Enhanced levels of intracellular stresses such as oxidative stress and endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress are implicated in various neuropathological conditions including brain ischemia and neurodegeneration. During a search for compounds that regulate ER stress and ER stress-induced cell death, we identified a carbazole derivative 16-14 [9-(3-cyanobenzyl)-1,4-dimethylcarbazole] that protected a...

Many proteins retained within the endo/sarcoplasmic reticulum (ER/SR) lumen express the COOH-terminal tetrapeptide KDEL, by which they continuously recycle from the Golgi complex; however, others do not express the KDEL retrieval signal. Among the latter is calsequestrin (CSQ), the major Ca2+-binding protein condensed within both the terminal cisternae of striated muscle SR and the ER vacuolar ...

Erythropoietin (Epo) autocrine stimulation has been implicated in erythroblastic leukemia. To examine whether this stimulation could occur intracellularly, we developed Epo autocrine models of stimulation in the human pluripotent UT-7 cell line. Retroviral expression of Epo totally abolished the growth factor requirement of UT-7 cells. Autonomous proliferation was not cell density-dependent and...

We compared the subcellular distribution of native and artificial reticuloplasmins in endosperm, callus, and leaf tissues of transgenic rice (Oryza sativa) to determine the distribution of these proteins among endoplasmic reticulum (ER) and post-ER compartments. The native reticuloplasmin was calreticulin. The artificial reticuloplasmin was a recombinant single-chain antibody (scFv), expressed ...

The determination of diffusion coefficients from fluorescence recovery data is often complicated by geometric constraints imposed by the complex shapes of intracellular compartments. To address this issue, diffusion of proteins in the lumen of the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) is studied using cell biological and computational methods. Fluorescence recovery after photobleaching (FRAP) experiments ...

Escherichia coli is one of the most common gram-negative bacteria that cause meningitis in neonates. Our previous studies have shown that outer membrane protein A (OmpA) of E. coli interacts with a 95-kDa human brain microvascular endothelial cell (HBMEC) glycoprotein, Ecgp, for invasion. Here, we report the identification of a gene that encodes Ecgp by screening of an HBMEC cDNA expression lib...

Bovine seminal RNase (BS-RNase) is a dimeric RNase selectively cytotoxic for malignant cells. No information is available on its pathway from the extracellular matrix through the cytosol, where it degrades rRNA. An investigation of this pathway is reported here, carried out by immunofluorescence studies, by assessing the effects on BS-RNase cytotoxicity of drugs that affect specific intracellul...