Antibodies directed against Pfs25, a protein present on the surface of zygotes and ookinetes of Plasmodium falciparum, completely block pathogen transmission. We evaluated the immunomodulatory effect of CpG oligodeoxynucleotides (ODN) on the immunogenicity of recombinant Pfs25 (rPfs25) formulated in alum (Al). Immunization of mice with rPfs25 plus CpG ODN improved both the antibody titer (a 30-...

AIM To study the role of mRNA secondary structure stability in antisense drug design and obtain better antisense candidates against neu/HER-2/erbB-2 mRNA than previous report. METHODS Program RNAstructure was utilized to simulate the secondary structures of HER-2 mRNA. Then 21 antisense phosphorothioate oligodeoxynucleotides (S-ODN) targeting different parts of secondary structural motif were...

Bcl-2 has emerged as a critical regulator of apoptosis in a variety of cell systems and is up-regulated during progression to androgen independence in prostate cancer cells. The objectives of this study were to characterize changes in Bcl-2 after androgen withdrawal and during progression to androgen independence in the human prostate LNCaP tumor model and determine whether adjuvant use of anti...

Purification of synthetic oligodeoxynucleotides (ODNs) is simply achieved by capping failure sequences with a polymerizable phosphoramidite followed by polymerization. In this article, the reduction of the amount of polymerization monomer to drastically increase ODN extraction efficiency, the use of a centrifugal filterunit to ease the extraction process and the notification of using fresh phos...

Synthetic oligodeoxynucleotides (ODN) consisting of unmethylated bacterial DNA sequences with CpG motifs are potent immunological adjuvants. Immunostimulatory CpG sequences are species-specific. Optimal CpG sequences specific for humans, rodents, livestock, and companion animals have been reported. Nearly all of these reports describe the use of soluble forms of CpG ODN and antigens. We investi...

The cytochrome P-450 4A (CYP4A)-derived arachidonic acid metabolite 20-hydroxyeicosatetraenoic acid (20-HETE) affects renal tubular and vascular functions and has been implicated in the control of arterial pressure. We examined the effect of antisense oligonucleotide (ODN) to CYP4A1, the low K(m) arachidonic acid omega-hydroxylating isoform, on vascular 20-HETE synthesis, vascular reactivity, a...

The immunostimulatory properties of synthetic CpG oligodeoxynucleotides (ODNs) have been studied in various mammalian models including humans and mice. However, little was known about effects of CpG ODNs on immune responses of chickens, a common avian species with important economical value in the poultry industry. In the present study, two CpG ODNs, 2006 and 1826, which show immunomodulating p...

DNA oligonucleotides (ODN) applied to an organism are known to modulate the innate and adaptive immune system. Previous studies showed that a CpG-containing ODN (CpG-1-PTO) and interestingly, also a non-CpG-containing ODN (nCpG-5-PTO) suppress inflammatory markers in skin. In the present study it was investigated whether these molecules also influence cell apoptosis. Here we show that CpG-1-PTO...

Phosphorothioate antisense oligodeoxynucleotide against HIV-1 rev (S-ODN-rev) inhibits virus-induced cytopathic effects (CPE) in acute infection and inhibits the expression of HIV-1 core protein, p24, in chronically infected cells in vitro. HIV-1 reverse transcriptase activity was not affected by S-ODN-rev at the high concentrations of 5-25 microM, which were 250-1250 times higher than the conc...

The aim of the present study was to test the hypothesis that sandblasted and acid etched titanium surfaces can be functionalised with vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) using oligonucleotides for anchorage and slow release. rhVEGF165 molecules were conjugated to strands of 30-mer non-coding DNA oligonucleotides (ODN) and hybridised to complementary ODN anchor strands which had been immob...