Atherosclerosis is an inflammatory disease that involves the interplay between endothelial cells, smooth muscle cells (SMCs), and immune cells.1,2 Various atherogenic stimuli lead to endothelial damage, which in turn triggers the adhesion and extravasation of circulating monocytes and lymphocytes into the artery wall. Resident immune cells produce a plethora of inflammatory mediators that exace...

Background—Metformin, one of most commonly used antidiabetes drugs, is reported to exert its therapeutic effects by activating AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK); however, the mechanism by which metformin activates AMPK is poorly defined. The objective of the present study was to determine how metformin activates AMPK in endothelial cells. Methods and Results—Exposure of human umbilical vein e...

Expression of several actin-binding proteins including profilin-1 is up-regulated during capillary morphogenesis of endothelial cells, the biological significance of which remains unknown. Specifically, we hypothesized that profilin-1 is important for endothelial migration and proliferation. In this study, we suppressed profilin-1 expression in human umbilical vein endothelial cells by RNA-inte...

Malignant tumor progression depends on angiogenesis, requiring vascular endothelial cell migration, and proliferation, triggered by tumor-derived vascular endothelial cell growth factor (VEGF). We show that gangliosides, which are actively shed by tumor cells and bind to normal cells in the tumor microenvironment, have the potential to sensitize vascular endothelial cells to respond to subthres...

BACKGROUND Metformin is the first line of oral antidiabetic drug in the biguanide class for treatment of type 2 diabetes. Increasing evidence has suggested that it is a potential anti-tumor drug. However, the mechanisms underlying inhibiting tumor development remain elusive, especially in bladder tumors. METHODS T24 and J82 cell lines were used as an in vitro model, and 24 female SD rats were...

Vasculogenic mimicry (VM) is the release of angiogenic factors from tumor cells, leading to morphological changes, migration and proliferation vascular endothelial ultimately neovascularization. The presence VM has been identified in breast cancer, formation also gives cancer a poor prognosis such as drug resistance metastasis. authors focus on role PI3K/Akt signaling pathway, hypoxia-inducible...

kcnk2 was previously shown to regulate immune-cell trafficking into the central nervous system (cns). kcnk2-/- mice demonstrated a more severe disease course in experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis, an animal model of multiple sclerosis, due to an increased immune-cell migration into the cns. an upregulation of the cellular adhesion molecules icam1 and vcam1 on brain endothelial cells in k...

This study investigated the effect of metformin on chemosensitivity of hepatocarcinoma cells to cisplatin and the possible mechanism. HepG2 and Huh-7 hepatoma cells were treated with cisplatin at concentrations of 0, 2, 4, 6, 8 and 10 µM for 48 h. Proliferation of HepG2 and Huh-7 hepatoma cells were detected by MTT assay. Apoptosis of hepatocellular carcinoma cells was detected by flow cytometr...

BACKGROUND The leading cause of death for patients suffering from diabetes is macrovascular disease. Endothelial dysfunction is often observed in type 2 diabetic patients and it is considered to be an important early event in the pathogenesis of atherogenesis and cardiovascular disease. Many drugs are clinically applied to treat diabetic patients. However, little is known whether these agents d...

objective(s): in order to grow cells in a three-dimensional (3d) microenvironment, self-assembling peptides, such as puramatrix, have emerged with potential to mimic the extracellular matrix. the aim of the present study was to investigate the influence of the self-assembling peptide on the morphology, survival, proliferation rate, migration potential, and differentiation of human meningioma st...