BACKGROUND Cell penetrating peptides (CPPs) as one class of non-viral vectors, have been widely explored as a delivery tool due to their cell-penetrating capability with low cytotoxicity. However, CPPs have reported to have low gene transfection efficiency mainly due to the fact that DNA is larger than other biomolecules. On the other hand, the conventional linear CPPs are unstable for construc...

BACKGROUND Wound healing of burned skin remains a major goal in public health. Previous reports showed that the bone marrow stem cells were potent in keratinization and vascularization of full thickness skin wounds. METHODS In this study, mesenchymal stem cells were derived from rat adipose tissues and characterized by flowcytometry. Staining methods were used to evaluate their differentiatio...

Chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) remains an incurable disease that requires innovative new approaches to improve therapeutic outcome. Many Ferula species, including F. asa-foetida, synthesize terpenyloxy coumarins. One of these coumarins is umbelliprenin, which has been implicated with induction of apoptosis in some cancer cell lines. In this study induction of apoptosis by umbelliprenin on J...

Purpose: The causes of colon cancer can be divided into genetic and environmental components. A high-fiber diet is known to reduce the risk of colon cancer. Dietary fiber is converted to short chain fatty acid, butyrate, in the colon by bacteria. Butyrate is used as an energy source for the colonic epithelial cells, and is known to induce apoptosis in colon cancer cell lines. Survivin, a recent...

Interleukin (IL)-17-producing T helper (Th)-17 cells have recently been explained as a distinct population of CD4+ T cells which play an important role in immunity against infectious agents. Establishment of persistent phenotype of Th17 cells and recognition of lineage-deviating factors are of most attractive goals in modern researches in immunology. Although IL-6 and TGF-β are frequently used ...

BACKGROUND Despite numerous studies over a decade, it still remains controversial about the biological effects of RF EMF emitted by mobile phone telephony. OBJECTIVE Here we investigated the effect of 900 MHz GSM on the induction of oxidative stress and the level of intracellular reactive oxygen species (ROS) in human mononuclear cells, monocytes and lymphocytes as defence system cells. MET...

We analyzed genetic changes in condylomas (four cases), vulvar intraepithelial neoplasia I-III (VIN I-III, eleven cases), and primary vulvar squamous cell carcinomas (VSCC, ten cases) by high-resolution comparative genomic hybridization (HR-CGH) and flowcytometry. All samples were also human papilloma virus (HPV)-genotyped. Gain of chromosome 1, the aberration most often seen in VIN III (67%), ...

Common variable immunodeficiency (CVID) is a heterogeneous primary immunodeficiency disease, leading to recurrent bacterial airway infections and often also autoimmune complications. To shed light on the regulatory lymphocytes from these patients, we analyzed the levels of regulatory B (pro-B10) cell and regulatory T (Treg) cell subpopulations in PBMCs from twenty-six patients diagnosed with CV...

OBJECTIVE To measure cytokine production in ex vivo stimulated leukocyte populations of women with normal pregnancy and those with preeclampsia. METHODS Whole blood from preeclamptic and normal pregnant women was stimulated with LPS or PMA/Ca-ionophore. The percentages of IFN gamma and IL-2, 4, and 10 producing lymphocytes and NK cells and the percentages of TNFalpha, IL-1 beta, and IL-12 pro...

Incubation of ex vivo cultured mature B cells in the presence of nitric oxide or nitric oxide-donor substances delays programmed cell death as determined by the appearance of DNA laddering in agarose gel electrophoresis or by flowcytometry analysis of DNA. Nitric oxide also rescues B cells from antigen-induced apoptosis but fails to provide a costimulatory signal that converts the signal elicit...