Cardiovascular disease associated with oxidative stress, including atherosclerosis, is the leading cause of mortality worldwide. The accelerated proliferation and migration of vascular smooth muscle cells are the predominant characteristics of atherogenesis, and endothelial dysfunction is a major risk factor for the pathogenesis of atherosclerosis. Podocalyxin (PODXL), a type I member of the cl...

Calponins and transgelins are members of a conserved family of actin-associated proteins widely expressed from yeast to humans. Although a role for calponin in muscle cells has been described, the biochemical activities and in vivo functions of nonmuscle calponins and transgelins are largely unknown. Herein, we have used genetic and biochemical analyses to characterize the budding yeast member ...

A total of nine potential markers for endometrial cancer (EmCa) have been discovered and identified from endometrial tissue homogenates using a combination of differentially labeled tags, iTRAQ and cICAT, with multidimensional liquid chromatography and tandem mass spectrometry. The tissues were snap frozen in liquid nitrogen within 15-20 min after devitalization. Samples for proteomic analysis ...

Abstract Background Multiple pathophysiological processes have been described in Alzheimer’s disease (AD). Their inter-individual variations, complex interrelations, and relevance for clinical manifestation progression remain poorly understood. We hypothesize that specific molecular patterns indicating both known yet unidentified pathway alterations are associated with distinct aspects of AD pa...

Formation of mixed disulfides between glutathione and the cysteines of some proteins (glutathionylation) has been suggested as a mechanism through which protein functions can be regulated by the redox status. The aim of this study was to identify the proteins of T cell blasts that undergo glutathionylation under oxidative stress. To this purpose, we radiolabeled cellular glutathione with (35)S,...

Infertility is an area of increasing in life science research. Although follicular maturation disorders and anovulation are the primary causations of infertility, its molecular mechanism is not well understood. Recent research has shown that microRNAs (miRNAs) might play an important role in the regulation of ovarian follicle development and maturation. In this study, the expression of miRNAs i...

The aim of the present study was to compare the gene expression profiles in aortic dissection (AD) and healthy human aortic tissue samples by DNA microarray analysis in order to screen the differential genes. In total, five AD and four healthy aortic specimens were selected; the total RNA was extracted and reverse transcribed into cDNA and in vitro transcribed into aRNA, followed by microarray ...

The entry of malignant hepatocytes into blood vessels is a key step in the dissemination and metastasis of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). The identification of molecular mechanisms involved in the transmigration of malignant hepatocytes through the endothelial barrier is of high relevance for therapeutic intervention and metastasis prevention. In this study, we employed a model of hepatocellul...

Conventional protocols for differentiating human induced-pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs) into smooth-muscle cells (SMCs) can be inefficient and generally fail to yield cells with a specific SMC phenotype (i.e., contractile or synthetic SMCs). Here, we present two novel hiPSC-SMC differentiation protocols that yield SMCs with predominantly contractile or synthetic phenotypes. Flow cytometry anal...