In a differential gene expression profile, we showed previously that dynactin 1 (DCTN1), early growth response 3 (EGR3), acetyl-CoA transporter (ACATN), death receptor 5 (DR5), and cyclin C (CCNC) were prominently up- or downregulated in motor neurons of sporadic amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). In the present study, we examined the correlation between the expression levels of these genes a...

High-grade gliomas often possess an impaired blood-brain barrier (BBB), which allows delivery of large molecules to brain tumors. However, achieving optimal drug concentrations in brain tumors remains a significant hurdle for treating patients successfully. Thus, detailed investigations of drug activities in gliomas are needed. To investigate BBB penetration, pharmacodynamics, and tumor retenti...

Palindromic rheumatism is very rare in children. The familial occurrence of the disease has been only briefly reported previously. A family is described here in which the mother and her 3 children suffered from typical palindromic rheumatism, which ran a benign course. All 4 members were seronegative and the HLA types of the children were identical. The HLA genotype of the mother was HLA A2, Cw...

New therapeutic approaches aim to eradicate tumours by expression of tumouricidal proteins in the tumour stroma. One such anti-neoplastic protein is tumour necrosis factor-related apoptosis-inducing ligand (TRAIL) because it induces apoptosis in cancerous cells, but not in non-transformed cells. Stem cells can migrate to, survive and proliferate in tumours. We examined the suitability of bone m...

Target of rapamycin (TOR), a master sensor for growth factors and nutrition availability in eukaryotic species, is a specific target protein of rapamycin. Rapamycin inhibits TOR kinase activity viaFK506 binding protein 12 kDa (FKBP12) in all examined heterotrophic eukaryotic organisms. In Arabidopsis, several independent studies have shown that AtFKBP12 is non-functional under aerobic condition...

To investigate the genetics of susceptibility to early onset pauciarticular juvenile chronic arthritis (JCA), 158 unrelated ethnic British patients with a mean disease onset of 3.2 years, together with controls, were tested for HLA-A, B, C, and DR antigens. Additionally, 117 patients were also investigated for complement Bf and C4 markers. New observations included an increased frequency of the...

BACKGROUND Casticin is one of the main active components obtained from Fructus Viticis and has been reported to exert anti-carcinogenic activity on a variety of cancer cells but the precise mechanism underlying this activity remains unclear. MATERIALS AND METHODS Apoptotic activities of casticin (1.0 µmol/l) and TRAIL (25, 50 ng/ml) alone or in combination in the gastric cancer cell lines BGC...

BACKGROUND The induction of hepatic stellate cell (HSC) apoptosis has potential as a potent strategy to diminish the progression of liver fibrosis. Previous studies have demonstrated the ability of soluble egg antigens (SEA) from schistosomes to inhibit HSC activation and to induce apoptosis in vitro. In this study, we aimed to explore the mechanism of SEA-induced apoptosis in HSCs. METHODOLO...

The death-inducing cytokine, tumor necrosis factor-related apoptosis-inducing ligand (TRAIL), holds enormous promise as a cancer therapeutic due to its highly selective apoptosis-inducing action on neoplastic versus normal cells. Our results revealed that TRAIL selectively triggered apoptosis in the P-glycoprotein (P-gp, ABCB1) and DR5 overexpressing CEM/VBL1000 multidrug resistant leukemia cel...

The development of methods of cancer prevention is a particularly important issue. We have proposed a strategy termed "combination-oriented molecular-targeting prevention" of cancer. As the molecular target of our model, we focused on the tumor necrosis factor-related apoptosis-inducing ligand (TRAIL) and its receptor. TRAIL is a cytokine from immune cells and is important for immune surveillan...