Facilitative urea transporters in the mammalian kidney play a vital role in the urinary concentrating mechanism. The urea transporters located in the renal inner medullary collecting duct, namely UT-A1 and UT-A3, are acutely regulated by the antidiuretic hormone vasopressin. In this study, we investigated the vasopressin regulation of the basolateral urea transporter UT-A3 using an MDCK-mUT-A3 ...

AIM To assess cancer-testis antigens (CTAs) expression in gastric cancer patients and examined their associations with clinicopathological factors. METHODS Eighty-three gastric cancer patients were evaluated in this study. Gastric cancer specimens were evaluated for the gene expression of CTAs, Kitakyushu lung cancer antigen-1 (KK-LC-1), melanoma antigen (MAGE)-A1, MAGE-A3 and New York esopha...

Adenosine accumulates to high levels in inflamed or ischemic tissues and activates A3 adenosine receptors (ARs) on mast cells to trigger degranulation. Here we show that stimulation of rat basophilic leukemia (RBL)-2H3 mast-like cells with the A3 AR agonists N6-(3-iodo)benzyl-5'-N-methylcarboxamidodoadenosine (IB-MECA; 10 nM) or inosine (10 microM) stimulates phosphorylation of protein kinase B...

BACKGROUND CHRNA5-A3-B4, the gene cluster encoding nicotinic acetylcholine receptor subunits, is associated with lung cancer risk and smoking behaviors in people of European descent. Because cigarette smoking is also a major risk factor for esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC), we investigated the associations between variants in CHRNA5-A3-B4 and ESCC risk, as well as smoking behaviors, in...

Factor VIII (fVIII) circulates as a heavy chain/light chain (A1-A2-B/ap-A3-C1-C2) heterodimer. The 41-residue light chain activation peptide, ap, is cleaved from fVIII during proteolytic activation by thrombin or factor Xa. We constructed 7 active recombinant hybrid B-domainless human/porcine fVIII molecules that contained combinations of porcine sequence replacements within the A2, ap-A3, and ...

The competitive antagonist a-conotoxin-MII (a-CTx-MII) is highly selective for the a3b2 neuronal nicotinic receptor. Other receptor subunit combinations (a2b2, a4b2, a3b4) are .200fold less sensitive to blockade by this toxin. Using chimeric and mutant subunits, we identified amino acid residues of a3 and b2 that participate in determination of a-CTx-MII sensitivity. Chimeric a subunits, constr...

The development of a low temperature kinetic method for the flash photolysis of the compounds of membrane-bound cytochrome a3 with carbon monoxide in the presence of oxygen affords evidence for three categories of functional intermediate compounds of cytochrome a3 and oxygen. The three classes are identified as follows: Compounds of Type A are considered to be "oxy" compounds of the ferrous hem...

Calystegines were isolated from the root cultures of Physalis divaricata, P. pubescens, P. philadelphia,and P. philadelphia (solanaceae). Calystegines of P. divaricata were identified as calystegine A3, A5, B1 and B2, with concentrations of 6.99, 4.41, 8.52, and 14.7 ?g/g in fresh mass, respectively. Root cultures of P.pubescens contain calystegine A3, B1 and B2, P. philadelphia only contains ...

High-risk human papillomavirus (HR-HPV) infections cause approximately 5% of all human cancers worldwide. These include almost all cervical carcinomas, a leading global cause of cancer deaths, as well as a significant percentage of other anogenital tract cancers and a growing fraction of oropharyngeal carcinomas. To accommodate their life cycles, HR-HPVs need to extensively rewire infected cell...

Annexins are a family of intracellular proteins that bind membrane phospholipids in a Ca2+ concentration-dependent manner and are involved in cellular processes, including apoptosis, proliferation and differentiation. Hypoxia-inducible factor-1α (HIF-1α) has been hypothesized to be critical in the angiogenesis of tumors. We hypothesized that Annexin A3, a member of the Annexin family, and HIF-1...