Abstract Background Chronic hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection has been linked to cardiovascular disease (CVD). However, CVD risk prediction in chronic HCV-infected patients is problematic as the prevalence of different cardiac biomarkers these currently unknown. Serum lipids, which are routinely used traditional scores, may underestimate patients, while non-hepatically produced biomarkers, incl...

Eight naturally occurring marine-sponge derived sesquiterpenoid quinones were evaluated as potential inhibitors of pyruvate phosphate dikinase (PPDK), a C4 plant regulatory enzyme. Of these, the hydroxyquinones ilimaquinone, ethylsmenoquinone and smenoquinone inhibited PPDK activity with IC50's (reported with 95% confidence intervals) of 285.4 (256.4-317.7), 316.2 (279.2-358.1) and 556.0 (505.9...

Terry, Christi M., Jennifer A. Clikeman, John R. Hoidal, and Karleen S. Callahan. TNF-a and IL-1a induce heme oxygenase-1 via protein kinase C, Ca21, and phospholipase A2 in endothelial cells. Am. J. Physiol. 276 (Heart Circ. Physiol. 45): H1493–H1501, 1999.—Heme oxygenase-1 (HO-1), an enzyme important in protection against oxidant stress, is induced in human vascular endothelial cells by the c...

The aim of this study was to establish the effect of bacterial endotoxin lipopolysaccharide (LPS) on the release of Type II phospholipase-A2 (PLA2) and prostaglandin E2 (PGE2) from late-pregnant human placental tissue incubated in vitro. Under basal conditions, immunoreactive Type II PLA2 and PGE2 were released from tissue explants in a time-dependent manner (up to 24 h, ANOVA, P<0. 0001, n=6)....

Studies indicate that elevated plasma concentrations of lipoprotein-associated phospholipase A2 (Lp-PLA2) is associated with increased risk of cardiovascular disease. Lp-PLA2 seems to play a crucial role in the formation of plaques and acute inflammation, and plasma Lp-PLA2 could therefore potentially be used as a predictor of long-term outcome in ACS patients. To evaluate this, data concerning...

To investigate the effect of type II phospholipase A2 (PLA2-II) on neutrophil function, we assessed the Mac-1 (CD11b/CD18) expression on human neutrophils by flow cytometry after incubation of the cells with human PLA2-II. PLA2-II at a concentration of 10 microg/mL increased the Mac-1 expression by 150% compared with unstimulated cells at 30 min and after. Under these conditions PLA2-II increas...

The production of arachidonic acid (AA), which is involved in mitogenic signalling by epidermal growth factor (EGF), is most directly accomplished by the action of phospholipase A2 (PLA2). We demonstrate that EGF treatment of intact NEF cells rapidly activates a cytosolic PLA2, as measured in cell-free extracts by the release of radiolabelled AA from exogenously added 1-stearoyl-2-[1-14C]arachi...

Phorbol 12-myristate 13-acetate (PMA)-mediated signalling was investigated in relation to the ability of murine (CBA) bone marrow cells to form colonies in vitro. Treatment of marrow cells with PMA did not influence the 1,2-diacylglycerol or cyclic AMP concentrations, the intracellular Ca2+ concentration or phospholipase D activity. PMA increased particulate phospholipase A2 (PLA2) activity, ly...

Only in recent years have phospholipase A2 enzymes (PLA2s) emerged as cancer targets. In this work, we report the first detection of elevated PLA2 activities in plasma from patients with colorectal, lung, pancreatic, and bladder cancers as compared to healthy controls. Independent sets of clinical plasma samples were obtained from two different sites. The first set was from patients with colore...