Purpose: Arachidonate release contributes to prostate tumor progression as arachidonate is metabolized into prostaglandins and leukotrienes, potent mediators of immune suppression, cellular proliferation, tumor motility, and invasion. The group IIa sPLA2 (sPLA2-IIa) can facilitate arachidonate release from cellular phospholipids. We therefore sought to determine whether sPLA2-IIa expression mig...

Since the activated hepatic stellate cell (HSC) is the predominant event in the progression of liver fibrosis, selective clearance of HSC should be a potential strategy in therapy. Salvia miltiorrhiza roots ethanol extract (SMEE) remarkably ameliorates liver fibrogenesis in DMN-administrated rat model. Next, tanshinone IIA (Tan IIA), the major compound of SMEE, significantly inhibited rat HSC v...

BACKGROUND Our previous study showed that prostate cancer cells overexpress and secrete secretory phospholipases A2 group IIa (sPLA2-IIa) and plasma sPLA2-IIa was elevated in prostate cancer patients. The current study further explored the underlying mechanism of sPLA2-IIa overexpression and the potential role of sPLA2-IIa as a prostate cancer biomarker. METHODS Plasma and tissue specimens fr...

OBJECTIVE The inflammation that occurs during the development of atherosclerosis is characterized by a massive release of sPLA2-IIA (group IIA secretory phospholipase A2) from vascular smooth muscle cells (VSMCs). We have investigated the autocrine function of sPLA2-IIA in rat aortic and human VSMCs. METHODS AND RESULTS We found that the transcription of the endogenous sPLA2-IIA gene increase...

MYH9 disorders such as May-Hegglin anomaly are characterized by macrothrombocytopenia and cytoplasmic granulocyte inclusion bodies that result from mutations in MYH9, the gene for nonmuscle myosin heavy chain-IIA (NMMHC-IIA). We examined the expression of mutant NMMHC-IIA polypeptide in peripheral blood cells from patients with MYH9 5770delG and 5818delG mutations. A specific antibody to mutant...

Sweet lime split bark is a disorder of increasing importance in Fars province. Previously we showed that a new variant of hop stunt viroid (HSVd-sb) was related to the disorder. It had homology with a noncachexia variant of hop stunt viroid (CVd-IIa-117) which causes cracking the bark of trifoliate orange rootstocks. In this study, showed that M.NgoBIX, BglI and BsrI restriction enzymes can c...

Myocardial damage resulting from acute myocardial infarction often leads to progressive heart failure and sudden death, highlighting the urgent clinical need for effective therapies. Recently, tanshinone IIA has been identified as a promising therapeutic agent infarction. However, efficient delivery remains major issue that limits translation. To address this problem, an injectable thermosensit...

Glomerular epithelial cells, podocytes, are insulin responsive and can develop insulin resistance. Here, we demonstrate that the small GTPase septin 7 forms a complex with nonmuscle myosin heavy chain IIA (NMHC-IIA; encoded by MYH9), a component of the nonmuscle myosin IIA (NM-IIA) hexameric complex. We observed that knockdown of NMHC-IIA decreases insulin-stimulated glucose uptake into podocyt...

The epidemic situation of Moko disease-causing strains in Latin America and Brazil is unclear. Thirty-seven Ralstonia solanacearum strains from Brazil that cause the Moko disease on banana and heliconia plants were sampled and phylogenetically typed using the endoglucanase (egl) and DNA repair (mutS) genes according to the phylotype and sequevar classification. All of the strains belonged to ph...

CFN financed Scientists: C. Pérez León (92.2 % BAT IIa, 30.5 months), Kerrin Dössel (75% BAT IIa, 3 months), Dirk Waibel (1/2 BAT IIa, 3 months), Cornelius Thiele (1/2 BAT IIA, 5.5 months), Tihomir Tomanic (71.4% BAT IIa, 21 months) Further Scientists: Christoph Stroh, Marcel Mayor, Frank Hennrich, Manfred Kappes, Christoph Sürgers (people involved in the project but not financed by the CFN dir...