The immune mechanisms involved in dengue fever and dengue hemorrhagic/dengue shock syndrome are not well understood. The ex vivo activation status of immune cells during the dengue disease in patients was examined. CD4 and CD8 T cells were reduced during the acute phase. Interestingly, CD8 T cells co-expressing activation marker HLA-DR, Q, P, and cytolytic granule protein-Tia-1 were significant...

Background: Signalling of angiotensin II via angiotensin II type 1 receptor (AT1) promotes cardiac and renal fibrosis, but its role in lung fibrosis is little understood. Using a rat bleomycin (BLM) induced model of pulmonary fibrosis, we examined the expression of AT1 in the lung and the effect of an AT1 antagonist on pulmonary fibrosis. Methods: Adult male Sprague-Dawley rats were given 0.3 m...

Endometrial cancer is among the three most common cancers in females in industrialized countries. In the majority of cases, the tumor is confined to the uterus at the time of diagnosis and presents a good prognosis. However, after primary surgery, 15% to 20% of these tumors recur and have limited response to systemic therapy. We carried out gene expression profiling of high-risk recurrence endo...

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is one of the most common visceral malignancies worldwide, with a very high incidence and poor prognosis. Bonemorphogenesis protein 4 (BMP4), which belongs to the TGF-b superfamily of proteins, is a multifunctional cytokine, which exerts its biologic effects through SMADand non-SMADdependent pathways, and is also known to be involved in human carcinogenesis. Howev...

BACKGROUND IL-19 is expressed in esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (SCC), but its biological effect on esophageal cancer remains unclear. We determined the correlation between IL-19 expression levels and clinicopathological variables and explored the effects of IL-19 on the esophageal SCC in vivo and in vitro. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS We determined the expression levels of esophageal S...

Induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells are derived from reprogrammed somatic cells and are similar to embryonic stem (ES) cells in morphology, gene/protein expression, and pluripotency. In this study, we explored the potential of iPS cells to differentiate into alveolar Type II (ATII)-like epithelial cells. Analysis using quantitative real time polymerase chain reaction and immunofluorescence sta...

Transforming growth factor-B (TGF-B) is thought to play a role in the pathobiological progression of ovarian cancer because this peptide hormone is overexpressed in cancer tissue, plasma, and peritoneal fluid. In the current study, we investigated the role of the TGF-B/ Smad3 pathway in ovarian cancer metastasis by regulation of an epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition. When cancer cells were cu...

BACKGROUND AND AIM Increasing evidence indicates that chronic inflammation is a direct or indirect manifestation of hypertension. Potassium channels are thought to be critical for lymphocyte activation, which suggests that hypertension may be an inflammatory disease initiated at the ion channel level. METHODS This study investigated changes in interleukin (IL)-6, IL-17, and transforming growt...