in granulocytes is ϳ2.4-fold greater than that in mononuclear cells (Table 1). The clinical significance of these results will also likely be in the realm of heterozy-gosity testing. In addition, some individuals with ␣-idu-ronidase deficiency have undergone bone marrow or cord blood transplantation therapy (22, 27), and here, too, biochemical monitoring of enzyme activities in mixed leukocyte ...

Four breast carcinoma cell lines (T47D, ZR-75-1, MDA-MB-231, and MCF-7) were tested for regulation of the expression of vasoactive intes tinal polypeptide receptor type-1 (VIP-R1). In all four cell lines, retinole acid (RA) treatment caused a fast and marked decrease in VIP-R1 niRNA level as examined by Northern blots. Cycloheximide pretreatment attenuated the effect from 3to 2-fold, indicating...

BACKGROUND AND AIM S100A4 is a well established marker and mediator of metastatic disease, but the exact mechanisms responsible for the metastasis promoting effects are less well defined. We tested a hypothesis that the S100A4 gene plays a role in the proliferation and invasiveness of human renal cancer cells (RCC) and may be associated with its metastatic spread. MATERIALS AND METHODS The sm...

BACKGROUND Transferrin (TF) plays a critical physiological role in cellular iron delivery via the transferrin receptor (TFR)-mediated endocytosis pathway in nearly all eukaryotic organisms. Human serum TF (hTF) is extensively used as an iron-delivery vehicle in various mammalian cell cultures for production of therapeutic proteins, and is also being explored for use as a drug carrier to treat a...

There are evidences which suggest that HLA-G molecule plays an important role in immune tolerance, protecting the potentially allogenic fetus from maternal immune attack. Regulation of HLA-G expression is not well characterized; however, studies suggest a possible role of glucocorticoids in modulation of HLA-G gene expression. Therefore, we tested this hypothesis by inducing the HLA-G expressio...

Breast cancer is the most common malignancy in women. Each year 44 335 women living in the UK are diagnosed with breast cancer. Female sex hormones, such as oestrogen, are clearly implicated in breast cancer and conventional treatments include manipulation of the hormonal environment. There is both epidemiological and experimental evidence that plant oestrogens (phyto-oestrogens) in the diet ma...

Prostaglandin E(2) (PGE(2)) is reported to play an important role in tumor development. We explored the differential expression of genes governing production of, and response to, PGE(2) during development of invasive bladder cancer. N-butyl-N-(4-hydroxybutyl)-nitrosamine (BBN) or vehicle-treated mice (n=4-5) were euthanized after 4-8 weeks (period 1, P1), 12-16 weeks (P2), and 20-23 weeks (P3)....

O2 reduction by ferrocene and its derivatives in organic media in the presence of an acid, such as trichloroacetic and trifluoroacetic acids and perchloric acid, has been known for many years. Recently, O2 reduction has also been studied in biphasic systems composed of an organic solvent containing a ferrocene derivative in contact with an aqueous inorganic acid solution containing a very lipop...

We read with great interest the article in CHEST (July 2002) by Masakazu et al,1 who observed a haplotype loss of class I human leukocyte antigens (HLAs) in several newly established lung cancer cell lines and identified it as a mechanism of tumor escape from the immunosurveillance system of the host. However, as for the HLA genes of lung cancer cell lines passing for many generations, such as ...