Ku, a heterodimer of 70- and 80-kDa subunits, plays a general role in the metabolism of DNA ends in eukaryotic cells, including double-strand DNA break repair, V(D)J recombination, and maintenance of telomeres. We have utilized the yeast two-hybrid system to identify Ku70-interacting proteins other than Ku80. Two reactive clones were found to encode the dimerization domain of TRF2, a mammalian ...

Immunoglobulin (Ig) heavy chain (HC) class switch recombination (CSR) is a late B cell process that involves intrachromosomal DNA rearrangement. Ku70 and Ku80 form a DNA end-binding complex required for DNA double strand break repair and V(D)J recombination. Ku70(-/-) (K70T) mice, like recombination activating gene (RAG)-1- or RAG-2-deficient (R1T or R2T) mice, have impaired B and T cell develo...

The natural product justicidin A, an arylnaphthalide lignan isolated from Justicia procumbens, significantly inhibited the growth of human colorectal cancer cells HT-29 and HCT 116 at day 6 post-treatment. Further study revealed that justicidin A-treated HT-29 and HCT 116 colorectal cancer cells died of apoptosis. Justicidin A treatment caused DNA fragmentation and an increase in phosphatidylse...

Steroidogenic factor 1 (SF-1 or NR5A1) is a nuclear receptor that controls adrenogenital cell growth and differentiation. Adrenogenital primordial cells from SF-1 knockout mice die of apoptosis, but the mechanism by which SF-1 regulates cell survival is not entirely clear. Besides functioning in the nucleus, SF-1 also resides in the centrosome and controls centrosome homeostasis. Here, we show ...

Figure S1. Flag-tagged Plk1 or Ku70 were transfected in HeLa cells. Whole cell lysates were immunoprecipitated with flag antibody followed by immunoblotting against indicated proteins.

The far-upstream element-binding protein-interacting repressor (FIR) is a c-myc transcriptional suppressor. FIR is alternatively spliced to lack the transcriptional repression domain within exon 2 (FIRΔexon2) in colorectal cancers. FIR and FIRΔexon2 form homo- or heterodimers that complex with SAP155. SAP155, a subunit of the essential splicing factor 3b subcomplex in the spliceosome, is requir...

Somatostatin is a peptide hormone that exerts antisecretory and antiproliferative activities on some human tumors. The Ku70/86 heterodimer acts as regulatory subunit of the DNA dependent protein kinase and its DNA binding activity mediates DNA double strands breaks repair that is crucial to maintain the genetic integrity of the genome. The activation of the heterodimer regulates cell cycle prog...