Mesenchymal stromal cells (MSCs) are a major component of the leukemia bone marrow (BM) microenvironment. Connective tissue growth factor (CTGF) is highly expressed in MSCs, but its role in the BM stroma is unknown. Therefore, we knocked down (KD) CTGF expression in human BM-derived MSCs by CTGF short hairpin RNA. CTGF KD MSCs exhibited fivefold lower proliferation compared with control MSCs an...

BACKGROUND Connective tissue growth factor (CTGF; also known as CCN2) is an inflammatory mediator, and shows elevated levels in regions of severe injury and inflammatory diseases. CTGF is abundantly expressed in osteoarthritis (OA). However, the relationship between CTGF and IL-6 in OA synovial fibroblasts (OASFs) is mostly unknown. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS OASFs showed significant expr...

The effects of connective tissue growth factor (CTGF) gene silencing on the radiosensitivity of glioblastoma cells (GBM) were investigated. The lentivirus-mediated short hairpin RNA (shRNA) expression vector targeting CTGF was constructed and transinfected into U87MG human GBM cell line. The CTGF gene expression in U87MG cells was significantly down-regulated. After irradiation with 6 MV X-rays...

OBJECTIVE Excretion of growth factors in the urine has been implicated in the pathogenesis of tubulointerstitial disease that characterizes proteinuric renal disease. In this cross-sectional study, we sought to examine the urinary excretion of the profibrotic cytokine connective tissue growth factor (CTGF) in type 1 diabetic patients with incipient and overt diabetic nephropathy. RESEARCH DES...

BACKGROUND/AIM Connective tissue growth factor (CTGF) stimulates extracellular matrix formation, fibrosis, and angiogenesis. It has a role in the pathogenesis of diabetic nephropathy and possibly in diabetic retinopathy (DR): in cultured retinal vascular cells CTGF is induced by VEGF-A. To further characterise this role the authors investigated CTGF expression in normal and diabetic human retin...

Pentoxifylline (PTX) is a potent inhibitor of connective tissue growth factor (CTGF), but its underlying mechanism is poorly understood. Here, it was demonstrated that PTX inhibited not only TGF-beta1-induced CTGF expression but also CTGF-induced collagen I (alpha1) [Col I (alpha1)] expression in normal rat kidney fibroblasts (NRK-49F) and alpha-smooth muscle actin expression in normal rat kidn...

Thrombin plays an important role in lung inflammatory diseases. Thrombin can induce connective tissue growth factor (CTGF) expression in lung fibroblasts. However, little is known about the signaling pathway in thrombin-induced CTGF expression. In this study, we investigated the role of apoptosis signal-regulating kinase 1 (ASK1) in thrombin-induced CTGF expression in human lung fibroblasts. Th...

Peritoneal fibrosis (PF) is an important complication of peritoneal dialysis (PD) therapy that often occurs in association with peritoneal high transport rate and ultrafiltration failure (UFF). To study the possible pathogenic role of connective tissue growth factor (CTGF) in the relationship of PF and UFF, dialysate CTGF contents (n = 178) and tissue CTGF expression (n = 61) were investigated ...

Endothelin-1 (ET-1) is a potent vaso and bronchoconstrictor. We have previously shown that in the presence of ET-1 bronchial epithelial cells migrate more slowly. Connective tissue growth factor (CTGF) is a cysteine rich secreted protein and regulates fibrosis. In addition, we have previously shown that CTGF is expressed in airway epithelial cells under the conditions of stress starvation. The ...

BACKGROUND CCN family, comprising six members (Cyr61, CTGF, Nov, WISP-1, WISP-2, WISP-3), is involved in the stimulation of cell proliferation, migration, adhesion, angiogenesis, and tumorigenesis. Several studies have shown that expression of Cyr61, CTGF, and WISP-1 affects the tumorigenic potential of lung cancer cells in vitro. However, the correlation of expression of CCN family proteins an...