background: the herpes simplex virus (hsv) ul41 gene product, virion host shutoff (vhs) protein, mediates the rapid degradation of both viral and cellular mrna. this ability suggests that vhs protein can be used as a suicide gene in cancer gene therapy applications. the recent reports have shown that the degradation of cellular mrna during herpes simplex infection is selective. rna containing a...

background sall gene family represent a group of evolutionary conserved zinc finger transcription factors which are involved in normal development. it includes four members (sall1 to sall4). sall4 has significant roles in the maintenance of pluripotency and self-renewal, efficient proliferation /stabilization and cell fate decision of embryonic stem cells (escs). our aim in this study was to an...

Background: Cadmium is a potent toxicant and carcinogenic in human and experimental animals. The evidence indicates that cadmium induces aberrant gene expression, inhibition of DNA damage repair, and apoptosis. In this study, we investigated the effects of IP (intraperitoneal) injection of cadmium on mRNA levels expression of Bcl-2 and Bax genes in rat small intestine. <s...

In Escherichia coli, the gcvB gene encodes a small non-translated RNA that regulates several genes involved in transport of amino acids and peptides (including sstT, oppA and dppA). Microarray analysis identified cycA as an additional regulatory target of GcvB. The cycA gene encodes a permease for the transport of glycine, d-alanine, d-serine and d-cycloserine. RT-PCR confirmed that GcvB and th...

Chromosome translocation and gene fusion are frequent events in the human genome and are often the cause of many types of tumor. ChimerDB is the database of fusion sequences encompassing bioinformatics analysis of mRNA and expressed sequence tag (EST) sequences in the GenBank, manual collection of literature data and integration with other known database such as OMIM. Our bioinformatics analysi...

Clostridium botulinum type A (BoNT/A) produces a neurotoxin recently found to be useful as an injectable drug for the treatment of abnormal muscle contractions. The catalytic domain of this toxin which is responsible for the main toxin activity is a zinc metalloprotease that inhibits the release of neurotransmitter mediators in neuromuscular junctions. A cell penetrating cationic peptide, Tat, ...

Background SALL gene family represent a group of evolutionary conserved zinc finger transcription factors which are involved in normal development. It includes four members (SALL1 to SALL4). SALL4 has significant roles in the maintenance of pluripotency and self-renewal, efficient proliferation /stabilization and cell fate decision of embryonic stem cells (ESCs). Our aim in this study was to a...

In Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD), a dysregulated extracellular matrix (ECM) directly exacerbates pathology. Glucocorticoids are beneficial therapeutics in DMD, and have pleiotropic effects on the composition and processing of ECM proteins in other biological contexts. The synthesis and remodelling of a transitional versican-rich matrix is necessary for myogenesis; whether glucocorticoids mo...

Embryonic muscle development permits the study of contractile protein gene regulation during cellular differentiation. To distinguish the appearance of particular actin mRNAs during chicken myogenesis, we have constructed DNA probes from the transcribed 3' noncoding region of the single-copy alpha-skeletal, alpha-cardiac, and beta-cytoplasmic actin genes. Hybridization experiments showed that a...

The interleukin 2-diphtheria toxin-related fusion protein (IL-2-toxin) rapidly inhibits protein synthesis in IL-2 receptor (IL-2R)-bearing phytohemagglutinin-activated T cells but transiently stimulates DNA synthesis. At 7 hr after interaction with IL-2R+ phytohemagglutinin-activated T cells, IL-2-toxin-treated cells bear augmented steady-state levels of c-myc, interferon gamma, and IL-2R mRNA;...