CTCF is an essential, ubiquitously expressed DNA-binding protein responsible for insulator function, nuclear architecture, and transcriptional control within vertebrates. The gene CTCF was proposed to have duplicated in early mammals, giving rise to a paralogue called "brother of regulator of imprinted sites" (BORIS or CTCFL) with DNA binding capabilities similar to CTCF, but testis-specific ex...

Obesity is a risk factor for breast cancer development. A recent hypothesis suggests that the adipokines, adiponectin and leptin, are involved in breast cancer development. This prompted us to investigate the role of adiponectin and leptin in mammary carcinogenesis. Adiponectin receptors (AdipoR1 and AdipoR2) and leptin receptor (Ob-Rt, representing all the isoforms of Ob-R) proteins were detec...

PURPOSE Inspired by the hypothesis that heterogeneity in the biology of breast cancers at the cellular level may account for cognitive dysfunction symptom variability in survivors, the current study explored relationships between host single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in 25 breast cancer-related candidate genes (AURKA, BAG1, BCL2, BIRC5, CCNB1, CD68, CENPA, CMC2, CTSL2, DIAPH3, ERBB2, ESR1...

BACKGROUND Lung cancer is a common cancer and the leading cause of cancer-related death worldwide. SIX3 is a human homologue of the highly conserved sine oculis gene family essential during embryonic development in vertebrates, and encodes a homeo-domain containing transcription factor. Little is known about the role of SIX3 in human tumorigenesis. This study is to assess the expression/functio...

The existing question whether ethylene is involved in the modulation of salt-induced cell death to mediate plant salt tolerance is important for understanding the salt tolerance mechanisms. Here, we employed Arabidopsis plants to study the possible role of ethylene in salt-induced growth inhibition and programmed cell death (PCD) profiles. The root length, DNA ladder and cell death indicated by...

Bcl-2-associated athanogene 1 (Bag-1) is a positive regulator of Bcl-2 which is an anti-apoptotic gene. Bag-1 was very slightly expressed in normal tissues, but often highly expressed in many tumor tissues, particularly in colon cancer, which can promote metastasis, poor prognosis and anti-apoptotic function of colon cancer. We prepared and evaluated magnetic gold nanoparticle/Bag-1 siRNA recom...

We investigated the ubiquitously expressed hsp70-associating protein Hap46, which is also called RAP46 and is homologous to BAG-1, for activities independent of hsp70 interactions. We observed in vitro binding to various DNA fragments but detected no apparent sequence specificity. Deletion of the amino-terminal decapeptide, which contains two clusters of three basic amino acids each, abolished ...

The metazoan protein BCL2-associated athanogene cochaperone 6 (Bag6) forms a hetero-trimeric complex with ubiquitin-like 4A (Ubl4A) and transmembrane domain recognition complex 35 (TRC35). This Bag6 complex is involved in tail-anchored protein targeting and various protein quality control pathways in the cytosol as well as regulating transcription and histone methylation in the nucleus. Here we...

Protein–protein interactions mediated through the C-terminal Bcl-2–associated athanogene (BAG) domain of BAG-1 are critical for cell survival and proliferation. Thioflavin S (NSC71948)—a mixture of compounds resulting from the methylation and sulfonation of primulin base—has been shown to dosedependently inhibit the interaction between BAG-1 and Hsc70 in vitro. In human breast cancer cell lines...