Mesenchyme-derived cells in the airway wall including airway smooth muscle cells, fibroblasts, and myofibroblasts are known to play important roles in airway remodeling. The lack of specific phenotypical markers makes it difficult to define these cell populations in primary cultures. Most relevant studies to date have used animal airway tissues, vascular tissues, or transformed cell lines with ...

Differentiation between endometrial stromal sarcomas (ESSs) and smooth muscle tumors of the uterus can be challenging. Transgelin, a 22 kDa actin-binding protein has recently been shown to be a smooth muscle specific marker. The goal of this study was to determine whether transgelin could accurately distinguish ESSs from smooth muscle tumors. The expression of transgelin, CD10 and smooth muscle...

The contractility of platelets has been attributed to an actomyosin-like protein which has been well defined on a physicochemical basis. Moreover, platelets contain +/-80 A filaments which resemble actin filaments in smooth muscle. Studies were undertaken on human and bovine platelets to better define the morphologic structures which may subserve this contractile function. In order to identify ...

Contractile activity in smooth muscle cells is regulated by phosphorylation-dephosphorylation of the 20,000-Da light chain of myosin. In an attempt to better understand the localization in muscle of the enzymes which catalyze the phosphorylation-dephosphorylation process, we measured the binding constants of turkey gizzard smooth muscle myosin light chain (MLC) kinase and smooth muscle phosphat...

MCAT elements are located in the promoter-enhancer regions of cardiac, smooth, and skeletal muscle-specific genes including cardiac troponin T, beta-myosin heavy chain, smooth muscle alpha-actin, and skeletal alpha-actin, and play a key role in the regulation of these genes during muscle development and disease. The binding factors of MCAT elements are members of the transcriptional enhancer fa...

Actin plays a number of important roles in mammalian cells. Mammals express six different isoforms of actin in a tissueand temporal-specific manner (1). Mutations in each isoform have been linked to specific diseases in humans, and in most instances a mutation in one of the two copies of the gene is sufficient to cause the disease (2). Mutations in α-smooth muscle isoactin (αSMA) cause vascular...

A unique case of a metastatic non-desmoplastic sarcomatoid malignant melanoma in an axillary lymph node showing smooth muscle differentiation in a 54 year old woman is described. The tumour cells exhibited alpha-smooth muscle actin, HHF-35 and desmin positivity but were negative for S100 protein and HMB-45. Ultrastructural examination revealed smooth muscle phenotype and there was no evidence o...