is a education organization based out in Maribor, Slovenia. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & KEKB. The organization has 3987 authors who have published 13077 publications receiving 258339 citations. The organization is also known as: Univerza v Mariboru.

Pancreatic beta cell lines and their applications in diabetes mellitus research

Abstract: During the past 30 years great effort has been put into establishing an insulin-secreting beta cell line that retains normal regulation of insulin secretion, but only few of these attempts have been successful. To overcome the limited availability of primary beta cells and to include the principles of the 3Rs into the field of diabetes mellitus research, numerous investigators used X-rays or viruses to induce insulinomas, in vitro transformation, derivation of cells from transgenic mice or even non-islet cells to produce immortalised beta cell lines. The most widely used insulin-secreting cell lines are RIN, HIT, MIN, INS-1 and TC cells. These cells produce insulin and small amounts of glucagon and somatostatin. Some of them are only poorly responsive to glucose, others respond to glucose well, but their concentration-dependence curve is markedly shifted to higher sensitivity. Despite problems associated with beta cell cultures, these cell lines have provided some valuable information about physiological processes. However, an urgent need to establish a "normal" beta cell line of human or pig origin remains.

The Development and Impact of Marketing Capabilities in Central Europe

Abstract: The industrial organisation and evolutionary economics traditions in international business and the resource-based view of the firm in strategic management provide a rich and related set of perspectives on the question of performance in an international environment. This paper draws on these perspectives to examine the nature of marketing capabilities across a range of firm types in Hungary, Poland and Slovenia. A number of key strategic capabilities are examined including market orientation, the time horizon of strategic decision making and positioning capability. The study finds that firms with foreign participation have been able to develop a sophisticated level of marketing capability with a resulting positive impact on financial and market performance. Wholly-owned subsidiaries and international joint ventures emerge as equally effective mechanisms for the transfer of marketing capability. Conclusions are drawn and implications from the research are outlined.

Autocatalytic cleavage of Clostridium difficile toxin B

Abstract: Clostridium difficile, the causative agent of nosocomial antibiotic-associated diarrhoea and pseudomembranous colitis, possesses two main virulence factors: the large clostridial cytotoxins A and B It has been proposed that toxin B is cleaved by a cytosolic factor of the eukaryotic target cell during its cellular uptake Here we report that cleavage of not only toxin B, but also all other large clostridial cytotoxins, is an autocatalytic process dependent on host cytosolic inositolphosphate cofactors A covalent inhibitor of aspartate proteases, 1,2-epoxy-3-(p-nitrophenoxy)propane, completely blocked toxin B function on cultured cells and was used to identify its catalytically active protease site To our knowledge this is the first report on a bacterial toxin that uses eukaryotic signals for induced autoproteolysis to deliver its toxic domain into the cytosol of target cells On the basis of our data, we present an integrated model for the uptake and inositolphosphate-induced activation of toxin B