A new strategy in anticancer gene therapy uses stress-responsive cellular promoters that offer the advantage of enhanced gene expression in a variety of tumors. Although the feasibility of their selective expression has been demonstrated, functional evidence of their ability to activate therapeutic agents within the tumor environment leading to tumor eradication has not been established. Glucos...

Taxane and vinblastine represent two classes of microtubules-targeted agents for cancer chemotherapy. Although taxol and vinblastine are widely used for cancer treatment, resistance to these agents is frequently encountered in the clinic. An ongoing question has been what mechanisms are involved in the resistance of tumour cells to microtubules-targeted agents or how the clinical effectiveness ...

The hepatitis C virus E1 and E2 envelope proteins are targeted to the endoplasmic reticulum, but instead of being secreted, they are retained in a pre-Golgi compartment, at least partly in a misfolded state. Since secretory proteins which are retained in the endoplasmic reticulum frequently can activate the transcription of intraluminal chaperone proteins, we measured the effect of the E1 and E...

BACKGROUND Human trophoblast invasion and differentiation are essential for a successful pregnancy outcome. Dysregulation of these processes can lead to placental pathologies such as pre-eclampsia. The molecular mechanisms; however, are poorly understood. Interleukin (IL)11--a cytokine that regulates endometrial epithelial cell adhesion, trophoblast motility and invasion during implantation--ma...

The unfolded protein response (UPR) is an evolutionarily conserved mechanism to allow cells to adapt to stress targeting the endoplasmic reticulum (ER). Induction of ER chaperone GRP78/BiP increases protein folding capacity; as such it represents a major survival arm of UPR. Considering the central importance of the UPR in regulating cell survival and death, evidence is emerging that cells evol...

The objective of this study was to investigate the presence and titer of anti-carbamylated 78-kDa glucose-regulated protein (anti-CarGRP78) antibody in serum from controls, and patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA), systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) and primary Sjögren syndrome (pSS). Thirty-three RA patients, 20 SLE patients, 20 pSS patients, and 20 controls were enrolled from our outpatien...

Our aim in the present study was to investigate the potential roles of the 78-kDa glucose-regulated protein (GRP78) and the X-linked inhibitor of apoptosis protein (XIAP) in the regulation of apoptosis during cerulein-induced acute pancreatitis (CAP). A rat CAP model was induced by injection of cerulein (50 µg/kg), and the severity of CAP was esti...

A new strategy in anticancer gene therapy uses stress-responsive cellular promoters that offer the advantage of enhanced gene expression in a variety of tumors. Although the feasibility of their selective expression has been demonstrated, functional evidence of their ability to activate therapeutic agents within the tumor environment leading to tumor eradication has not been established. Glucos...

Endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stresses that reduce ER protein folding activate the unfolded protein response (UPR). One effector of the UPR is the transcription factor X-box binding protein-1 (XBP1), which is expressed on ER stress-mediated splicing of the XBP1 mRNA. XBP1 induces certain ER-targeted proteins, eg, glucose-regulated protein 78 (GRP78), that help resolve the ER stress and foster cell...

Abnormal regulation of ER stress and apoptosis has been implicated in autoimmune disorders. Particularly, ER stress-induced autophagy and the role of GRP78, or BiP in T lymphocyte survival and death in SLE are poorly understood. This study investigated the pathogenic roles of ER stress-induced autophagy and GRP78/BiP in apoptosis of T lymphocytes. We compared spontaneous and induced autophagy a...