Nitric oxide is a chemical messenger implicated in neuronal damage associated with ischemia, neurodegenerative disease, and excitotoxicity. Excitotoxic injury leads to increased NO formation, as well as stimulation of the p38 mitogen-activated protein (MAP) kinase in neurons. In the present study, we determined if NO-induced cell death in neurons was dependent on p38 MAP kinase activity. Sodium...

p38 mitogen-activated protein (MAP) kinase activities were significantly increased in mouse hearts after chronic transverse aortic constriction, coincident with the onset of ventricular hypertrophy. Infection of cardiomyocytes with adenoviral vectors expressing upstream activators for the p38 kinases, activated mutants of MAP kinase kinase 3b(E) (MKK3bE) and MAP kinase kinase 6b(E) (MKK6bE), el...

Recent studies indicate that maximal IL-8 protein expression requires activation of NF-kappaB as well as activation of the MAP kinases ERK, JNK, and p38. However, the precise relationship between NF-kappaB transactivation and MAP kinase activation remains unclear. We examined the requirements of NF-kappaB, ERK, JNK, and p38 for TNF-alpha-induced transcription from the IL-8 promoter in a human b...

CD4(+) and CD8(+) T cells play specific roles during an immune response. Different molecular mechanisms could regulate the proliferation, death, and effector functions of these two subsets of T cells. The p38 mitogen-activated protein (MAP) kinase pathway is induced by cytokines and environmental stress and has been associated with cell death and cytokine expression. Here we report that activat...

Saponins, plant glycosides, have been reported to possess anti-cancer properties. Therefore the effect of corchorusin-D (COR-D), a compound isolated from Corchorus acutangulus, was studied in the chronic myelogenous leukemic cell line K562, using MTT assay, phase contrast and confocal microscopy, annexin V binding, cell cycle analysis and western blotting. COR-D inhibited cell growth in K562 ce...

Members of the MEF2 family of transcription factors bind as homo- and heterodimers to the MEF2 site found in the promoter regions of numerous muscle-specific, growth- or stress-induced genes. We showed previously that the transactivation activity of MEF2C is stimulated by p38 mitogen-activated protein (MAP) kinase. In this study, we examined the potential role of the p38 MAP kinase pathway in r...

CD14-expressing Chinese hamster ovary (CD14-CHO) cells, established by transfection of human CD14 DNA, acquired high responsiveness to lipopolysaccharide (LPS) through membrane-bound CD14 expression. LPS induced DNA synthesis and activated a series of mitogen-activated protein (MAP) kinases, extracellular signal-regulated kinase 1/2 (Erk1/2), p38, and c-Jun N-terminal kinase/stress-activated pr...

Modulation of gap junctional intercellular communication (GJIC) is a known cellular event associated with tumor promotion. The present study was undertaken to test the potential preventive effect of mushroom Phellinus linteus extract (PL) on the inhibition of GJIC, induced by hydrogen peroxide (H(2)O(2)), in WB-F344 rat liver epithelial cells (WB cells). Cells were pre-incubated with PL (5 and ...

PURPOSE To investigate the involvement of the p38 mitogen-activated protein (MAP) kinase and phosphatidylinositol-3 (PI-3) kinase-Akt signaling pathways after pathologic stimulation by N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) receptors of retinal neurons in vivo. METHODS NMDA (2-200 nmol), SB203580 (0.2-10 nmol, an inhibitor of p38 MAP kinase), LY294002 (6 nmol, an inhibitor of PI-3 kinase), or control so...