Rabdosia serra has been widely used for the treatment of the various human diseases. However, the antiproliferative effects and underlying mechanisms of the compounds in this herb remain largely unknown. In this study, an antiproliferative compound against human nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) cells from Rabdosia serra was purified and identified as lasiodin (a diterpenoid). The treatment with l...

Apaf-1 coassembles with cytochrome c to form the apoptosome, which then binds and activates procaspase-9 (pc-9). We removed pc-9 catalytic domains from the holoapoptosome by site-directed thrombinolysis. A structure of the resulting apoptosome-pc-9 CARD complex was then determined at approximately 9.5 A resolution. In our model, the central hub is constructed like other AAA+ protein rings but a...

In this report, we describe the cloning and characterization of Boo, a novel anti-apoptotic member of the Bcl-2 family. The expression of Boo was highly restricted to the ovary and epididymis implicating it in the control of ovarian atresia and sperm maturation. Boo contains the conserved BH1 and BH2 domains, but lacks the BH3 motif. Like Bcl-2, Boo possesses a hydrophobic C-terminus and locali...

BACKGROUND Owing to their important function in regulating cell death, pharmacological inhibition of Bcl-2 proteins by dubbed BH3-mimetics is a promising strategy for apoptosis induction or sensitization to chemotherapy. However, the role of Apaf-1, the main protein constituent of the apoptosome, in the process has yet not been analyzed. Furthermore as new chemotherapeutics develop, the possibl...

objective(s):micrornas (mirnas) are a class of short rnas that control the biological processes including cell proliferation, apoptosis and development. aberrant expression of mirnas was determined in the different stages of tumor development and metastasis. to study the effect of silibinin on mirnas expression, we evaluated quantitative expression of mir-21 and mir-155 as two oncomirs and seve...

Resveratrol (trans-3,4,5-trihydroxystilbene) has received attention for its potential chemopreventive and antitumor effects in experimental systems. Recent evidence suggests that paclitaxel, alone or in combination with other drugs, can be effectively used in the treatment of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (NHL) and multiple myeloma (MM). This study investigated whether resveratrol can sensitize NHL an...