We selected different concentrations of ethephon, to stress C. roseus. We used qRT-PCR and HPLC followed by PCA to obtain comprehensive profiling of the vinblastine biosynthesis in response to ethephon. Based on our findings, the results showed that the high concentration of ethephon had a positive effect at both transcriptional and metabolite level. Meanwhile, there was a remarkable decrease o...

Brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) and its receptors are nec essary for the survival and development of many neuronal cells. Because BDNF and TrkB are expressed in many poor-prognosis neuroblastoma (NB) tumors, we evaluated the role of BDNF in affecting sensitivity to chemotherapeutic agents. We investigated the effects of activation of the BDNF-TrkB signal transduction pathway in two NB ...

Starting with an established line of human leukemic lympho blasts (CCRF-CEM), we have developed sublines with varying degrees of resistance to vinblastine by growth in the presence of sublethal concentrations of drug. The resistance of these sublines to vinblastine mangesfrom 10.6-fold to more than 2000-fold when compared with the sensitive parent cells. These vinblastine-resistant cells tend t...

The specificity of Ca2+ signals is conferred in part by limiting changes in cytosolic Ca2+ to subcellular domains. Mitochondria play a major role in regulating Ca2+ in neurons and may participate in its spatial localization. We examined the effects of changes in the distribution of mitochondria on NMDA-induced Ca2+ increases. Hippocampal cultures were treated with the microtubule-destabilizing ...

Discovering chemosensitivity pathways or nodes is an attractive strategy for formulating new drug combinations for cancer. Microtubules are among the most successful anticancer drug targets. Therefore, we implemented a small interfering RNA (siRNA) synthetic lethal screen targeting 5520 unique druggable genes to identify novel chemosensitivity nodes for vinblastine, a microtubule-destabilizing ...

The effects of the two antitumor drugs vinblastine and 5fluorouracil on the growth of the human tumor cell lines U-118 MG (glioma) and HTh-7 (thyroid cancer) were analyzed. The cells were cultured both as monolayers and as multicellular spheroids and exposed to vinblastine (0.1,1.0, or 10 t¿g/m\) or 5-fluorouracil (10, 100, or 1000 u.g/m\) for 15 min, 2 hr, or 24 hr. The drugs induced growth d...

The effects of the two antitumor drugs vinblastine and 5-fluorouracil on the growth of the human tumor cell lines U-118 MG (glioma) and HTh-7 (thyroid cancer) were analyzed. The cells were cultured both as monolayers and as multicellular spheroids and exposed to vinblastine (0.1, 1.0, or 10 micrograms/ml) or 5-fluorouracil (10, 100, or 1000 micrograms/ml) for 15 min, 2 hr, or 24 hr. The drugs i...