Dysregulation of microRNA-132 (miR-132) has been observed in various types of human cancers. We investigated the biological functions and associated molecular mechanisms of miR-132 activity in human osteosarcoma tissues and cells. miR-132 expression was measured in human osteosarcoma tissues by quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction. miR-132 mimics, inhibitors, and negative controls w...

We examined the effects of microRNA-132 (miR-132) on Bmi-1 expression and radiosensitivity in HeLa, SiHa, and C33A cervical cancer (CC) cells and 104 CC patients. MiR-132 expression was decreased and Bmi-1 expression was increased in tumor tissues compared to adjacent normal tissues and in radiotherapy-resistant patients compared to radiotherapy-sensitive patients. MiR-132 expression and Bmi-1 ...

Ge-132 is a synthetic organic germanium that is used as a dietary supplement. The antioxidant activity of Ge-132 on cultured mammalian cells was investigated in this study. First, Ge-132 cytotoxicity on mammalian cultured cells was determined by measuring lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) levels. Ge-132 had no cytotoxic effect on three different cell lines. Second, the cell proliferative effect of Ge...

The authors investigated the relationship between brief warm social and physical contact among cohabitating couples and blood pressure (BP) reactivity to stress in a sample of healthy adults (66 African American, 117 Caucasian; 74 women, 109 men). Prior to stress, the warm contact group underwent a 10-minute period of handholding while viewing a romantic video, followed by a 20-second hug with ...

Pathogenic Marek's disease viruses (MDVs) have two head-to-tail copies of a 132-bp repeat. As MDV is serially passaged in cell culture, the virus becomes attenuated and the number of copies of the 132-bp repeat increases from 2 to often more than 20 copies. To determine the role of the repeats in attenuation, we used five overlapping cosmid clones that spanned the MDV genome to reconstitute inf...

Poly-trans-[(2-carboxyethyl) germasesquioxane] (Ge-132) is the most common organic germanium compound. The ingestion of Ge-132 promotes bile secretion. We assessed the rat caecal characteristics after the administration of Ge-132 and raffinose, a prebiotic oligosaccharide, because both Ge-132 and some prebiotics can change the fecal color to yellow. We also compared the changes in the caecal fl...

MicroRNAs (miRNAs), which regulate gene expression by partial complementarity to the 3' untranslated region of their target genes, have been implicated in cancer initiation and progression. However, the molecular mechanism underlying the regulation of miRNA expression during pancreatic tumorigenesis has not been extensively reported. In this study, we first compared the miRNA expression in huma...