Gallbladder mucins play a critical role in the pathogenesis of cholesterol gallstones because of their ability to bind biliary lipids and accelerate cholesterol crystallization. Mucin secretion and accumulation in the gallbladder is determined by multiple mucin genes. To study whether mucin gene 1 (Muc1) influences susceptibility to cholesterol cholelithiasis, we investigated male Muc1-deficien...

background and purpose: skin cancer is one of the most common types of cancer. several studies suggest a high incidence of skin cancer in most countries. timp-2 is the tissue inhibitor of matrix metalloproteinase and exist in both cancer and normal cells. the aim of this study was to investigate the expression of timp-2 gene in patients with skin cancer and evaluating the association between th...

background: niche cells, regulating spermatogonial stem cells (sscs) fate are believed to have a reciprocal communication with sscs. the present study was conducted to evaluate the effect of ssc elimination on the gene expression of glial cell line-derived neurotrophic factor (gdnf), fibroblast growth factor 2 (fgf2) and kit ligand (kitlg), which are the main growth factors regulating sscs deve...

background: peroxisome proliferator activated receptor gamma (pparγ), a member of nuclear receptor superfamily, comprises two isoforms in mouse. these two isoforms are encoded by different mrnas, which are arisen by alternative promoter usage. there are two promoter regions upstream of pparγ gene. a 3 kb fragment, containing several transcription factor binding sites, acts as pparγ1 promoter re...

calorie restriction through ingesting no or minimal amounts of food and caloric beverages for periods of time is called fasting. fasting can affect body through changing in physical and metabolic adaptations, as well as mineral and hormonal status. however, psychological effects and sometimes medical complications are likely in case of inappropriate fasting. fasting is associated with changes i...

background: vast variety of intermediate factors including cell cycle regulators, growth factors, transcription factors, and signaling pathways are involved in hematopoietic stem cell (hsc) commitment and differentiation into distinct lineages. vhl, ecad, and runx3 are among these. epigenetics is currently introduced as a potential mechanism to control the gene regulation. the aim of this study...

background:class ii transactivator (ciita) is a dominanttranscriptional element, controlling numerous genes in theimmune system. ciita is expressed in a constitutive pattern inantigen presenting cells although its expression can occur inother cell types. since the revelation of ciita, there have beenconsiderable advances toward understanding its role as anactivator of mhc ii genes in humans and...

lentinan a polysaccharide from medicinal mushroom i.e lentinus, has been known to have anticancer properties. telomerase activity is not observed in normal healthy cells, whereas in cancerous cells telomerase expression is high. telomerase represents a promising cancer therapeutic target. we investigated the inhibitory effect of lentinan on telomerase reverse transcriptase gene (htert) which is...

The original hygiene hypothesis suggests that early childhood respiratory infections preceding allergen exposure may decrease the prevalence of allergic diseases. We have recently demonstrated that Mycoplasma pneumoniae infection preceding allergen exposure reduced allergic responses in mice. However, the molecular mechanisms underlying the protective role of M. pneumoniae in allergic responses...

BACKGROUND The intestinal epithelium is covered by a continuous layer of mucus which is secreted by well differentiated epithelial cells. Disregulation of the expression of mucins has been reported to have possible implications in the neoplastic process which affects intestinal mucosae. It is well known that preneoplastic and neoplastic tissues can express fetal phenotypic characteristics. AI...