Childhood acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) blasts are characterized by inhibited apoptosis promoting fast disease progress. It is known that in chronic lymphocytic and acute myeloid leukemias the reduced apoptosis is strongly related with the activity of calpain-calpastatin system (CCS) composed of cytoplasmic proteases--calpains--performing the modulatory proteolysis of key proteins involved...

Calpains are a family of non-lysosomal cysteine proteases. Recent studies have identified a member of the calpain family of proteases, calpain 10, as a putative diabetes-susceptibility gene that may be involved in the development of type 2 diabetes. Inhibition of calpain activity has been shown to reduce insulin-stimulated glucose uptake in isolated rat-muscle strips and adipocytes. In this rep...

Excitotoxicity resulting from excessive Ca(2+) influx through glutamate receptors contributes to neuronal injury after stroke, trauma, and seizures. Increased cytosolic Ca(2+) levels activate a family of calcium-dependent proteases with papain-like activity, the calpains. Here we investigated the role of calpain activation during NMDA-induced excitotoxic injury in embryonic (E16-E18) murine cor...

The aim of this study was to investigate the role Ca2+ in process calpain-2 becoming associated myofibrils and potential myofibril-bound calpain degrade myofibrillar proteins. Different concentrations were applied mixed with partially purified calpain-2. induced binding a concentration-dependent manner. half-maximal requirements for proteolysis 0.60 mM 0.29 mM, respectively. To proteolytic acti...

Calpains are calcium-dependent intracellular nonlysosomal proteases that are believed to hydrolyze specific substrates important in calcium-regulated signaling pathways. Recently, an atypical member of the calpain family, calpain 10, was described, and genetic variation in this gene was associated with an increased risk of type II diabetes mellitus in humans. In the present report, a polyclonal...

To describe how a high fat diet (HFD) and hyperglycemia initiate a sequence of calpain activation and oxidative stress associated with neuro-degenerative changes in diabetic retinopathy (DR), hyperglycemia was induced with streptozotocin in mice lacking the gene for calpastatin (CAST KO), and in mice lacking the gene for the transcription factor NF-E2 related factor 2 (Nrf2 KO). All animals wer...

Calpains are a family of intracellular cysteine proteases involved in various biological processes. Previously, the family was identified to have abnormal expression in several types of malignant tumor. Calpain 6 was less well known; however, it was recently identified to be involved in the carcinogenesis of certain types of malignant tumor. However, the expression of calpain 6 in head and neck...

Calpastatin is an endogenous inhibitor of calpain (calcium-dependent cysteine protease). Calpastatin activityis highly related to the rate of protein turnover and rate of meat tenderization. In order to characterize thestructure of calpastatin in Iranian Afshari breed of sheep, intron 6 and partial exon 7 of the L domain wereamplified and sequenced. A fragment of approximately...

Icsbp/Irf8 is an interferon regulatory transcription factor that functions as a suppressor of myeloid leukemias. Consistent with this activity, Icsbp represses a set of genes encoding proteins that promote cell proliferation/survival. One such gene encodes Gas2, a calpain inhibitor. We previously found that increased Gas2-expression in Bcr-abl+ cells stabilized βcatenin; a Calpain substrate. Th...

The aryl hydrocarbon receptor (AhR) is a ligand-activated basic-helix-loop-helix transcription factor that binds polyaromatic hydrocarbons (PAH), such as 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin (TCDD), and mediates their toxicity. Binding of PAH to AhR in the cytoplasm triggers a poorly defined transformation step of the receptor into a nuclear transcription factor. In this study, we show that the ...