Although remission rates for metastatic melanoma are generally very poor, some patients can survive for prolonged periods following metastasis. We used gene expression profiling, mitotic index (MI), and quantification of tumor infiltrating leukocytes (TILs) and CD3+ cells in metastatic lesions to search for a molecular basis for this observation and to develop improved methods for predicting pa...

Background In one of our previous studies, we demonstrated that long non-coding RNA (lncRNA) H19X plays a crucial role in the development TGFβ driven fibrosis systemic sclerosis (SSc) and other fibrotic diseases 1 . Objectives To define functional relevance endothelial cell (EC) activation as decisive process SSc vasculopathy. Methods Correlation expression microvascular gene signature was comp...

Fibroblastic reticular cells (FRCs) are lymphoid stromal cells essential to T-cell migration and survival. Although FRCs are targets of multiple viral infections, little is known about their role during infection due to the cells' scarcity and difficulty in isolating in vivo. To initiate studies of interactions among FRCs, viruses, and immune cells, we isolated and immortalized CD45(-)gp38(+)CD...

Metastasis is the main cause of treatment failure and death in cancer patients. Metastasis of tumor cells to the brain occurs frequently in individuals with breast cancer, non-small cell lung cancer, or melanoma. Despite recent advances in our understanding of the causes and in the treatment of primary tumors, the biological and molecular mechanisms underlying the metastasis of cancer cells to ...

The role of prostaglandin A2 (PGA2) in modulation of vascular endothelial function is unknown. We investigated effects of PGA2 on pulmonary endothelial cell (EC) permeability and inflammatory activation and identified a receptor mediating these effects. PGA2 enhanced the EC barrier and protected against barrier dysfunction caused by vasoactive peptide thrombin and proinflammatory bacterial wall...

Despite advances in cancer treatments, early detection of cancer is still the most promising way to improve outcomes. Without homeostatic control, urine reflects early changes in the body and can potentially be used for early cancer diagnosis. In this study, a Walker 256 tumor rat model was established by subcutaneous injection of Walker 256 tumor cells. To identify urinary proteome changes dur...

Skeletal muscle differentiation is a complex, highly coordinated process that relies on precise temporal gene expression patterns. To better understand this cascade of transcriptional events, we used expression profiling to analyze gene expression in a 12-day time course of differentiating C2C12 myoblasts. Cluster analysis specific for time-ordered microarray experiments classified 2895 genes a...

Sphingosine kinases (SK) regulate the balance between proapoptotic ceramides and mitogenic sphingosine-1phosphate (S1P); however, the functions of the two isoenzymes (SK1 and SK2) in tumor cells are not well defined. Therefore, RNA interference was used to assess the individual roles of SK1 and SK2 in tumor cell sphingolipid metabolism, proliferation, and migration/invasion. Treatment of A498, ...

Hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT) has become the standard of care for the treatment of many hematologic malignancies, chemotherapy sensitive relapsed acute leukemias or lymphomas, multiple myeloma; and for some non-malignant diseases such as aplastic anemia and immunodeficient states. The hematopoietic stem cell (HSC) resides in the bone marrow (BM). A number of chemokines and cyto...

BACKGROUND End-stage renal disease (ESRD) is strongly associated with arterial calcification of the tunica media, decreased vascular compliance and sudden cardiac death. Here, we analysed the distribution pattern of uraemic media calcification and concomitant inflammation in mice and men. METHODS Uraemia was induced in DBA/2 mice with high-phosphate diet. Subsequently, we analysed arterial me...