Friction properties of a new silk fibroin scaffold for meniscal replacement.

The menisci protect the articular cartilage by reducing contact pressure in the knee. To restore their function after injury, a new silk fibroin replacement scaffold was developed. To elucidate its tribological properties, friction of the implant was tested against cartilage and glass, where the latter is typically used in tribological cartilage studies. The silk scaffold exhibited a friction coefficient against cartilage of 0.056, which is higher than meniscus against cartilage but in range of the requirements for meniscal replacements. Further, meniscus friction against glass was lower than cartilage against glass, which correlated with the surface lubricin content. Concluding, the tribological properties of the new material suggest a possible long-term chondroprotective function. In contrast, glass always produced high, non-physiological friction coefficients.

Neurochemical fine tuning of a peripheral tissue: peptidergic and aminergic regulation of fluid secretion by Malpighian tubules in the tobacco hawkmoth M. sexta.

The actions of various peptides and other compounds on fluid secretion by Malpighian tubules in the tobacco hawkmoth Manduca sexta sexta are investigated in this study. Using a newly developed pharate adult Malpighian tubule bioassay, we show that three tachykinin-related peptides (TRPs), leucokinin I, serotonin (5-HT), octopamine, the cardioacceleratory peptides 1a, 1b and 2c, cGMP and cAMP each cause an increase in the rate of fluid secretion in pharate adult tubules. Whereas the possible hormonal sources of biogenic amines and some of the peptides are known, the distribution of TRPs has not been investigated previously in M. sexta. Thus we performed immunocytochemistry using an anti-TRP antiserum. We show the presence of TRP-like material in a small subset of cells in the M. sexta central nervous system (CNS). The larval brain contains approximately 60 TRP-immunopositive cells and there are approximately 100 such cells in the adult brain including the optic lobes. Every ganglion of the ventral nerve cord also contains TRP-like immunoreactive cells. No TRP-containing neurosecretory cells were seen in the CNS, but endocrine cells of the midgut reacted with the antiserum. We propose the hypothesis that the control in insects of physiological systems by hormones may not always involve tissue-specific hormones that force stereotypical responses in their target systems. Instead, there may exist in the extracellular fluid a continuous broadcast of information in the form of a chemical language to which some or all parts of the body continuously respond on a moment-to-moment basis, and which ensures a more effective and efficient coordination of function than could be achieved otherwise.

Genetic analysis of bristle loss in hybrids between Drosophila melanogaster and D. simulans provides evidence for divergence of cis-regulatory sequences in the achaete-scute gene complex.

The two closely related species of Drosophila, D. melanogaster and D. simulans, display an identical bristle pattern on the notum, but hybrids between the two are lacking a variable number of bristles. We show that the loss is temperature-dependent and provide evidence for two periods of temperature sensitivity. A first period of heat sensitivity occurs during larval development and corresponds to the time when the prepattern of expression of genes whose products activate achaete-scute in the proneural clusters preceding bristle precursor formation is established. A second period of cold sensitivity corresponds to the time of emergence of the bristle precursor cells and the maintenance of their neural fate, a process requiring high levels of Achaete-Scute. Expression of achaete-scute at these two critical periods depends on cis-regulatory elements of the achaete-scute complex (AS-C). The differences between males, which have only one copy of the X-linked AS-C from D. simulans, and females, which have copies from both parental species, are compared, together with the effects of crossing in different rearrangements of the D. melanogaster AS-C that delete regulatory and/or coding sequences. We provide evidence that bristle loss in the hybrids may result from a decrease in the level of transcription at the AS-C and argue that interaction between trans-acting factors and cis-regulatory elements within the AS-C has diverged between the two species.

Neuropeptide stimulation of the nitric oxide signaling pathway in Drosophila melanogaster Malpighian tubules.

Activation of the nitric oxide (NO) and guanosine 3', 5'-cyclic monophosphate (cGMP) signaling pathway stimulates fluid secretion by the Drosophila melanogaster Malpighian tubule. The neuropeptide cardioacceleratory peptide 2b (CAP2b) has been previously shown to stimulate fluid secretion in this epithelium by elevating intracellular cGMP levels. Therefore, it was of interest to investigate if CAP2b acts through NO in isolated tubules and thus presumably through stimulation of a tubule NO synthase (NOS). We show here by reverse-transcription polymerase chain reaction that Drosophila NOS (dNOS) is expressed in Malpighian tubules. Biochemical assays of NOS activity in whole tubules show that CAP2b significantly stimulates NOS activity. Additionally, fluid secretion and cyclic nucleotide assays show that CAP2b-induced elevation of intracellular cGMP levels and fluid secretion rates are dependent on the activation of a soluble guanylate cyclase. Treatment of tubules with a specific NOS inhibitor abolishes the CAP2b-induced rise in intracellular cGMP levels. These data indicate that CAP2b stimulates NOS and therefore, endogenous NO production, which, in turn, stimulates a soluble guanylate cyclase. This is the first demonstration of stimulation of an endogenous NOS by a defined peptide in Drosophila.

CAP2b, a cardioacceleratory peptide, is present in Drosophila and stimulates tubule fluid secretion via cGMP.

A cardioacceleratory peptide, CAP2b, identified originally in the lepidopteran Manduca sexta, stimulates fluid secretion by Malpighian tubules of the dipteran Drosophila melanogaster. High-performance liquid chromatography analyses of adult D. melanogaster reveal the presence of a CAP2b-like peptide, that coelutes with M. sexta CAP2b and synthetic CAP2b and that has CAP2b-like effects on the M. sexta heart. CAP2b accelerates fluid secretion in tubules stimulated by adenosine 3',5'-cyclic monophosphate (cAMP) but has no effect on tubules stimulated by guanosine 3',5'-cyclic monophosphate (cGMP), implying that it acts through the latter pathway. By contrast, the action of leucokinin is additive to both cAMP and cGMP but not to thapsigargin, suggesting that leucokinin acts by the elevation of intracellular calcium. CAP2b stimulation elevates tubule cGMP levels but not those of cAMP. By contrast, leucokinin has no effect on levels of either cyclic nucleotide. Both CAP2b and cGMP increase transepithelial potential difference, suggesting that stimulation of vacuolar-adenosinetriphosphatase action underlies the corresponding increases in fluid secretion. Overall, the results show that a Drosophila CAP2b-related peptide acts to stimulate fluid secretion by Malpighian tubules through the cGMP-signaling pathway.

A novel role for the nitric oxide-cGMP signaling pathway: the control of epithelial function in Drosophila.

The nitric oxide (NO) signaling pathway plays major roles in the vertebrate vascular, nervous, and immune systems. Here we present evidence that all the elements in the NO pathway are present in, and act to control epithelial fluid secretion by, the Malpighian tubules of an insect, Drosophila melanogaster. This finding will allow both a physiological and a molecular genetic dissection of the NO pathway in the same tissue.