Signaling of Toll-like receptor-4 (TLR4) through its cognate ligand endotoxin appears critical in tissue inflammation associated with bacterial infection. We found that anti-GM1 antibody (Ab) enhances TLR4 expression in Schwann's cells (SCs) in vivo and in vitro. The anti-GM1 Ab-treated SC also showed increased release of pro-inflammation cytokines IL-1beta and TNF-alpha after incubation with l...

We have characterized the structure and function of RNA sequences that direct beta-cytoplasmic actin mRNA to the cell periphery were mapped to two segments of 3'-untranslated region by expression of LacZ/beta-actin chimeric mRNAs in chicken embryo fibroblasts (CEFs). A 54-nt segment, the "RNA zipcode," and a homologous but less active 43-nt segment each localized beta-galactosidase activity to ...

Type I collagenase plays an important role in both tumor metastasis and the remodeling of connective tissue in normal human skin, during wound healing, for example, and may participate in the pathophysiology of some dermatological diseases such as skin cancer and a chronic blistering disease, recessive dystrophic epidermolysis bullosa. In an effort specifically to inhibit collagenase expression...

Systemic administration of the glutamic acid analog kainic acid (KA) causes neuronal cell death in brain-vulnerable regions, such as the piriform cortex, hippocampus, and amygdala in rats. We investigated the relationship between the KA-induced neuronal apoptosis and expression of cyclin-dependent kinase 4 (CDK4) and cyclin D1, key regulators of cell cycle progression. Expression of CDK4 and cy...

Materials Thrombin (bovine plasma, 1880 NIH units/mg protein) was purchased from Sigma (St. Louis, MO, U.S.A.). Simvastatin, fluvastatin and pravastatin were supplied by Merck & Co. (Rahway, N.J., U.S.A.), Novartis Pharma Inc. (Tokyo, Japan) and Sankyo Co. (Tokyo, Japan), respectively. TFLLR-NH2 (PAR1-activating peptide) and GYPGKFNH2 (PAR4-activating peptide) were purchased from Bachem (Bubend...

During the last two decades, it is reported that lengthy Anti-sense Overlapping Open Reading Frames (AO-ORFs) exist in the complementary DNA strand of genes. Yomo and coworkers [6] suggest that some “unknown force” is protecting AO-ORFs from mutations generating stop codons. Boldogkoi [1] insists that the AO-ORFs are mere by-products of evolutional processes acting to create special codon usage...

acetylation and deacetylation are the main posttranslational modifications of histones. Increased deacetylation is associated with carcinogenesis, but the individual histone deacetylase (HDAC) responsible for this increase remains elusive. This study was designed to investigate the role of histone deacetylase 1 during tumorigenesis in McF-7 human breast cancer cells. Anti-sense RNA was used to ...

The B-myb gene is highly homologous to the c-myb protooncogene in several domains and also shares some of the functions of c-myb in that it can act as a transcriptional activator. In addition, the expression of both the B-myb and c-myb genes correlates with proliferation of normal hematopoietic cells. We investigated more directly the role of B-myb in proliferation of hematopoietic cell lines u...