Lead is an environmental nephrotoxicant and probable human carcinogen. Elucidating factors predisposing populations to lead toxicity is an important public health issue. Recently, we found that metallothioneinI/-II double knockout (metallothionein-null) mice that are unable to produce the major forms of metallothionein do not produce lead inclusion bodies, which are thought to mitigate lead tox...

PURPOSE To analyze the expression of metallothionein in neovascular membranes in patients with age-related macular degeneration (AMD) and to compare the findings in patients with proliferative diabetic retinopathy and proliferative vitreoretinopathy with findings in normal retinal pigment epithelial (RPE) cells. METHODS Semiquantitative reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction and immu...

PURPOSE To investigate the possible role of zinc-metallothionein in human retinal pigment epithelium with regard to age-related changes. METHODS A cadmium/heme assay was used to quantitate metallothionein in isolated macular and peripheral retinal pigment epithelium from donors ranging in age from 28 to 91 yr (n = 16, mean age = 68.6 yr). RESULTS It was found that peripheral retinal pigment...

Drought stress is one of the serious problems that restricted agronomic plant production worldwide. In molecular level, the harmful effect of drought stress is mostly caused by producing of large amount of reactive oxygen species (ROS). Catalase and Metallothionein genes have a crucial role to mope the hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) resulting reducing oxidative damage. In this research the gene expre...

The induction and synthesis of metallothionein was studied in the isolated perfused rat liver, using Cd(I1) as the inducing metal. Perfusing the liver with 25 to 100 pg of Cd(I1) for 180 min revealed that the amount of Cd(I1) in metallothionein increased with the dosage of Cd(II), saturation being achieved at 75 pg. Zn(I1) in metallothionein decreased to about 60% of the level found in control ...

background: the impact of cadmium (cd) on male infertility may be related to the interaction with metal-binding proteins known as metallothioneins (mts). trace elements like zinc (zn) have protective effects on testicular damage induced by cd. objective: we determined the effect of zn and low-dose cd pre-treatment on the expression of mt1 and mt2 genes on testicular sertoli cells. materials and...

HeLa cells in culture synthesize metallothionein. To investigate the effects of glucocorticoids on metallothionein synthesis we adapted HeLa cells to growth in a defined medium lacking hydrocortisone. In this defined medium, containing 1.5 x 10(-6)M Zn2+, dexamethasone (10(-6)M) caused a five- to sixfold increase in the synthesis of metallothionein. Progesterone (10(-5)M), a known antagonist of...

We examined the efficacy of metallothionein induction in the prevention of the carcinogenic action of ci'.v-platiimin and melphalan administered repeatedly to mice over a relatively long period. The increased pulmonary metallothionein induced by bismuth or zinc compounds during the period of chemotherapy with (-/¿-platinumor melphalan protected the mice from carcinogenesis of these drugs in th...

The copper complex of 3-ethoxy-2-oxobutyraldehyde bis(thiosemicarbazone) or CuKTS is reduced and dissociated upon reaction with Ehrlich cells. Titration of the cells with the complex leads to the specific binding of copper to metallothionein with 1 to 1 displacement of its complement of zinc. Under conditions of complete titration of metallothionein, 1.25-2.5 nmol CuKTS/107 cells, cellular DNA ...