Recent studies have shown that exposure to the aroma of ginger root oil (Zingiber officinale Roscoe; termed GRO hereafter) increases the mating competitiveness of males of the Mediterranean fruit fly (medfly), Ceratitis capitata (Wiedemann). This result suggests that pre-release exposure of sterile males to GRO might increase the effectiveness of the Sterile Insect Technique (SIT) against this ...

BACKGROUND The beneficial effects of ginsenoside species have been well demonstrated in a number of studies. However, the function of ginsenoside Ro (GRo), an oleanane-type saponin, has not been sufficiently investigated. Thus, the aim of the present study was to investigate the anti-inflammatory effects of GRo in vitro using the Raw 264.7 mouse macrophage cell line treated with lipopolysacchar...

Gene expression is regulated by the complex interaction between transcriptional activators and repressors, which function in part by recruiting histone-modifying enzymes to control accessibility of DNA to RNA polymerase. The evolutionarily conserved family of Groucho/Transducin-Like Enhancer of split (Gro/TLE) proteins act as co-repressors for numerous transcription factors. Gro/TLE proteins ac...

Chemokines, (chemotactic cytokines) are a family of regulatory molecules involved in modulating inflammatory responses. Here we demonstrate that the chemokine growth-regulated oncogene-alpha (GRO-alpha) is a potent promoter of oligodendrocyte precursor proliferation. The proliferative response of immature spinal cord oligodendrocyte precursors to their major mitogen, platelet derived growth fac...

BACKGROUND Transcriptional co-repressors of the Groucho/transducin-like Enhancer of split (Gro/TLE) family regulate the expression of a variety of genes and are involved in numerous developmental processes in both invertebrate and vertebrate species. More specifically, Gro/TLE1 participates in mechanisms that inhibit/delay the differentiation of cerebral cortex neural progenitor cells into neur...

Alkylglycerols (alkyl-Gro) are ether lipids abundant in the liver of some elasmobranch fish species such as ratfishes and some sharks. Shark liver oil from Centrophorus squamosus (SLO), or alkyl-Gro mix from this source, have several in vivo biological activities including stimulation of hematopoiesis and immunological defences, sperm quality improvement, or anti-tumor and anti-metastasis activ...

Transcriptional control of the Drosophila terminal gap gene huckebein (hkb) depends on Torso (Tor) receptor tyrosine kinase (RTK) signaling and the Rel/NFkappaB homolog Dorsal (DI). DI acts as an intrinsic transcriptional activator in the ventral region of the embryo, but under certain conditions, such as when it is associated with the non-DNA-binding co-repressor Groucho (Gro), it is converted...

The Drosophila Groucho (Gro) protein is the defining member of a family of metazoan corepressors that have roles in many aspects of development, including segmentation, dorsal/ventral pattern formation, Notch signaling, and Wnt/Wg signaling. Previous speculation has suggested that Gro may be orthologous to the yeast corepressor Tup1. In support of this idea, a detailed alignment between the C-t...

Groucho (Gro) is the founding member of a family of transcriptional co-repressors that are recruited by a number of different transcription factors. Drosophila has a single gro gene, whose loss of function affects processes ranging from sex determination to embryonic patterning and neuroblast specification. We have characterized a function of Gro in imaginal development, namely the repression o...