S100A8 and S100A9 are cytoplasmic proteins expressed by phagocytes. High concentrations of these proteins have been correlated with various inflammatory conditions, including autoimmune diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis and Crohn's disease, as well as autoinflammatory diseases. In the present study, we examined the effects of S100A8 and S100A9 on the secretion of cytokines and chemokines fr...

Aging is a progressive process that involves a combination of genetic and acquired factors that ultimately cause loss of tissue homeostasis and death. Among the pathways that modulate aging, NF-кB has been shown to play a central role [1]. Interestingly, the majority of studies examining NF-кB and aging suggest that this transcription factor promotes aging. However, as was shown with the role o...

The polypeptide (p)50 molecule, a subunit of nuclear factor (NF)-kappaB, is produced after proteolytic processing of the p105 precursor (NF-kappaB1). Although the p105 precursor has been postulated to play a role in the regulation of the Rel/NF-kappaB activity, its physiological relevance remains unclear. To investigate that, we generated mutant mice lacking the COOH terminal half of the p105 p...

Bone marrow CD34+ cells from rheumatoid arthritis (RA) patients have abnormal capacities to respond to tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-alpha and to differentiate into fibroblast-like cells producing matrix metalloproteinase (MMP)-1. We explored the expression of mRNA for nuclear factor (NF)kappaB in RA bone marrow CD34+ cells to delineate the mechanism for their abnormal responses to TNF-alpha. CD3...

Background: We have demonstrated previously that NFKB1 single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) rs4648068 GG homozygote was associated with an increased risk of gastric cancer in the Chinese Han population. In this study, we constructed the recombinant plasmid pGL3-GG and pGL3-AA and investigated the function of rs4648068 by cell biology experiments. Methods: Quantitative real-time PCR was used to ...

BACKGROUND Mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) signaling pathway plays an important role in response to viral infection. The aim of this study was to explore the function and mechanism of MAPK signaling pathway in enterovirus 71 (EV71) infection of human rhabdomyosarcoma (RD) cells. METHODS Apoptosis of RD cells was observed using annexin V-FITC/PI binding assay under a fluorescence micro...

Tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF-α) is a pro-inflammatory cytokine important in normal and pathological biological processes. Newly synthesized pro-TNF-α is expressed on the plasma membrane and cleaved to release soluble TNF-α protein: both are biologically active. Secreted TNF-α signals through TNF receptors and the membrane-bound TNF-α acts by cell contact-dependent signaling. Anti-TNF-α anti...