The Smurf Assay (SA) was initially developed in the model organism Drosophila melanogaster where a dramatic increase of intestinal permeability has been shown to occur during aging (Rera et al., 2011). We have since validated the protocol in multiple other model organisms (Dambroise et al., 2016) and have utilized the assay to further our understanding of aging (Tricoire and Rera, 2015; Rera et...

Introduction: The current study investigated the combination of high Z atoms (iodine-, platinium-based drugs) with using low energy irradiation (120kvp) in Anaplastic Thyroid cancer cells.Materials and Methods: For this purpose, eight groups were designed: control (CNT), different concentrations of Iodine contrast media (ICM),  irradiation with various doses, Cis-platin (CDDP) with different c...

The more hydrophobic, rough-colony-forming, streptomycin-resistant Streptococcus mutans parent strains GW Smr and LK Smr and the less hydrophobic, smooth-colony-forming, streptomycin-resistant variant strains GW36 Smr and LK36 Smr were implanted in oral cavities. Strains GW Smr and LK Smr implanted significantly better than strains GW36 Smr and LK36 Smr. The hydrophobicity of and the colony mor...

We assessed the effect of interleukin-9 (IL-9) on clonogenic maturation and cell-cycle status of hematopoietic progenitors of fetal (umbilical cord blood) and adult (bone marrow) origin. As a single agent IL-9 supported, in a concentration-dependent fashion, maturation of burst-forming units-erythroid (BFU-E) of adult and fetal origin. However, only 1/3 the number of adult BFU-E colonies develo...

We have previously reported that inhibition ofhuman CFU-erythroid (E) colony formation by tumor necrosis factor (TNF) is an indirect effect mediated by a soluble factor released from a fraction of marrow accessory cells which are predominantly stromal elements (Means, R. T., Jr., E. N. Dessypris, and S. B. Krantz. 1990. J. Clin. Invest. 86:538-541). Further studies reported here identify a medi...

This study investigated the influence of expression of proteins of the INK4 family, particularly p16, on the growth and self-renewal kinetics of hematopoietic cells. First, retrovirus-mediated gene transfer (RMGT) was used to restore p16(INK4a) expression in the p16(INK4a)-deficient lymphoid and myeloid cell lines BV173 and K562, and it was confirmed that this inhibited their growth. Second, to...

Activation of the RhoA/ROCK signaling pathway has been shown to contribute to dissociation-induced apoptosis of embryonic and neural stem cells. We previously demonstrated that approximately 1 out of 40 Lin(-)Sca-1(+)CD49f(high) (LSC) prostate basal epithelial cells possess the capacities of stem cells for self-renewal and multi-lineage differentiation. We show here that treating LSC cells with...

To examine the potential use of adenovirus vectors in cancer gene therapy as a mechanism for purging bone marrow cells of possible breast cancer contaminants, we compared the infection efficiency of adenovirus and the transfection efficiency of plasmid DNA in the presence of adenovirus in human breast cancer and bone marrow cells. Following infection of breast cancer cells with an adenovirus ex...