Activin-A induces increases in FSH secretion, as well as the number of immunoreactive FSH cells, in cultured rat pituitary cells. In this study, we examined whether mechanisms involved in these two actions of activin-A are identical or not, with respect to the involvement of cellular proliferation and of Cat+-dependent signaling pathways. Treatment with activin-A (25 ng/ml) for 48 h caused incr...

Wada, Wataru, Akito Maeshima, You-Qing Zhang, Yoshihisa Hasegawa, Hiroyuki Kuwano, and Itaru Kojima. Assessment of the function of the C-subunit of activin in cultured hepatocytes. Am J Physiol Endocrinol Metab 287: E247–E254, 2004. First published March 23, 2004; 10.1152/ajpendo.00390.2003.—We assessed the function of the C-subunit of activin in hepatocytes. We studied the effect of conditione...

Activin A, a member of the transforming growth factor-beta superfamily, is constitutively expressed in hepatocytes and regulates liver mass through tonic inhibition of hepatocyte DNA synthesis. Follistatin is the main biological inhibitor of activin bioactivity. These molecules may be involved in hepatic fibrogenesis, although defined roles remain unclear. We studied activin and follistatin gen...

BACKGROUND The clinical significance of the circulating levels of activin A and matrix metalloproteinase-2 (MMP-2) and -9 (MMP-9) was investigated in patients with breast cancer (BC) or prostate cancer (PC) with (M1) or without (M0) bone metastasis. PATIENTS AND METHODS MMP-2, MMP-9 and activin A blood concentrations were measured by enzyme immunoassays in 79 cancer patients and in 57 healthy...

Lung cancer is the leading cause of death in Australia with 13,000 new cases per year. Although targeted therapy and immunotherapy have drastically changed treatment landscape, majority patients will receive platinum-based chemotherapy for which response rate approximately 30% (Reck et al, 2016). An immunohistochemistry-based, predictive biomarker would be beneficial help avoid toxicity unlikel...

Activin A is a member of the transforming growth factor beta (TGFb) superfamily and a pleiotropic cytokine that regulates many processes, from reproduction and development to cancer and immunity. Activin A shares the smad2/3 signal transduction pathway with TGFb and displays overlapping biological activities with the latter, including the ability to promote the differentiation of CD4 T cells to...

Members of the activin family have been suggested to act as mesoderm-inducing factors during early amphibian development. Little is known, however, about mesoderm formation in the mammalian embryo, and as one approach to investigating this we have studied activin expression during early mouse development. Activins are homo- or heterodimers of the beta A or beta B subunits of inhibin, itself a h...

During early embryogenesis of Xenopus, dorsoventral polarity of the mesoderm is established by dorsalizing and ventralizing agents, which are presumably mediated by the activity of an activin/BVg1-like protein and Bone Morphogenetic Proteins (BMP), respectively. Interestingly, these two TGF-beta subfamilies are found in overlapping regions during mesoderm patterning. This raises the question of...

Activin has long-range effects in Xenopus development, inducing the mesodermally expressed brachyury gene up to 10 cell diameters from a localised source. Recent experiments show that activin diffuses through tissues to establish a morphogen gradient, and that the long-range effects are a direct result of activin signalling.

Nodal and Activin are morphogens of the TGFbeta superfamily of signaling molecules that direct differential cell fate decisions in a dose- and distance-dependent manner. During early embryonic development the Nodal/Activin pathway is responsible for the specification of mesoderm, endoderm, node, and mesendoderm. In contradiction to this drive towards cellular differentiation, the pathway also p...