3,4-Methylenedioxymetamphetamine (MDMA, ‘‘ecstasy’’) is an increasingly abused drug, which has significant effects on the dopamine system in the striatum. The isolated single organotypic slice model allows investigation of the effects of drugs of abuse on the expression of transcription factors in the striatum without dopaminergic and glutamatergic interactions. In this study the effects of MDM...

Unstimulated peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) from corticosteroid-resistant (CR) but not corticosteroid-sensitive (CS) asthmatics demonstrate increased activating peptide-1 (AP-1)- and decreased glucocorticoid receptor (GR)-DNA binding. We test whether these abnormalities are associated with excessive generation of c-fos, the inducible component of AP-1. The c-fos transcription rate, ...

3,4-Methylenedioxymetamphetamine (MDMA, "ecstasy") is an increasingly abused drug, which has significant effects on the dopamine system in the striatum. The isolated single organotypic slice model allows investigation of the effects of drugs of abuse on the expression of transcription factors in the striatum without dopaminergic and glutamatergic interactions. In this study the effects of MDMA ...

Pardaxin is a cationic antimicrobial peptide derived from Red Sea Moses sole. Previous studies have shown that pardaxin selectively triggers the death of cancer cells, initiating the development of a pardaxin-based cancer vaccine; however, the underlying mechanism by which pardaxin kills cancer cells has not yet been elucidated. Here, we demonstrate that this mechanism involves endoplasmic reti...

Although transcriptional activation of the c-fos proto-oncogene plays an intrinsic role in the mechanism of blood cell growth, it is still obscure how protein-tyrosine kinases (PTKs) regulate the cytokine-driven c-fos activation pathway. We present here that Tec PTK is tyrosine-phosphorylated and activated by granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor (GM-CSF) stimulation in a human GM-CS...

Angiotensin II (Ang II) has been shown to cause hypertrophy of cultured quiescent rat aortic smooth muscle cells. This observation along with the recent demonstration of angiotensinogen messenger RNA (mRNA) in the vessel wall has led us to postulate a role for Ang II in hypertensive smooth muscle hypertrophy. One of the earliest responses in a wide variety of cells in response to a growth-promo...

Factors predicting sensitivity to epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) blockade are largely unknown and new strategies are being sought to individualize cancer therapy. This study evaluated the variation in the expression of the early response gene c-fos as a distal effect of EGFR inhibition and its relationship to antitumor effects. The growth-inhibitory and c-fos-modulating effects of gefi...

In our previous study, c-fos chromatin accessibility was assayed using DNase I digestion and Southern blot analysis. This low-resolution mapping of c-fos chromatin accessibility demonstrated that serum stimulation of the c-fos enhancer induces a reversible increase in c-fos DNase I sensitivity and suggested that a 5' to 3' gradient of DNase I sensitivity may form downstream from the c-fos enhan...

Recent studies suggest that the dorsal raphe nucleus (DRN) of the brainstem contains several subdivisions that differ both anatomically and neurochemically. The present study examined whether variation of c-Fos expression across the 24-hour light-dark cycle may also be different in these subdivisions. Animals were kept on a 12:12 light-dark cycle, were perfused at seven different time points, a...