Hepatocyte nuclear factor-1α (HNF-1α) is found in the kidneys, spleen, thymus, testis, skin, and throughout the digestive organs. It has been found to promote the transcription of various proteins involved in the management of type II diabetes, including dipeptidyl peptidase-IV (DPP-IV). Phenolic compounds from berries and citrus fruits are known to inhibit DPP-IV, but have not been tested for ...

The insulin-like growth factor (IGF) binding proteins (IGFBPs) are a family of proteins that bind IGF-I and IGF-II and modulate their biological activities. IGFBP-1 is distinctive among the IGFBPs in its rapid regulation in response to metabolic and hormonal changes. The synthetic glucocorticoid, dexamethasone, increases IGFBP-1 mRNA abundance and gene transcription in rat liver and in H4-II-E ...

The esophageal epithelium has sensory properties that enable it to sustain normal barrier function. Transient receptor potential vanilloid 4 (TRPV4) is a Ca(2+)-permeable channel that is activated by extracellular hypotonicity, polyunsaturated fatty acids, phorbol esters, and elevated temperature. We found that TRPV4 is expressed in both human esophageal tissue and in HET-1A cells, a human esop...

Woodchuck hepatitis virus (WHV) enhancer II (EnII) is located upstream of the major pregenomic RNA promoter and is thought to play an important role in the insertional activation of the N-myc2 gene during WHV hepatocarcinogenesis. WHV EnII is recognized by at least three host transcription factors: HNF-1, HNF-4, and Oct-1. Here, the roles of these EnII-binding factors in viral transcription and...

Down-regulation of glutathione transferase A1 (GSTA1) expression has profound implications in cytoprotection against toxic by-products of lipid peroxidation produced during inflammation. We investigated the role of hepatic nuclear factor 1 (HNF-1) in repression of human GSTA1 expression by interleukin (IL)-1beta in Caco-2 cells. In luciferase reporter assays, overexpression of HNF-1alpha increa...

The acute-phase response can result in decreased liverspecific functions and death as a result of liver failure. We show here that lipopolysaccharide (LPS), an endotoxin that induces the acute-phase response, results in a marked decrease in the major isoforms of the transcription factor, hepatocyte nuclear factor 4 (HNF-4 ), in livers of rats. HNF-4 is a nuclear receptor that is critical for th...

Four genes encoding fork-head-domain-containing proteins (FD genes) have been isolated from a mouse 8.5 days post coitum (p.c.) embryo cDNA library. Two are mouse homologues of rat HNF-3 beta and HNF-3 alpha. The other two are novel and have been named MF-1 and MF-2 (for mesoderm/mesenchyme fork head). Wholemount in situ hybridization of embryos between 6.5 and 9.5 days p. c. shows that each ge...

Heterozygous mutations in the genes encoding transcriptional regulators hepatocyte nuclear factor (HNF)1 and HNF-4 cause a form of diabetes known as maturity-onset diabetes of the young (MODY). Haploinsufficiency of HNF-1 or HNF-4 results in MODY because of defective function of pancreatic islet cells. In contrast, homozygous null mutations in mouse models lead to widespread and profound gene e...