In DNA vaccines, the gene of interest is cloned into a bacterial plasmid that is engineered to induce protein production for long periods in eukaryotic cells. Previous research has shown that the intramuscular immunization of BALB/c mice with a naked plasmid DNA fragment encoding the Mycobacterium leprae 65-kDa heat-shock protein (pcDNA3-Hsp65) induces protection against M. tuberculosis challen...

Cyclophosphamide is used to treat a wide range of human malignancies. However, it is also a known carcinogen associated with induction of therapy-related leukemia and bladder cancer. The DNA repair protein, O6-alkylguanine-DNA alkyltransferase (AGT), protects cells from the toxic and mutagenic effects of O6-alkylating agents. We report here the contribution of AGT in protecting against the toxi...

BACKGROUND Pathological angiogenesis plays an essential role in tumor aggressiveness and leads to unfavorable prognosis. The aim of this study is to detect the potential role of Retinoblastoma binding protein 2 (RBP2) in the tumor angiogenesis of non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). METHODS Immunohistochemical staining was used to detect the expression of RBP2, hypoxia-inducible factor-1α (HIF...

UNLABELLED BACKGROUND We aimed to develop a mouse spontaneous liver metastasis model from an orthotopically implanted human colon cancer cell line stably expressing a human sodium/iodide symporter (NIS) reporter gene, which can be imaged with single-photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) using 99mTcO4-. METHODS A recombinant plasmid containing a constitutively driven NIS gene (pcDNA3-...

BACKGROUND/AIMS Several studies have shown secreted clusterin (sCLU) silencing directed against sCLU mRNA in sCLU-rich lung cancer cell lines sensitized cells to chemotherapy. However, the molecular mechanisms underlying the effect of sCLU silencing on lung cancer cell chemosensitivity is not known. In the present study, we aimed to determine that vector expressing short hairpin RNA against sCL...

Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) can severely interfere with multiple animals and human systems. To explore the molecular mechanisms underlying 2, 3', 4, 4', 5- pentachlorobiphenyl (PCB118)-induced thyroid dysfunction, Fischer rat thyroid cell line-5(FRTL-5) cells were treated with either different concentrations of PCB118 or dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO). The effects of PCB118 on FRTL-5 cells viab...

NK4, composed of the N-terminal hairpin and subsequent four-kringle domains of hepatocyte growth factor (HGF), acts not only as a competitive antagonist of HGF but also as an inhibitor of angiogenesis. By studying the antitumor effect of NK4, we evaluated the potential of gene therapy with NK4 as a treatment for pancreatic cancer. Expression vector pcDNA3-NK4 containing NK4 cDNA was used to tra...

Liver fibrosis is the common pathological outcome for the majority of chronic liver diseases. Interleukin-10 (IL-10) is a cytokine that downregulates proinflammatory responses and has a modulatory effect on liver fibrogenesis. However, little is known regarding the effect of rat interleukin‑10 (rIL‑10) gene by hydrodynamics-based transfection (HBT) on liver fibrosis in rats. The aim of this stu...

introduction: unlimited self renewal and potential capacity of embryonic stem cells (escs) in differentiating into a wide variety of cell types has made the cells an attractive source of donor cells for developmental studies and cell therapy. the aim of the present study was the evaluation of the transfection efficiency of pires2-egfp and pcdna3-hbdnf-v5 plasmids in cce es cells by the electrop...