Natalia Kasica

University of Warmia and Mazury in Olsztyn · Department of Animal Anatomy

Anxiety is one of the most common central nervous system disorders, affecting at least one-quarter of the worldwide population. The medications routinely used for the treatment of anxiety (mainly benzodiazepines) are a cause of addiction and are characterized by many undesirable side effects. Thus, there is an important and urgent need for screenin...

Microcephaly presents in neurodevelopmental disorders with multiple aetiologies, including bi-allelic mutation in TUBGCP2, a component of the biologically fundamental and conserved microtubule-nucleation complex, γ-TuRC. Elucidating underlying principles driving microcephaly requires clear phenotype recapitulation and assay reproducibility, areas w...

Pathological angiogenesis is correlated with many ophthalmic diseases. The most common are exudative age-related macular degeneration and proliferative diabetic retinopathy. The current treatment for these diseases is based on regularly administered anti-VEGF antibodies injections. In the study, we investigated selected D2 dopaminergic receptor ago...

The present study investigated the influence of castration performed at neonatal age on neuronal elements in the intramural ganglia of the urinary bladder trigone (UBT) in male pigs using double‐labeling immunohistochemistry. The ganglia were examined in intact (IP) 7‐day‐old (castration day) pigs, and at 3 and 6 months after surgery. In IP and con...

Zebrafish has emerged as a powerful model in studies dealing with pigment development and pathobiology of pigment diseases. Due to its conserved pigment pattern with established genetic background, the zebrafish is used for screening of active compounds influencing melanophore, iridophore, and xanthophore development and differentiation. In our stu...

The present study investigated the influence of castration performed at neonatal age on neuronal elements in the anterior pelvic ganglion of the male pig with immunohistochemistry and quantitative real-time PCR (qPCR). The ganglia were examined 3 and 6 months after surgery. In 3-month-old castrated pigs (3MCP) 74% of adrenergic and 31% of cholinerg...

Zebrafish (Danio rerio) is a laboratory model organism used in different areas of biological research including studies of immune response and host–pathogen interactions. Thanks to many biological tools available, zebrafish becomes also an important model in aquaculture research since several fish viral infection models have been developed for zebr...

The present study investigated the expression of androgen receptor (AR) in neurons of the anterior pelvic ganglion (APG) and celiac-superior mesenteric ganglion (CSMG; ganglion not involved in the innervation of reproductive organs) in the male pig with quantitative real-time PCR (qPCR) and immunohistochemistry. qPCR investigations revealed that th...

European beaver (Castor fiber), the largest rodent species inhabiting a wide area of Eurasia, feeds mainly on dry parts of plants, bark or wood. Such kind of nourishment needs to be properly digested in each part of the gastrointestinal tract. The time of stomach digestion, which directly influences all the following steps of the digestion process,...

Galanin is a neuropeptide widely expressed in the nervous system, but it is also present in nonneuronal locations. In the brain galanin may function as an inhibitory neurotransmitter. Several studies have showed that galanin is involved in seizure regulation and can modulate epileptic activity in the brain. The overall goal of the study was to esta...

Pituitary adenylate cyclase–activating polypeptide (PACAP-38) is a common neuropeptide exerting a wide spectrum of functions in many fields, including immunology. In the present study, 5-day post-fertilization (dpf) zebrafish larvae of three diverse genetic lines [transgenic lines Tg(MPX:GFP) with GFP-labelled neutrophils and Tg(pou4f3:GAP-GFP) wit...

Illustrations of the settings used on FACS. (A) Forward (FSC) and side scatter (SSC) plot. This measurement is related to designating and identifying cells according to their size and internal granularity or complexity of a particle, respectively. The R5 gate was set so as to exclude cellular debris and imperfectly isolated cells. (B) A histogram w...

Raw data of neutrophil counting. (XLSX)

Raw data of Real-Time PCR results respecting pro-inflammatory and stress-inducible genes. (XLSX)

Raw data of Real-Time PCR results respecting PACAP receptors. (XLSX)

Developmental abnormalities due to fresh garlic (Allium sativum L.) juice exposure have been previously reported on zebrafish (Danio rerio) embryos. Freshly made garlic juice (FGJ) containing allicin as a main ingredient and aged garlic extract (AGE) containing mainly S-allyl-L-cysteine were evaluated to investigate the lethality during a 5-day ass...

ABSTRACT A higher sensitivity and the cytotoxic effects of garlic have been previously reported on culture cells. No studies, however have investigated the developmental toxicity of fresh garlic in zebrafish model. In this study freshly made garlic juice, which chemically is a combination of sulphur containing compounds, was evaluated to investigat...

Pituitary adenylate cyclase-activating polypeptide (PACAP) is a pleiotropic neuropeptide, with known antiapoptotic functions. Our previous in vitro study has demonstrated the ameliorative role of PACAP-38 in chicken hair cells under oxidative stress conditions, but its effects on living hair cells is now yet known. Therefore, the aim of the present...

The present study has demonstrated the galaninergic innervation of the endocrine pancreas including sources of the galaninergic nerve fibers, and the influence of galanin receptor agonists on blood glucose level in the zebrafish. For the first time, a very abundant galaninergic innervation of the endocrine pancreas during development is shown, from...

Piotr Jakubowski, Michał Majewski, Piotr Podlasz, Anna Jakimiuk, Natalia Kasica Epilepsy is one of the most common neurological diseases with 50–60 million people affected worldwide. Unfortunately, only 70% of patients are effectively treated with currently available antiepileptic drugs (AEDs). One of the leading hypothesis for refractory epilepsy...

The zebrafish (Danio rerio) has become known as an excellent model organism for studies of vertebrate biology, vertebrate genetics, embryonal development, diseases and drug screening. Nevertheless, there is still lack of detailed reports about usage of the zebrafish as a model in veterinary medicine. Comparing to other vertebrates, they can lay hun...