Disappearance of E-cadherin is a milestone for epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT), found both in carcinomas and in some fibrotic diseases. We have studied the mechanisms of EMT in oral squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) cells isolated from primary tumor (43A) and its recurrent tumor (43B). Whereas the cells from primary carcinoma displayed a typical phenotype of squamous epithelial cells includ...

Tumor-associated macrophages (TAMs) are a major component of leukocytic infiltrate in tumors, which facilitates tumor progression and promotes inflammation. TGF-β promotes the differentiation of non-activated macrophages into a TAM-like (M2-like) phenotype; however, the underlying mechanisms are not clear. In this study, we found that TGF-β induces a M2-like phenotype characterized by up-regula...

Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) comprises an aggregate of mesenchymal cells. However, the cellular origin of these mesenchymal phenotypes remains unclear. Transforming growth factor beta1 (TGF-beta1) has been known as the main cytokine involved in the pathogenesis of IPF. We examined whether the potent fibrogenic cytokine TGF-beta1 could induce the epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition (EMT)...

The Snail transcription factor regulates diverse aspects of stem cell biology in organisms ranging from Drosophila to mammals. Here we have asked whether it regulates the biology of neural precursor cells (NPCs) in the forebrain of postnatal and adult mice, taking advantage of a mouse containing a floxed Snail allele (Snailfl/fl mice). We show that when Snail is inducibly ablated in the embryon...

The land helix, or snail, has been used in medicine since antiquity and prepared according to several formulations. This historical report traces the understanding of their properties from the time of Hippocrates, who proposed the use of snail mucus against protoccle and Pliny who thought that the snail increased the speed of delivery and was "a sovereign remedy to treat pain related to burns, ...

Objective: To study the SOX2 and Snail expression in esophageal cancer and their relationships with tumor biological behavior. Methods: Immunohistochemical method was used to study the SOX2 and Snail1 expression in 60 cases of esophageal squamous cell carcinoma patients with lymph node metastasis. Statistical analysis was done based on the immunohistochemistry data and the disease profile. Resu...

The ascidian neural plate exhibits a regular, grid-like arrangement of cells. Patterning of the neural plate across the medial-lateral axis is initiated by bilateral sources of Nodal signalling, such that Nodal signalling induces expression of lateral neural plate genes and represses expression of medial neural plate genes. One of the earliest lateral neural plate genes induced by Nodal signals...

suppressor CYLD. When Snail was blocked in melanoma cells, the low CYLD expression bounced back, and the cells formed smaller and less aggressive tumors when transferred into mice. This group had previously found that Snail was abnormally abundant in melanoma cells. They now link increased Snail to a common mutation (V600E) in the kinase BRAF—found in more than half of malignant melanomas in hu...

Abstract This study presents the results of observation on growth and reproduction Planorbarius corneus (Linnaeus, 1758) (Gastropoda, Pulmonata) over course several years continuous rearing in laboratory order to use them as test organisms for toxicity testing chemicals. Some features (shell diameter increase, fecundity, hatching time rate, age at first reproduction, juvenile survival), which c...