BACKGROUND Cardiac myosin-induced myocarditis is an experimental autoimmune myocarditis (EAM) model used to investigate autoimmunological mechanisms in inflammatory heart diseases and resembles fulminant myocarditis in humans. We investigated the therapeutic role of thioredoxin-1 (TRX-1), a redox-regulatory protein with antioxidant and antiinflammatory effects, in murine EAM. METHODS AND RESU...

Thioredoxin (TRX) is released from various types of mammalian cells despite no typical secretory signal sequence. We show here that a redox-active site in TRX is essential for its release from T lymphocytes in response to H2O2 and extracellular TRX regulates its own H2O2-induced release. Human T cell leukemia virus type I-transformed T lymphocytes constitutively release a large amount of TRX. T...

Fusion to cationic peptides, such as nonaarginine (R(9)), provides a means to deliver molecular cargo into mammalian cells. Here, we provide a thorough analysis of the effect of an R(9) tag on the attributes of a model protein: bovine pancreatic ribonuclease (RNase A). The R(9) tag diminishes the conformational stability of RNase A (DeltaT(m)=-8 degrees C in phosphate-buffered saline). This eff...

objective(s) human papillomavirus (hpv) infections are related to the genesis of various benign lesions and some malignant tumors, but no clear relationship has been identified so far between the subtypes of hpv and skin tag. materials and methods the present case-control study was designed to detect the existence of low risk and high risk hpv types in lesions of 50 patients with skin tag (case...

A new protein immobilization and purification system has been developed based on the use of polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHAs, or bioplastics), which are biodegradable polymers accumulated as reserve granules in the cytoplasm of certain bacteria. The N-terminal domain of the PhaF phasin (a PHA-granule-associated protein) from Pseudomonas putida GPo1 was used as a polypeptide tag (BioF) to anchor fusi...

In chloroplasts, thioredoxin (TRX) isoforms and NADPH-dependent thioredoxin reductase C (NTRC) act as redox regulatory factors involved in multiple plastid biogenesis and metabolic processes. To date, less is known about the functional coordination between TRXs and NTRC in chlorophyll biosynthesis. In this study, we aimed to explore the potential functions of TRX m and NTRC in the regulation of...

In the field of biotechnology, fusing recombinant proteins to highly soluble partners is a common practice for overcoming aggregation in Escherichia coli. E. coli maltose-binding protein (MBP) has been recognized as one of the most effective solubilizing agents, having frequently been observed to improve the yield, enhance the solubility, and promote the proper folding of its fusion partners. T...

Through the inhibition of monoamine oxidase type B (MAO-B), (-)-deprenyl (selegiline) prevents the conversion of 1-methyl-4-phenyl-1,2,3,6-tetrahydropyridine (MPTP) to the toxic metabolite 1-methyl-4-phenylpyridinium ion (MPP+) and also prevents the neurotoxicity in the dopaminergic neurons in animal models. Cumulative observations suggest that selegiline may also protect against MPP+-induced n...

An increased level of chondroitin sulfate (CS) expression on the cell surface is often associated with malignant transformation and the progression of tumor cells. In this study, CSs expressed on highly metastatic tumor cells were used as a target for the selective delivery of anticancer drugs by polyethylene glycol (PEG)-coated liposomes that contained a new cationic lipid 3,5-dipentadecycloxy...

We describe the isolation and characterization of a cDNA encoding maize (Zea mays L.) nucleoredoxin (NRX), a novel nuclear protein that is a member of the thioredoxin (TRX) superfamily. NRX is composed of three TRX-like modules arranged as direct repeats of the classic TRX domain. The first and third modules contain the amino acid sequence WCPPC, which indicates the potential for TRX oxidoreduc...