Experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis (EAE) is an animal model for multiple sclerosis (MS). EAE and MS are characterized by CNS inflammation, demyelination and neurodegeneration. The inflammatory response occurring within the CNS leads to glial activation, dysfunction and death, as well as axonal damage and neurological deficit. Although the pathogenic mechanisms involved in EAE/MS are not ...

at 250nm and/or bound cadmium. Thus the presence of cadmium-metallothionein in the liver cytoplasm of these animals seems unlikely. When PM 10-concentrated cytosol fiactions were dialysed against IOmM-sodium phosphate buffer, pH7.4, none of the cadmium passed through the dialysis membrane. By contrast, after attempts to fractionate the material with (NH4)*S04, dialysis of the redissolved pellet...

Complex regional pain syndrome (CRPS) is characterized by persistent and severe pain after trauma or surgery; however, its molecular mechanisms in the peripheral nervous system are poorly understood. Using proteomics, we investigated whether injured peripheral nerves of CRPS patients have altered protein profiles compared with control nerves. We obtained nerve samples from 3 patients with CRPS-...

To understand the mechanisms of neuronal Zn2+ homeostasis better, experimental data obtained from cultured cortical neurons were used to inform a series of increasingly complex computational models. Total metals (inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry), resting metallothionein, (65)Zn2+ uptake and release, and intracellular free Zn2+ levels using ZnAF-2F were determined before and after n...

Ceruloplasmin, metallothionein, and ferritin are metal-binding proteins with potential antioxidant activity. Despite evidence that they are upregulated in pulmonary tissue after oxidative stress, little is known regarding their influence on trace metal homeostasis. In this study, we have used copper- and zinc-containing superoxide dismutase (Cu/Zn SOD) transgenic-overexpressing and gene knockou...

BACKGROUND Cisplatin-based therapy is a pivotal type of chemotherapy for non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) and chemoresistance to cisplatin represents one of the most significant barriers to improving long-term clinical outcomes. MATERIALS AND METHODS The present study aimed at examining metallothionein (MT) expression in six NSCLC cell lines as well as examining effects of exposure to cispl...

The paramount importance of zinc for a wide range of biological functions is based on its occurrence in thousands of known zinc proteins. To regulate the availability of zinc dynamically, eukaryotes have compartmentalized zinc and the metallothionein/thionein pair, which controls the pico- to nanomolar concentrations of metabolically active cellular zinc. Interactions of zinc with sulfur ligand...

Mammalian metallothioneins are redox-active metalloproteins. In the case of zinc metallothioneins, the redox activity resides in the cysteine sulfur ligands of zinc. Oxidation releases zinc, whereas reduction re-generates zinc-binding capacity. Attempts to demonstrate the presence of the apoprotein (thionein) and the oxidized protein (thionin) in tissues posed tremendous analytical challenges. ...

A mercury (Hg) saturation assay for measuring metallothionein (MT) in fish liver was modified by optimizing binding conditions to minimize the mercury and tissue consumed. The revised method uses stable Hg at low concentrations instead of 203Hg. At the reduced Hg concentrations used, MT concentrations in livers homogenized in saline appeared to increase systematically with dilution in both blue...