BACKGROUND Little is known about the endoplasmic reticulum stress (ERS) marker glucose regulated protein 78 (GRP78) and calcineurin in the kidney in primary membranous nephropathy (PMN) and if they could predict post-cyclosporine treatment outcome. METHODS This is a retrospective study using a dataset of biopsy-confirmed PMN from Peking Union Medical College Hospital from 1996 to 2014. Sevent...

In vitro studies have demonstrated that cyclosporine A (CsA) acts by inhibiting the phosphatase activity of calcineurin, an important mediator of T-cell activation. The relationship of CsA administration in vivo, calcineurin activity, and graft-versus-host disease (GVHD) has yet to be studied. The calcineurin activities of mononuclear cells isolated from 62 bone marrow transplant recipients and...

Cryptococcus neoformans survives host temperature and regulates cell wall integrity via a calcium-dependent phosphatase, calcineurin. However, downstream effectors of C. neoformans calcineurin are largely unknown. In S. cerevisiae and other fungal species, a calcineurin-dependent transcription factor Crz1, translocates to nuclei upon activation and triggers expression of target genes. We now sh...

Astrocyte reactivity (i.e., activation) and associated neuroinflammation are increasingly thought to contribute to neurodegenerative disease. However, the mechanisms that trigger astrocyte activation are poorly understood. Here, we studied the Ca2+-dependent phosphatase calcineurin, which regulates inflammatory signaling pathways in immune cells, for a role in astrogliosis and brain neuroinflam...

The L-type Ca(2+) channel (LTCC) is the major mediator of Ca(2+) influx in cardiomyocytes, leading to both mechanical contraction and activation of signaling cascades. Among these Ca(2+)-activated cascades is calcineurin, a protein phosphatase that promotes hypertrophic growth of the heart. Coimmunoprecipitations from heart extracts and pulldowns using heterologously expressed proteins provided...

OBJECTIVE To compare the activity of calcineurin in the peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) of 32 patients with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) and 35 healthy controls. METHODS The activity of calcineurin was assayed in the supernatants of sonicated mononuclear cells. RESULTS There was no significant difference in the calcineurin activity of patients with SLE not taking glucocortic...

In fission yeast, calcineurin dephosphorylates and activates the Prz1 transcription factor. Here, we identified the calcineurin-dependent response element (CDRE) in the promoter region of prz1 gene, and monitored the calcineurin activity in living cells using a destabilized luciferase reporter gene fused to three tandem repeats of CDRE. Elevated extracellular CaCl2 caused an increase in calcine...

Calcineurin is a eukaryotic Ca(2+)- and calmodulin-dependent serine/threonine protein phosphatase. It is a heterodimeric protein consisting of a catalytic subunit calcineurin A, which contains an active site dinuclear metal center, and a tightly associated, myristoylated, Ca(2+)-binding subunit, calcineurin B. The primary sequence of both subunits and heterodimeric quaternary structure is highl...

Modulatory calcineurin-interacting proteins (MCIPs)--also termed regulators of calcineurin (RCNs), calcipressins, or DSCR1 (Down's syndrome critical region 1)--are highly conserved regulators of calcineurin, a Ca(2+)/calmodulin-dependent protein phosphatase . Although overexpression experiments in several organisms have revealed that MCIPs inhibit calcineurin activity , their in vivo functions ...

In Saccharomyces cerevisiae, the Ca(2+)/calmodulin-dependent protein phosphatase, calcineurin, is activated by specific environmental conditions, including exposure to Ca(2+) and Na(+), and induces gene expression by regulating the Crz1p/Tcn1p transcription factor. We used DNA microarrays to perform a comprehensive analysis of calcineurin/Crz1p-dependent gene expression following addition of Ca...