Transcriptional response of Escherichia coli to extracellular zinc was studied using DNA microarray and S1 mapping assays. Addition of external zinc induced the expression of zinc exporter ZntA and inhibited the expression of zinc importer ZnuC. In the continuous presence of zinc, ZnuC repression took place at lower zinc concentrations than ZntA induction. The microarray assay indicated that th...

Zinc uptake is critical for cell proliferation. On the basis of the evidence that brain tumors are positively-imaged with 65Zn, cellular zinc uptake was studied under growth arrest and apoptosis to understand the relationship between cellular viability and zinc uptake. When NIH3T3 cells were cultured in albumin-coated dishes under the presence of serum, the viability of the cells detached from ...

Neuronal metal ions such as zinc are essential for brain function. In particular synaptic processes are tightly related to metal and protein homeostasis, for example through extracellular metal-binding proteins. One such protein is neuronal S100B, a calcium and zinc binding damage-associated molecular pattern (DAMP), whose chronic upregulation is associated with aging, Alzheimer's disease (AD),...

L ife has harnessed the functional potential of many metal ions and thereby bridged the boundaries between organic and inorganic chemistry. A case in point here is zinc, which is essential for growth and development. As a constituent of proteins, zinc performs critical cellular functions (1). Its great versatility in catalysis is used in hundreds of enzymes of all six classes (2). In zinc finge...

ABSTRACT Zinc is employed as a supplement; however, zinc-related nephropathy is not generally known. In this study, we investigatecl zinc-induced renal cell iajury using a pig kidney-derived cultured renal epithelial cell line, LLC-PKI, with proximal kidney tubule-like features, and examined the involvement of free radicals and extracellular signal-regu]ated kinase (ERK) in the cell injury. The...

Decades after the discovery that ionic zinc is present at high levels in glutamatergic synaptic vesicles, where, when, and how much zinc is released during synaptic activity remains highly controversial. Here we provide a quantitative assessment of zinc dynamics in the synaptic cleft and clarify its role in the regulation of excitatory neurotransmission by combining synaptic recordings from mic...

Zinc (Zn) is the second most abundant transition metal in the human body. It is an essential cofactor for many enzymes and transcription factors. In addition, it has roles in neuronal synaptic transmission because high concentrations of Zn are accumulated in many synaptic vesicles within the central nervous system in response to presynaptic activation. Zn influx from the extracellular space is ...

Attention has focused on the cytokine interleukin 6 (IL-6) as a major mediator of acute-phase protein synthesis in hepatocytes in response to infection and tissue injury. We have evaluated the effects of IL-6 and IL-1 alpha as well as extracellular zinc and glucocorticoid hormone on metallothionein gene expression and cellular zinc accumulation in rat hepatocyte monolayer cultures. Further, we ...

Zn (II) is an important regulator of caspase-3, as well as an antioxidant, microtubule stabilizer, growth cofactor, and anti-inflammatory agent. Over the past 30 years, many researchers have demonstrated the important role of Zn (II) in a variety of physiological processes, including growth and development, maintenance and priming of the immune system, and in tissue repair and regeneration. In...

In the last decade, we witnessed discoveries that established Zn2+ as a second major signalling metal ion in the transmission of information within cells and in communication between cells. Together with Ca2+ and Mg2+, Zn2+ covers biological regulation with redox-inert metal ions over many orders of magnitude in concentrations. The regulatory functions of zinc ions, together with their function...