University of Münster

About: University of Münster is a education organization based out in Münster, Germany. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Transplantation. The organization has 35609 authors who have published 69059 publications receiving 2278534 citations. The organization is also known as: University of Munster & University of Muenster.

The calcium sensor calcineurin B-like 9 modulates abscisic acid sensitivity and biosynthesis in Arabidopsis.

Abstract: Calcium plays a pivotal role in plant responses to several stimuli, including pathogens, abiotic stresses, and hormones. However, the molecular mechanisms underlying calcium functions are poorly understood. It is hypothesized that calcium serves as second messenger and, in many cases, requires intracellular protein sensors to transduce the signal further downstream in the pathways. The calcineurin B-like proteins (CBLs) represent a unique family of calcium sensors in plant cells. Here, we report our analysis of the CBL9 member of this gene family. Expression of CBL9 was inducible by multiple stress signals and abscisic acid (ABA) in young seedlings. When CBL9 gene function was disrupted in Arabidopsis thaliana plants, the responses to ABA were drastically altered. The mutant plants became hypersensitive to ABA in the early developmental stages, including seed germination and post-germination seedling growth. In addition, seed germination in the mutant also showed increased sensitivity to inhibition by osmotic stress conditions produced by high concentrations of salt and mannitol. Further analyses indicated that increased stress sensitivity in the mutant may be a result of both ABA hypersensitivity and increased accumulation of ABA under the stress conditions. The cbl9 mutant plants showed enhanced expression of genes involved in ABA signaling, such as ABA-INSENSITIVE 4 and 5. This study has identified a calcium sensor as a common element in the ABA signaling and stress-induced ABA biosynthesis pathways.

Frontal lobe function in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis: a neuropsychologic and positron emission tomography study.

Abstract: In this study the regional cerebral glucose utilization and the neuropsychological performance of patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) was investigated. Special attention was given to neuropsychological tests thought to mirror frontal lobe dysfunction. The regional cerebral glucose utilization was studied in 18 patients using high-resolution positron emission tomography. Clinically all patients displayed upper and lower motor neurone signs. In ALS patients glucose metabolism was significantly reduced in the frontal and in the entire cortex compared with controls; no changes were seen in the cerebellum. Comprehensive neuropsychological assessment of ALS patients compared to a pair matched control group revealed mild frontal dysfunction which in part significantly correlated with reduced glucose metabolism in the cortex and subcortical structures. We conclude that in patients with ALS, glucose consumption is decreased in parts of the brain other than the motor cortex accompanied by mild neuropsychological deficits based on the tests employed in this study.

Pseudoconvex domains: Bounded strictly plurisubharmonic exhaustion functions

Abstract: The complex analysis of strictly pseudoconvex domains in IE" is rather well known, especially since the boundary regularity properties of solutions of the inhomogeneous Cauchy-Riemann equations 8c~=fl on such domains have been described more and more precisely and important consequences from this have been derived (for a survey of the results in this direction known until 1972 (see [8]), more recent results are for instance contained in [15, 23]). In contrast to this situation, many fundamental questions with respect to the most "natural" domains of complex analysis, namely arbitrary pseudoconvex domains in ~ ' , are still open. What is the reason for this discrepancy? One possible answer to this question can be seen in the following observation. In almost all important proofs concerning the analysis of strictly pseudoconvex domains, at least one out of three elementary properties of these domains play a fundamental role. They are: 1) Strict pseudoconvexity is stable with respect to small C2-perturbations. 2) A strictly pseudoconvex domain is locally biholomorphically equivalent to strictly convex domains. 3) If ( 2 c c ~ " is strictly pseudoconvex with a smooth C2-boundary, then there is a neighborhood U of ~ and a strictly plurisubharmonic C 2 function p on U such that dp(p):t=O for peb~2 and

Impact of resting heart rate on outcomes in hypertensive patients with coronary artery disease: findings from the INternational VErapamil-SR/trandolapril STudy (INVEST)

Abstract: Aim To determine the relationship between resting heart rate (RHR) and adverse outcomes in coronary artery disease (CAD) patients treated for hypertension with different RHR-lowering strategies. Methods and results Time to adverse outcomes (death, non-fatal myocardial infarction, or non-fatal-stroke) and predictive values of baseline and follow-up RHR were assessed in INternational VErapamil-SR/trandolapril STudy (INVEST) patients randomized to either a verapamil-SR (Ve) or atenolol (At)-based strategy. Higher baseline and follow-up RHR were associated with increased adverse outcome risks, with a linear relationship for baseline RHR and J-shaped relationship for follow-up RHR. Although follow-up RHR was independently associated with adverse outcomes, it added less excess risk than baseline conditions such as heart failure and diabetes. The At strategy reduced RHR more than Ve (at 24 months, 69.2 vs. 72.8 beats/min; P < 0.001), yet adverse outcomes were similar [Ve 9.67% (rate 35/1000 patient-years) vs. At 9.88% (rate 36/1000 patient-years, confidence interval 0.90–1.06, P = 0.62)]. For the same RHR, men had a higher risk than women. Conclusion Among CAD patients with hypertension, RHR predicts adverse outcomes, and on-treatment RHR is more predictive than baseline RHR. A Ve strategy is less effective than an At strategy for lowering RHR but has a similar effect on adverse outcomes.