Calpastatin is a specific endogenous protein inhibitor of the ubiquitous calcium dependent proteinases mu- and m-calpain. The calpain-calpastatin system is involved in various physiological and pathological processes. In the present study, we determined the bovine calpastatin gene structure and demonstrated that four promoters direct its expression. The gene harbours 35 exons spanning at least ...

Although genetically encoded calcium probes have started to be used in the live recording of neuronal activity, their low sensitivity and expression levels have not allowed the detection of single action potentials. Recently, Wallace et al. overcame this considerable problem by delivering the sensor protein D3cpv using an adeno-associated viral vector. The brain exerts its high-order function t...

A broad range of membrane functions, including endocytosis and exocytosis, are strongly inhibited during mitosis. The underlying mechanisms are unclear, however, but will probably be important in relation to the mitotic cycle and the regulation of surface phenomena generally. A major unanswered question is whether membrane signal transduction is altered during mitosis; suppression of an intrace...

The tumor co-promoter phorbol 12, myristate 13, acetate (PMA) has previously been shown to stimulate several of the characteristic functions (aggregation, degranulation, and the oxidative burst) of polymorphonuclear leukocytes (neutrophils). We describe here a novel feature of the action of PMA on neutrophils, namely its ability to inhibit the chemotactic factor-induced increased in the enzyme ...

OBJECTIVE This study tests the hypothesis that S1P2R regulates expression of SMC differentiation genes after arterial injury. METHODS AND RESULTS Carotid ligation injury was performed in wild-type and S1P2R-null mice. At various time points after injury, expression of multiple SMC differentiation genes, myocardin, and S1P receptors (S1P1R, S1P2R, and S1P3R) was measured by quantitative PCR. T...

there are two different co-expression systems including bicistronic; dual-vector or two-promoter to express two different genes simultaneously and also to study protein-protein interactions. bicistronic system has disadvantages e.g. compared with two-promoter system. in this paper, a simple method based on spliced overlap extension by polymerase chain reaction (soe-pcr) technique was demonstrat...

the interaction between immune cells and endothelial lining of blood vessels is vital in many processes such as inflammatory and immune responses as well as cancer cell metastasis. the expression level of vcam-1 is regulated by many factors including the promoter activity that is possibly affected by the single nucleotide polymorphisms (snps) present in the promoter. there are previous reports ...

Background & Objective: Papillary thyroid cancer (PTC) is considered to be the most common type of thyroid malignancies. Epigenetic alteration, in which the chromatin conformation and gene expression change without changing the sequence of DNA, can occur in some tumor suppressor genes and oncogenes. Methylation is the most common type of epigenetic alterations that can be an ex...