Numerous major bacterial pathogens in the human respiratory tract, including Streptococcus pneumoniae and Haemophilus influenzae, express cell-surface phosphorylcholine (ChoP), a ligand for the receptor for platelet-activating factor (rPAF). ChoP is also bound by C-reactive protein (CRP), which, in the presence of complement, may be bactericidal. This study found that CRP can block the attachme...

The safety and activity of obinutuzumab (GA101) plus chemotherapy in relapsed/refractory follicular lymphoma was explored in 56 patients. Participants received obinutuzumab plus cyclophosphamide, doxorubicin, vincristine, and prednisone (G-CHOP; every 3 weeks for 6 to 8 cycles) or obinutuzumab plus fludarabine and cyclophosphamide (G-FC; every 4 weeks for 4 to 6 cycles). Patients were randomly ...

Thoracic aortic aneurysm/dissection (TAAD) is characterized by excessive smooth muscle cell (SMC) loss, extracellular matrix (ECM) degradation and inflammation. In response to certain stimuli, endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress is activated and regulates apoptosis and inflammation. Excessive apoptosis promotes aortic inflammation and degeneration, leading to TAAD. Therefore, we studied the role ...

A Chinese hamster ovary cell line (CHOp) was cultured in the presence of benzyloxycarbonyl-Leu-Leu-Tyr diazomethyl ketone (ZLLY-CHN2), to select for resistance to this cell-permeant calpain inhibitor. A clone isolated after several courses of exposure (SHI cells) demonstrated decreased sensitivity to ZLLY-CHN2 toxicity and a decreased growth rate. SHI cells also possessed less mu-calpain isozym...

Since the adoption of rituximab, the importance of doxorubicin and vincristine as treatment components remains to be clarified in Waldenström's macroglobulinemia (WM). We therefore examined the outcomes of symptomatic patients with WM who received CHOP-R (cyclophosphamide/doxorubicin/vincristine/prednisone plus rituximab; n = 23), CVP-R (cyclophosphamide/vincristine/ prednisone plus rituximab; ...

TP53 mutation is an independent marker of poor prognosis in patients with diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL) treated with cyclophosphamide, hydroxydaunorubicin, vincristine, and prednisone (CHOP) therapy. However, its prognostic value in the rituximab immunochemotherapy era remains undefined. In the present study of a large cohort of DLBCL patients treated with rituximab plus CHOP (R-CHOP), ...

Endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress-induced apoptosis has been implicated in various neurodegenerative diseases including Parkinson Disease, Alzheimer Disease and Huntington Disease. PUMA (p53 upregulated modulator of apoptosis) and BIM (BCL2 interacting mediator of cell death), pro-apoptotic BH3 domain-only, BCL2 family members, have previously been shown to regulate ER stress-induced cell death...

Combined treatment with a proteasome inhibitor and tumor necrosis factor-related apoptosis-inducing ligand (TRAIL) is a promising strategy for cancer therapy. Proteasome inhibitors induce the expression of death receptor 5 (DR5), a receptor for TRAIL, and sensitize cancer cells to TRAIL-induced apoptosis; however, the molecular mechanism of DR5 up-regulation has not been elucidated. In this stu...

The specific 26S proteasome inhibitor bortezomib (BZ) potently induces autophagy, endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress and apoptosis in multiple myeloma (MM) cell lines (U266, IM-9 and RPMI8226). The macrolide antibiotics including concanamycin A, erythromycin (EM), clarithromycin (CAM) and azithromycin (AZM) all blocked autophagy flux, as assessed by intracellular accumulation of LC3B-II and p62....

A promoter element called the amino acid response element (AARE), which is essential for the induction of CHOP (a CCAAT/enhancer-binding protein-related gene) transcription by amino acid depletion, has been previously characterized. Conversely, the human asparagine synthetase (AS) promoter contains two cis-acting elements termed nutrient-sensing response elements (NSRE-1 and NSRE-2) that are re...