purpose: in order to express human granulocyte-macrophage colony stimulating factor (hgm-csf) under heat shock. materials and methods: two expression plasmids were constructed based on pbc(sk) plasmid. the expression cassettes in the two plasmids are equipped with a 75 base pair fragment, derived from the pl promoter of the bacteriophage lambda (λ). the plasmids also contain a temperature muta...

Airway epithelial cells provide an immediate response to bacterial pathogens by producing chemokines and cytokines that recruit polymorphonuclear leukocytes (PMNs) to the site of infection. This response is excessive in patients with cystic fibrosis (CF) who have bacterial contamination of their airways. We postulated that CF airway pathogens, in activating nuclear factor-kappaB-dependent gene ...

Previously we have shown that the zinc finger transcription factor Egr-1 is essential for and restricts differentiation of hematopoietic cells along the macrophage lineage, raising the possibility that Egr-1 actually plays a deterministic role in governing the development of hematopoietic precursor cells along the monocytic lineage. To test this hypothesis, we have taken advantage of interleuki...