The orphan nuclear receptor LRH-1 (liver receptor homologue-1; NR5A2) plays a critical role in development, bile acid synthesis and cholesterol metabolism. LRH-1 is also expressed in the ovary where it is implicated in the regulation of steroidogenic genes for steroid hormone synthesis. In the present study, we investigated the molecular mechanisms of the transcriptional regulation of CYP11A1 b...

The prospects for using fiber optical parametric amplifiers (OPAs) in optical communication systems are reviewed. Phase-insensitive amplifiers (PIAs) and phase-sensitive amplifiers (PSAs) are considered. Low-penalty amplification at/or near 1 Tb/s has been achieved, for both wavelength- and time-division multiplexed formats. High-quality mid-span spectral inversion has been demonstrated at 0.64...

Smad proteins mediate transforming growth factor beta (TGF-beta)-inducible transcriptional responses. Protein inhibitor of activated signal transducer and activator of transcription (PIAS) represents a family of proteins that inhibits signal transducer and activator of transcription and also regulates other transcriptional responses. In an effort to identify Smad-interacting proteins by a yeast...

Through a genetic screen using myosin-like protein strains mlp1Delta mlp2Delta and biochemical purification, we identified a complex of eight proteins, each required for growth and DNA repair in Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Among the subunits are Mms21 that contains a putative Siz/PIAS (protein inhibitor of activated signal transducer and activator of transcription) RING domain characteristic of s...

Mutations affecting the transcription factor FOXP2 cause a rare form of severe speech and language disorder. Although it is clear that sufficient FOXP2 expression is crucial for normal brain development, little is known about how this transcription factor is regulated. To investigate post-translational mechanisms for FOXP2 regulation, we searched for protein interaction partners of FOXP2, and i...

Smad proteins play pivotal roles in mediating the transforming growth factor beta (TGF-beta) transcriptional responses. We show in this report that PIAS3, a member of the protein inhibitor of activated STAT (PIAS) family, activates TGF-beta/Smad transcriptional responses. PIAS3 interacts with Smad proteins, most strongly with Smad3. PIAS3 and Smad3 interact with each other at the endogenous pro...

Cytokines use complex signaling cascades to elicit their biological effects, many of which involve phosphorylation as a mechanism of activation. Rapid and efficient attenuation of cytokine signals is crucial to maintaining regulation of these processes and to preventing toxic side effects. Phosphatases have been shown to be involved in these regulatory processes, but more recent research has se...

Members of the PIAS (for protein inhibitor of activated STAT) family play critical roles in modulating the activity of a variety of transcriptional regulators. Zimp10, a novel PIAS-like protein, is a transcriptional coregulator and may be involved in the modification of chromatin through interactions with the SWI/SNF chromatin-remodeling complexes. Here, we investigate the biological role of Zi...

Activating NOTCH1mutations are found in 50% to 60% of human T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (T-ALL) samples. In mouse models, these mutations generally fail to induce leukemia. This observation suggests that NOTCH1 activation must collaborate with other genetic events. Mutagenesis screens previously implicated ZMIZ1 as a possible NOTCH1 collaborator in leukemia. ZMIZ1 is a transcriptional c...