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Jonathan Magbie Remembrance: Endocannabinoid Pregnancy Science at 20 Years

9/24/2015

Jonathan Magbie Remembrance

Jonathan Magbie died eleven years ago today, 24 September 2004; in remembrance, this PubMed update spans 20 years of endocannabinoid pregnancy science, with an emphasis on preimplantation and implantation of a blastocyst.

Like all of us, Magbie was born (1977 for him) via a mother's cannabinoid system.

1995
The preimplantation mouse embryo is a target for cannabinoid ligand-receptor signaling.
Paria BC, Das SK, Dey SK.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1995 Oct 10;92(21):9460-4.
PMID: 7568154 Free PMC Article
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1998
Effects of cannabinoids on preimplantation mouse embryo development and implantation are mediated by brain-type cannabinoid receptors.
Paria BC, Ma W, Andrenyak DM, Schmid PC, Schmid HH, Moody DE, Deng H, Makriyannis A, Dey SK.
Biol Reprod. 1998 Jun;58(6):1490-5.
PMID: 9623610 Free Article
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2000
Ligand-receptor signaling with endocannabinoids in preimplantation embryo development and implantation.
Paria BC, Dey SK.
Chem Phys Lipids. 2000 Nov;108(1-2):211-20. Review.
PMID: 11106792
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2002
Endocannabinoid signaling in synchronizing embryo development and uterine receptivity for implantation.
Paria BC, Wang H, Dey SK.
Chem Phys Lipids. 2002 Dec 31;121(1-2):201-10. Review.
PMID: 12505701
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2006
Endocannabinoid signaling directs periimplantation events.
Wang H, Xie H, Dey SK.
AAPS J. 2006;8(2):E425-32.
PMID: 16808046 Free PMC Article
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2008
Aspects of endocannabinoid signaling in periimplantation biology.
Sun X, Dey SK.
Mol Cell Endocrinol. 2008 Apr 16;286(1-2 Suppl 1):S3-11. doi: 10.1016/j.mce.2008.01.002. Epub 2008 Jan 18. Review.
PMID: 18294762 Free PMC Article
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2009
Endocannabinoids, sperm biology and human fertility.
Lewis SE, Maccarrone M.
Pharmacol Res. 2009 Aug;60(2):126-31. doi: 10.1016/j.phrs.2009.02.009. Epub 2009 Mar 4. Review.
PMID: 19559363
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2010
Endocannabinoids and pregnancy.
Taylor AH, Amoako AA, Bambang K, Karasu T, Gebeh A, Lam PM, Marzcylo TH, Konje JC.
Clin Chim Acta. 2010 Jul 4;411(13-14):921-30. doi: 10.1016/j.cca.2010.03.012. Epub 2010 Mar 17. Review.
PMID: 20302856
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2011
The manifold actions of endocannabinoids on female and male reproductive events.
Bari M, Battista N, Pirazzi V, Maccarrone M.
Front Biosci (Landmark Ed). 2011 Jan 1;16:498-516. Review.
PMID: 21196184
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2012
Silencing or amplification of endocannabinoid signaling in blastocysts via CB1 compromises trophoblast cell migration.
Xie H, Sun X, Piao Y, Jegga AG, Handwerger S, Ko MS, Dey SK.
J Biol Chem. 2012 Sep 14;287(38):32288-97. doi: 10.1074/jbc.M112.381145. Epub 2012 Jul 24.
PMID: 22833670 Free PMC Article
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2013
The endocannabinoid pathway and the female reproductive organs.
Di Blasio AM, Vignali M, Gentilini D.
J Mol Endocrinol. 2013 Jan 11;50(1):R1-9. doi: 10.1530/JME-12-0182. Print 2013 Feb. Review.
PMID: 23178290 Free Article
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2014
Endocannabinoid signaling in mammalian ovary.
Cecconi S, Rossi G, Castellucci A, D'Andrea G, Maccarrone M.
Eur J Obstet Gynecol Reprod Biol. 2014 Jul;178:6-11. doi: 10.1016/j.ejogrb.2014.04.011. Epub 2014 Apr 18. Review.
PMID: 24948047
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2015
Endocannabinoid signaling in female reproductive events: a potential therapeutic target?
Maccarrone M.
Expert Opin Ther Targets. 2015 Jun 30:1-5. [Epub ahead of print]
PMID: 26126134
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Peace.

*Next Up: Saturday 10 October and the first round of Whiskey221, a continuation of last year’s series Whiskey220 (it’s about George Washington, our Republic and whiskey rebels).

Posted by Bryan W. Brickner

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Pregnancy: Tryptophan Serotonin Autumnal Equinox News

9/23/2015

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Serotonin Life Signaling

This autumnal equinox PubMed science comes with a teaching abstract: it outlines the “several-fold” entouraging pathways of tryptophan, serotonin and kynurenine in creating a baby.

Tryptophan metabolism and dispositions and utilisation in pregnancy.
Badawy AA.
Biosci Rep. 2015 Sep 17. pii: BSR20150197. [Epub ahead of print] Review.
PMID: 26381576
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Abstract
Tryptophan (Trp) requirements in pregnancy are several-fold:

(1) the need for increased protein synthesis by mother and for fetal growth and development;

(2) serotonin for signaling pathways;

(3) kynurenic acid for neuronal protection;

(4) quinolinic acid for NAD+ synthesis

(5) other kynurenines for suppressing fetal rejection.

These goals could not be achieved if maternal plasma [Trp] is depleted. Although plasma total (free + albumin-bound) Trp is decreased in pregnancy, free Trp is elevated. The above requirements are best expressed in terms of a Trp utilisation concept. Briefly, Trp is utilised as follows:

(1) In early and mid- pregnancy, emphasis is on increased maternal Trp availability to meet the demand for protein synthesis and fetal development, most likely mediated by maternal liver Trp 2,3-dioxygenase inhibition by progesterone and oestrogens.

(2) In mid- and late pregnancy, Trp availability is maintained and enhanced by the release of albumin-bound Trp by albumin depletion and non- esterified fatty acid (NEFA) elevation, leading to increased flux of Trp down the kynurenine pathway to elevate immunosuppressive kynurenines. An excessive release of free Trp could undermine pregnancy by abolishing T-cell suppression by kynurenines.

Detailed assessment of parameters of Trp metabolism and disposition and related measures (free and total Trp, albumin, NEFA, kynurenine and its metabolites and pro- and anti-inflammatory cytokines in maternal blood and, where appropriate, placental and fetal material) in normal and abnormal pregnancies may establish missing gaps in our knowledge of the Trp status in pregnancy and help identify appropriate intervention strategies.

Next Up: Tomorrow, 24 September, a Jonathan Magbie remembrance with some endocannabinoid pregnancy science.

Posted by Bryan W. Brickner

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Eggs, Signings and the 228th Constitution Day for the US Republic

9/17/2015

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Brooding Eagle Dunkard Church Plateau

Eagles lay eggs

The US Constitution is an egg-layer.

Two hundred and twenty-eight years ago, on 17 September 1787, our egg-laying Republic was first laid. The founders signed the Constitution and sent it to the thirteen independent states for ratification; once ratified by nine states (the other four also concurred) the egg was hatched and a new government, the US Republic, was a hatchling.

There is nothing like this American egg – and that’s not just talk. As citizens of this republic, We the People were gifted a system that lays a new egg every ten years: the US Census. The reason for a census, what the US Constitution refers to as the enumeration, is to count the people of each state and create (lay) a new egg: representation in the US House of Representatives, a nest for We the People.

The last egg, the 2010 enumeration, is in incubation: the current Congress ignores its duty to the egg. No worries though as our bird is patient; sooner or later We the People will do the math and hatch the eagle’s egg. What we are in now is called a brooding phase, originally meaning, “to nurse (feelings) in the mind.”

Brood our Constitution America ~ and imagine a new eaglet if you will.

Bald Eaglets

*Next Up: A Serotonin Autumnal Equinox Update on Wednesday the 23rd and a Jonathan Magbie Cannabinoid Science Remembrance on Thursday the 24th.

Posted by Bryan W. Brickner

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The Greek Solution: One’s Daimon and Arendt Footnotes #6

9/5/2015

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Arendt Footnotes #6, Eudaimonia

(AF6 - sixth in a series)

Eudaimonia

Arendt enlightens the misery of blindness to our own light.

The Human Condition
Section 27: The Greek Solution
(192-3, bold added)

This unpredictability of outcome is closely related to the revelatory character of action and speech, in which one discloses one’s self without ever either knowing himself or being able to calculate beforehand whom he reveals. The ancient saying that nobody can be called eudaimon before he is dead may point to the issue at stake, if we could hear its original meaning after two and a half thousand years of hackneyed repetition; not even its Latin translation, proverbial and trite already in Rome – nemo ante mortem beatus esse dici potest – conveys this meaning, although it may have inspired the practice of the Catholic Church to beatify her saints only after they have long been safely dead. For eudaimonia means neither happiness nor beatitude; it cannot be translated and perhaps cannot even be explained. It has the connotation of blessedness, but without any religious overtones, and it means literally something like the well-being of the daimon who accompanies each man throughout life, who is his distinct identity, but appears and is visible only to others. (footnote 18)

18. For this interpretation of daimon and eudaimonia, see Sophocles Oedipus Rex 1186 ff., especially the verses: Tis gar, tis aner pleon / tas eudaimonias pherei / e tosouton hoson dokein / kai doxant’ apoklinai (“For which, which man [can] bear more eudaimonia than he grasps from appearance and deflects in its appearance?”). It is against this inevitable distortion that the chorus asserts its own knowledge: these others see, they “have” Oedipus’ daimon before their eyes as an example; the misery of the mortals is their blindness toward their own daimon.

Have a good burn!

Next Up: Republic and the 228th birthday of the US Constitution, Thursday 17 September.

Posted by Bryan W. Brickner

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Montesquieu’s Rapports and Human Passions: Burning Man Edition Arendt Footnotes #5

9/1/2015

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Arendt Footnotes #5, Boundary Onslaughts

(AF5 - fifth in a series)

Boundary Onslaughts

Arendt notes Montesquieu’s unique definition of laws: rapports subsisting between different beings. This is a stepping-stone footnote; it furthers a discussion of government before the onslaught of human affairs.

The Human Condition
Section 26: The Frailty of Human Affairs
(Page 190-1, bold added)

Action, moreover, no matter what its specific content, always establishes relationships and therefore has an inherent tendency to force open all limitations and cut across all boundaries. (footnote 17) Limitations and boundaries exist within the realm of human affairs, but they never offer a framework that can reliably withstand the onslaught with which each new generation must insert itself. The frailty of human institutions and laws and, generally, of all matters pertaining to men’s living together, arises from the human condition of natality [birth rate] and is quite independent of the frailty of human nature.

17. It is interesting to note that Montesquieu, whose concern was not with laws but with the actions their spirit would inspire, defines laws as rapports subsisting between different beings (Espirit des lois, Book I, ch. 1; cf. Book XXVI, ch.1). This definition is surprising because laws had always been defined in terms of boundaries and limitations. The reason for it is that Montesquieu was less interested in what he called the “nature of government” – whether it was a republic or a monarchy, for instance – than in its “principle … by which it is made to act, … the human passions which set it in motion” (Book III, ch. 1).

The Man burns in 4 days.

Next Up: Arendt Footnotes #6, The Greek Solution: The Daimon, Saturday 5 September.

Posted by Bryan W. Brickner

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Jonathan Magbie Remembrance: Endocannabinoid Pregnancy Science at 20 Years

Pregnancy: Tryptophan Serotonin Autumnal Equinox News

Eggs, Signings and the 228th Constitution Day for the US Republic

The Greek Solution: One’s Daimon and Arendt Footnotes #6

Montesquieu’s Rapports and Human Passions: Burning Man Edition Arendt Footnotes #5

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