We investigated the regulation of the sphingosine kinase (SphK)/sphingosine-1-phosphate (S1P) axis and its role during pregnancy in the rat myometrium. SphK1 and SphK2 were coexpressed in myometrium during gestation. The levels and activity of SphK1/2 were modest at midgestation (d 12), increased at d 19 and progressively declined to low at postpartum. Similar patterns were observed for the pho...

OBJECTIVE To evaluate the effect of a single nucleotide polymorphism (rs2910164) in the miR-146a precursor on the expression level of miR-146a, cyclooxygenase-2 (COX2), and production of prostaglandin E2 (PGE2) in lung tissue harvested from smokers with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, as well as the lung function and disease stages from the same patient population. METHODS AND RESULTS ...

Kawasaki disease is an acute illness of early childhood that is characterized by prolonged fever and vasculitis of unknown pathogenesis. Lactobacillus casei cell wall extract (LCWE)-induced vasculitis in mice is a well-validated model of Kawasaki disease. In the nervous system, glial cells play an important role in fever development. This study investigated whether LCWE directly stimulates glia...

AIM to evaluate the expression of NF-kB and COX2 in native Indonesians with sporadic colorectal cancer (CRC). METHODS we conducted a matched-pair case-control study by acquiring both CRC and tumor-adjacent normal tissues from the same subjects. CRC patients who underwent surgery at Cipto Mangunkusumo Hospital, Jakarta, or Hasan Sadikin Hospital, Bandung, were enrolled in the study. The specim...

DNA barcoding has been a major advancement in the field of taxonomy, seeing much effort put into the barcoding of wide taxa of organisms, macro and microalgae included. The mitochondrial-encoded cox1 and plastid-encoded rbcL has been proposed as potential DNA barcodes for rhodophytes, but are yet to be tested on the commercially important carrageenophytes Kappaphycus and Eucheuma. This study ga...

55 Respiration, the core of mitochondrial metabolism, depends on the function of 56 five respiratory complexes. Many respiratory chain related proteins are 57 encoded by the mitochondrial genome and their RNAs undergo 58 post-transcriptional modifications by nuclear genome expressed factors, 59 including pentatricopeptide repeat (PPR) proteins. Maize defective kernel 10 60 (dek10) is a classic ...

Mast-cell products can stimulate fibroblast proliferation, implying that these cells are key players in fibrosis. One mast-cell product, the serine protease tryptase, is known to activate protease-activated receptor 2 (PAR2) and cause proliferation of fibroblasts. We found that recombinant tryptase, human mast-cell (HMC-1) supernatant, which contains tryptase, and the PAR2-activating peptide SL...