Lead soaps in paintings: Friends or foes?

Phytoestrogens. Friends or foes?

BioInformatics Pipeline Alternative Splicing Services (BIPASS) offer support to scientists interested in gathering information related to alternative splicing (AS) events. The service BIPAS–SpliceDB provides access to AS information that has been extracted a priori from various public databases and stored in a data warehouse. In contrast, the BIPAS– Align&Splice service allows scientists to sub...

Beta-agonists--friends or foes?

Bacterial toxins: friends or foes?

Many emerging and reemerging bacterial pathogens synthesize toxins that serve as primary virulence factors. We highlight seven bacterial toxins produced by well-established or newly emergent pathogenic microbes. These toxins, which affect eukaryotic cells by a variety of means, include Staphylococcus aureus alpha-toxin, Shiga toxin, cytotoxic necrotizing factor type 1, Escherichia coli heat-sta...

Soybean Phytoestrogens – Friends or Foes?

Proper and balanced nutrition is very important in prevention and treatment of chronic diseases. Many individuals modify their diet and/or take different nutraceuticals expecting to attain optimum health, extend their lifespan and prevent diseases such as cardiovascular, cancer, osteoporosis, obesity, or diabetes type II. Based on „Japanese phenomenon“ (Adlercreutz, 1998), numerous advertisemen...

ERKs in cancer: friends or foes?

The extracellular signal-regulated kinase ERK1 and ERK2 (ERK1/2) cascade regulates a variety of cellular processes by phosphorylating multiple target proteins. The outcome of its activation ranges from stimulation of cell survival and proliferation to triggering tumor suppressor responses such as cell differentiation, cell senescence, and apoptosis. This pathway is intimately linked to cancer a...