OBJECTIVE To observe the effect of insulin-like growth factor-1 (IGF-1) on bone morphogenetic protein (BMP)-2 expression in hepatocellular carcinoma SMMC7721 cells. METHODS Cells were divided into blank control, IGF-1, IGF-1 + SB203580, and SB203580 groups. SB203580 was used to block the p38 MAPK signaling pathway. Changes in the expression of BMP-2, p38 MAPK, and phosphorylated p38, MERK, ER...

Dual and triple combination therapies with RAF inhibitors plus other targeted agents have demonstrated promising clinical utility in BRAFV600-mutant solid tumors. However, despite vertical inhibition at multiple nodes on the MAPK signaling pathway, resistant tumors emerge. Ahronian and colleagues show that in BRAF-mutant colorectal cancer, resistance involves reactivation of RAS/RAF/MEK/ERK sig...

Cell adhesion to the extracellular matrix is required to execute growth factor (GF)-mediated cell behaviors, such as proliferation. A major underlying mechanism is that cell adhesion enhances GF-mediated intracellular signals, such as extracellular signal-regulated kinase (Erk). However, because GFs use distinct mechanisms to activate Ras-Erk signaling, it is unclear whether adhesion-mediated e...

Neuroinflammation is characterized by activation of microglial cells, followed by production of nitric oxide (NO), which may have different outcomes on neurogenesis, favoring or inhibiting this process. In the present study, we investigated how the inflammatory mediator NO can affect proliferation of neural stem cells (NSCs), and explored possible mechanisms underlying this effect. We investiga...

PURPOSE Retinal injury induces Müller cell dedifferentiation by activating extracellular signal-regulated kinase (ERK) signaling. Stimulation of α2-adrenergic receptors protects against injury but also activates ERK in Müller cells. The purpose of this work was to study the effect of α2-adrenergic signaling on injury-induced ERK and Müller cell dedifferentiation. We tested the hypothesis that α...

Convincing epidemiological data suggest an inverse association between cancer and neurodegeneration, including Alzheimer's disease (AD). Since both AD and cancer are characterized by abnormal, but opposing cellular behavior, i.e., increased cell death in AD while excessive cell growth occurs in cancer, this motivates us to initiate the study into unraveling the shared genes and cell signaling p...

While scaffold proteins are thought to be key components of signaling pathways, their exact function is unknown. By preassembling multiple components of signaling cascades, scaffolds are predicted to influence the efficiency and/or specificity of signaling events. Here we analyze a potential scaffold of the Ras/mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) pathway, kinase suppressor of Ras (KSR), by ...