The epithelial to mesenchymal transition (EMT) is a crucial process in tumor progression. EMT of tumor cells not only causes increased metastasis, but also contributes to drug resistance. Serum response factor (SRF) is a transcription factor that plays a central role in carcinogenesis and tumor progression in several types of cancers. We investigated the effect of EMT-related SRF, focusing on i...

Increased angiogenesis, inflammation, and proliferation are hallmarks of diseased tissues, and in vivo models of these disease phenotypes can provide insight into disease pathology. Dstn(corn1) mice, deficient for the actin depolymerizing factor destrin (DSTN), display an increase of serum response factor (SRF) that results in epithelial hyperproliferation, inflammation, and neovascularization ...

The acquisition of a migratory and invasive phenotype by cells of epithelial origin is associated with a gain of mesenchymal characteristics concomitant with a loss of the epithelial phenotype, a phenomenon referred to as epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT). Vimentin, a cytoplasmic intermediate filament, is characteristic of mesenchymal cells and is usually not expressed in epithelial cells...

PURPOSE To describe the clinical finding of subretinal fluid (SRF) in the posterior pole by spectral domain optical coherence tomography (SD-OCT) in eyes with active ocular toxoplasmosis (OT). DESIGN Retrospective case series. PARTICIPANTS Thirty-nine eyes from 38 patients with active OT [corrected].. METHODS Eyes with active OT which underwent SD-OCT were reviewed. SRFs in the posterior ...

RATIONALE Vascular smooth muscle (SM) cell phenotypic modulation plays an important role in arterial stiffening associated with aging. Serum response factor (SRF) is a major transcription factor regulating SM genes involved in maintenance of the contractile state of vascular SM cells. OBJECTIVE We investigated whether SRF and its target genes regulate intrinsic SM tone and thereby arterial st...

Adhesion properties of hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) in the bone marrow (BM) niches control their migration and affect their cell-cycle dynamics. The serum response factor (Srf) regulates growth factor-inducible genes and genes controlling cytoskeleton structures involved in cell spreading, adhesion, and migration. We identified a role for Srf in HSC adhesion and steady-state hematopoiesis. C...

OBJECTIVE Serum response factor (SRF) is a critical transcription factor in smooth muscle cells (SMCs) controlling differentiation and proliferation. Our previous work demonstrated that depleting SRF in cultured SMCs decreased expression of SMC markers but increased proliferation and inflammatory mediators. A similar phenotype has been observed in SMCs silenced for phosphatase and tensin homolo...

We have identified 45 mutants of Caenorhabditis elegans that show ectopic surface binding of the lectins wheat germ agglutinin (WGA) and soybean agglutinin (SBA). These mutations are all recessive and define six genes: srf-2, srf-3, srf-4, srf-5, srf-8 and srf-9. Mutations in these genes fall into two phenotypic classes: srf-2, -3, -5 mutants are grossly wild-type, except for their lectin-bindi...

BACKGROUND Serum response factor (SRF) is crucial for gastric ulcer healing process. The study determined if gastric ulcer tissues up-regulate SRF and if such up-regulation correlated with co-morbidities and the risk of recurrent bleeding. METHODS Ulcer and non-ulcer tissues were obtained from 142 patients with active gastric ulcers for SRF expression assessed by immunohistochemistry. Based o...

BACKGROUND & AIMS SRF (Serum Response Factor), a widely expressed transcription factor, controls expression of mitogen-responsive and muscle-specific genes, thereby regulating the contractile actin microfilament. Genetic Srf deletion studies showed SRF to be indispensable for in vivo skeletal and cardiac muscle cell development. We now investigated for the first time in vivo SRF functions in sm...