Non-steroidal anti-inflamatories (NSAIDs) are widely used in the treatment of post-surgery pain1, osteoarthritis2, rheumatoid arthritis3 and muscle-skeletal pain4,5, in different conditions. Major effects are: anti-inflammatory, analgesic, and antipyretic6. Generally speaking, such effects are associated to the inhibition of the enzyme cyclooxygenase (COX). COX catalyzes the transformation of a...

Professor John Vane won the Nobel Prize for elucidating the mechanism of action of aspirin. He reported that this was accomplished by blocking the enzyme called cyclooxygenase (COX-1) that was responsible for the conversion of arachidonic acid to prostaglandins. Prostaglandins liberated from arachidonic acid by cyclooxygenase are short-lived substances that act as local hormones (autocoids) imp...

AIM To develop an in vitro intact cell-based assay for screening selective cyclooxygenase inhibitors. METHODS Human cyclooxygenase-1 (hCOX-1) and cyclooxygenase-2 (hCOX-2) genes were cloned from human monocyte cell line THP-1 cells and expressed in Spodoptera frugiperda (sf9) insect cell line by Bac-to-Bac baculovirus expression systems. Infected sf9 cells were harvested 24 h post-infection (...

The effect of endogenous glucocorticoids on the expression of the cyclooxygenase enzyme was studied by contrasting cyclooxygenase expression and prostanoid synthesis in adrenalectomized and sham-adrenalectomized mice with or without the concurrent administration of endotoxin. Peritoneal macrophages obtained from adrenalectomized mice showed a 2- to 3-fold induction in cyclooxygenase synthesis a...

Wnt-1 acts as a mammary oncogene when ectopically expressed in the mouse mammary gland. APC is a tumor suppressor gene, mutations in which cause intestinal tumorigenesis in humans and rodents. Both Wnt-1 expression and APC mutation activate a common signaling pathway involving transcriptional activation mediated by beta-catenin/Tcf complexes, but few targets relevant to carcinogenesis have yet ...