Promiscuously reactive electrophilic agents induce DNA and other cellular damage. DNA repair-defective cells, when compared with genetically matched, repair-proficient parental cells, provide a means to distinguish cellular responses triggered by individual genetic lesions from other macromolecular damage. The Chinese hamster ovary (CHO) cell line EM9 is hypersensitive to the alkylating agent e...

The polarized delivery of membrane proteins to the cell surface and the initial secretion of lysosomal proteins into the culture medium were studied in the polarized human intestinal adenocarcinoma cell line Caco-2 in the presence or absence of the microtubule-active drug nocodazole. The appearance of newly synthesized proteins at the plasma membrane was measured by their sensitivity to proteas...

To investigate the association of calmodulin (CaM) with microtubules (MTs) in the mitotic apparatus (MA), the distributions of CaM and tubulin were examined in cells in which the normal spindle organization had been altered. A fluorescent CaM conjugate with tetramethylrhodamine isothiocyanate (CaM-TRITC) and a dichlorotriazinyl aminofluorescein conjugate with tubulin (tubulin-DTAF) were injecte...

The mechanism of genotoxic potential of the cancer chemotherapeutic drugs amsacrine and nocodazole in mouse bone marrow was investigated using a micronucleus test complemented by fluorescence in situ hybridization assay with mouse centromeric and telomeric DNA probes. In animals treated with different doses of amsacrine (0.5-12 mg kg(-1) ), the frequencies of micronucleated polychromatic erythr...

Cytoplasmic microtubules are important in many cellular homeostatic processes in the cell. They regulate cell shape and movement as well as serving as a network by which vesicles and membrane-bound organelles can travel. Lately, there have been many studies demonstrating that microtubules are involved in regulation of intracellular signaling and, therefore, affect vascular reactivity. In this s...

Measurement of the mechanical properties of single cells is of increasing interest both from a fundamental cell biological perspective and in the context of disease diagnostics. In this study, we show that tracking cell shape dynamics during trypsin-induced de-adhesion can serve as a simple but extremely useful tool for probing the contractility of adherent cells. When treated with trypsin, bot...

Kinetochore microtubules are known to be differentially stable to a variety of microtubuie depolymerization agents compared to the non-kinetochore polar microtubules, but the dynamics of microtubuie attachment to the kinetochore is currently controversial. We have examined the stability of kinetochore microtubules in metaphase PtKx spindles at 23 °C when microtubuie assembly is abruptly blocked...

For mammalian somatic cells, the importance of microtubule cytoskeleton integrity during interphase cell-cycle progression is uncertain. The loss, suppression, or stabilization of the microtubule cytoskeleton has been widely reported to cause a G1 arrest in a variable, and often high, proportion of cell populations, suggesting the existence of a "microtubule damage," "microtubule integrity," or...

BACKGROUND Celecoxib exerted analgesic effects (hypoalgesia) reversed by opioid receptor antagonists in a model of inflammatory pain. To analyze this celecoxib-induced hypoalgesia further, we assessed the effects of several disruptors of cytoskeletal components in our model of inflammation. METHODS Hyperalgesia to mechanical stimuli was induced in rat hind paws by intraplantar injection of ca...

Fibronectin (FN) matrix assembly is a cell-dependent process mediated by cell surface-binding sites for the 70-kDa amino-terminal region of FN. We have shown recently that lysophosphatidic acid (LPA) is a stimulator of FN matrix assembly. Disruption of microtubules has been shown to mimic some of the intracellular effects of LPA including the formation of actin stress fibers and myosin light ch...