In: Biochemical Journal, 2004, vol. 380, p. 907-918
In the present study, we show that depletion of acyl-CoA-binding protein, Acb1p, in yeast affects ceramide levels, protein trafficking, vacuole fusion and structure. Vacuoles in Acb1p-depleted cells are multi-lobed, contain significantly less of the SNAREs (soluble N-ethylmaleimide-sensitive fusion protein attachment protein receptors) Nyv1p, Vam3p and Vti1p, and are unable to fuse in vitro. Mass...
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In: Physiology & Behavior, 2004, vol. 83, no. 4, p. 587-602
After decades of controversies about the quantitative importance of autoregulatory adjustments in energy expenditure in weight regulation, there is now increasing recognition that even subtle variations in thermogenesis could, in dynamic systems and over the long term, be important in determining weight maintenance in some and obesity in others. The main challenge nowadays is to provide a...
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In: Molecular and Cellular Neuroscience, 2005, vol. 28(2), p. 275-291
Administration of drugs of abuse induces strong molecular adaptations and plasticity within the mesolimbic dopamine (DA) system, a pathway essential for reward-seeking behavior. Little is known about the specific targets involved in this neuroadaptation process, but there are indications that cocaine and other drugs of abuse share the ability to alter the morphology of neuronal dendrites and...
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In: Nature Medicine, 2004, vol. 11, p. 35-42
Period (Per) genes are involved in regulation of the circadian clock and are thought to modulate several brain functions. We demonstrate that Per2Brdm1 mutant mice, which have a deletion in the PAS domain of the Per2 protein, show alterations in the glutamatergic system. Lowered expression of the glutamate transporter Eaat1 is observed in these animals, leading to reduced uptake of glutamate by...
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In: European Journal of Neuroscience, 2004, vol. 19, p. 1621-1633
CD81, a tetraspanin transmembrane protein involved in cell adhesion, is up-regulated in the mesolimbic dopaminergic pathway 24 h following acute administration of high doses of cocaine [Brenz-Verca et al., (2001) Mol. Cell. Neurosci., 17, 303-316]. Further evidence consecutive with this observation and based on microarray analysis are presented here. In addition, a regulatable lentivirus was...
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Thèse de doctorat : Université de Fribourg, 2001 ; no 1354.
Many glycoproteins of lower and higher eucaryotes are attached to the plasma membrane by means of a glycosylphosphatidylinositol (GPI). GPI anchoring of proteins is essential for the growth of Saccharomyces cerevisiae . S.cerevisiae contains about 70 open reading frames predicting GPI proteins and many of these have been found to be cell wall glycoproteins. The precursors of GPI anchored proteins...
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Thèse de doctorat : Université de Fribourg, 2000 ; nr. 1321.
Apoptosis is a key event occurring in living organisms. In order to maintain tissue homeostasis, a comparable number of cells have to die to compensate for the cells produced by mitosis. However in many diseases this mechanism is altered. Once a malignancy is established, the conventional approach is to treat cells with drugs able to induce apoptosis. Although the execution of apoptosis is a...
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Thèse de doctorat : Université de Fribourg, 2000 ; no 1307.
Tenascin-R (TN-R) is a glycosylated brain extracellular matrix protein (BECM; Zamze et al., 1999) restricted to the central nervous system (Pesheva et al., 1989; Rathjen et al., 1991; Weber et al., 1999). A special feature of TN-R, and some of its known ligands, is their accumulation around certain sub-populations of neurones, forming perineuronal nets of extracellular matrix (PNEMs; Wintergerst...
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Thèse de doctorat : Université de Fribourg : 2001 ; 1340.
Uncertain knowledge can be represented in the framework of argumentation systems. In this framework, uncertainty is expressed using so-called assumptions. Depending on the setting of the assumptions, a given hypothesis of interest can be proved or falsified. The main goal of assumption-based reasoning is to determine the set of all supporting arguments for a given hypothesis. Such a supporting...
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Thèse de doctorat : Université de Fribourg : 2000 ; no 1312.
This thesis addresses the question of content-based image retrieval (CBIR) in heterogeneous databases. In an analysis of the existing CBIR tools that was done at the beginning of this work, we have shown that there was room for improvement in three key areas: query form, image and query representation, and computation of similarity. This analysis led us to studying the usability of a method for...
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