BACKGROUND Due to the rapidly increasing number of older people worldwide, the prevalence of frailty among older adults is expected to escalate in coming decades. It is crucial to recognize early onset symptoms to initiate specific preventive care. Therefore, early detection of frailty with appropriate screening instruments is needed. The aim of this study was to evaluate the underlying dimensi...

Gfi-1 also dampens the cells’ tendencies toward the Th17 and T reg cell lineages. Gfi-1 inhibited production of IL-17 and blocked the expression of CD103, which is found on certain T reg cells. In a model of autoimmunity, mice that lacked Gfi-1 developed a preponderance of CD103expressing T reg cells, thus delaying the onset of disease. The protein prevented gene expression by binding to loci i...

The zinc finger transcriptional repressor Gfi-1b is essential for erythroid and megakaryocytic development in the embryo. Its roles in the maintenance of bone marrow erythropoiesis and thrombopoiesis have not been defined. We investigated Gfi-1b's adult functions using a loxP-flanked Gfi-1b allele in combination with a novel doxycycline-inducible Cre transgene that efficiently mediates recombin...

The induction of Bcl-x(L) is critical for the survival of late proerythroblasts. The erythroid-specific transcriptional network that regulates Bcl-x(L) expression in erythropoiesis remains unclear. The activation of the central erythropoietic transcriptional factor, GATA-1, leads to the early, transient induction of a transcription repressor, Gfi-1B, followed by the late induction of Bcl-x(L) d...

Gfi-1 also dampens the cells’ tendencies toward the Th17 and T reg cell lineages. Gfi-1 inhibited production of IL-17 and blocked the expression of CD103, which is found on certain T reg cells. In a model of autoimmunity, mice that lacked Gfi-1 developed a preponderance of CD103expressing T reg cells, thus delaying the onset of disease. The protein prevented gene expression by binding to loci i...

Neutrophil-specific granule deficiency (SGD) is a rare congenital disorder marked by recurrent bacterial infections. Neutrophils from SGD patients lack secondary and tertiary granules and their content proteins and lack normal neutrophil functions. Gene-inactivating mutations in the C/EBPepsilon gene have been identified in 2 SGD patients. Our studies on a third SGD patient revealed a heterozyg...

SOCS proteins take part in a classical negative feedback loop to attenuate cytokine signaling. Although STAT family members positively modulate Socs gene expression, little else is known about Socs gene regulation. Here, we identify functional binding sites for GFI-1B, a proto-oncogenic transcriptional repressor, in the promoters of murine Socs1 and Socs3. Thus, mutating these sites relieved tr...

Infecting mice with a mutant Moloney murine leukemia virus which contains the bacterial suppressor tRNA supF in its LTR allows rapid cloning of proviral integration sites from genomic tumour DNA. In a previous study Emu pim-1/Emu L-myc bitransgenic mice had been inoculated neonatally with MoMuLV supF virus. The retroviral infection led to acceleration of lymphomagenesis indicating the proviral ...

The Gfi-1 proto-oncogene encodes a zinc finger protein with six C2H2-type, C-terminal zinc finger motifs and is activated by provirus integration in T-cell lymphoma lines selected for interleukin-2 independence in culture and in primary retrovirus-induced thymomas. Gfi-1 expression in adult animals is restricted to the thymus, spleen, and testis and is enhanced in mitogen-stimulated splenocytes...

We labeled the Ki-67 antigen in mammary carcinomas, using a MIB-1 monoclonal antibody, to evaluate the usefulness of MIB-1 Ki-67 Growth Fraction Indices (GFI; number of Ki-67 positive cells/total number of cells) of biopsy specimens in estimating the proliferative potential of the carcinomas. Formalin-fixed paraffin sections prepared from biopsy material, primary tumors, and axillary lymph node...