Over 1 million women, approximately 12-22% of the U.S. population, smoke while pregnant (Centers for Disease Control). Nicotine, the primary toxin in cigarette smoke has been associated with altered neural structure and functioning in rats (Roy, 2002) and premature birth, low birth weight, cognitive defects, and behavioral problems in humans (DiFranza and Lew,1995; Sexton, 1990; Olds, 1994). Th...

The oyster Crassostrea rivularis Gould (also known as Crassostrea ariakensisis) an important bivalve species cultured in southeastern China. Since 1992, these oysters have suffered high mortality during winter and spring. An intracellular rickettsia-like organism (RLOs) was proposed as the causative agent. In this study, RLOs were purified from the gill and digestive gland of dying oyster (C. r...

Purpose: Prior studies had suggested that Akt activity is elevated in a subset of breast cancers. In this study, to test the effect of active Akt-3 on estrogen receptor function, we have produced MCF-7 cells, which express active Akt-3 and examined the estrogen responsiveness of these cells in vivo and in vitro. Experimental Design: MCF-7 cells expressing active Akt-3 were studied for estradiol...

Psychrotrophic Pseudomonas ADT3 (NCBI GenBank Acc.no.JX914667) is capable of growth on lipid as the sole carbon source. In this paper, we report the purification and characterization of an extracellular lipase from psychrotroph, isolated from soil sample of NyAlesund, Svalbard, Arctic region. The Pseudomonas ADT3 isolate produces lipase enzyme in the extracellular minimal media with only 1% oli...

Lambda phages have considerable potential as gene delivery vehicles due to their genetic tractability, low cost, safety and physical characteristics in comparison to other nanocarriers and gene porters. Little is known concerning lambda phage-mediated gene transfer and expression in mammalian hosts. We therefore performed experiments to evaluate lambda-ZAP bacteriophage-mediated gene transfer a...

Stomach ulceration is a major side effect of most chemopreventive drugs. We have established that although resveratrol is a promising chemopreventive compound, it delays the ulcer healing process. However, its analog hydroxystilbene-1 (HST-1) was devoid of such an ulcerogenic side effect. Consequently, here we tried to explore the chemopreventive efficacy of HST-1 compared with resveratrol in d...

The transcriptional activity of estrogen receptor-alpha (ER) is modified by coactivators, corepressors and chromatin remodeling complexes. We have previously shown that the metastasis-associated protein-1 (MTA1), a component of histone deacetylase and nucleosome remodeling complexes, represses ER-driven transcription by recruiting histone deacetylases (HDACs) to the estrogen receptor element (E...

In addition to the classical nuclear receptor pathway, there is a non-genomic pathway in the cell membrane that regulates gene expression in animal steroid hormone signaling; however, this mechanism is unclear. Here, we report that the insect steroid hormone 20-hydroxyecdysone (20E) regulates calcium influx via phospholipase C gamma 1 (PLCG1) to modulate the protein kinase C (PKC) phosphorylati...

Many cephalopods exhibit remarkable dermal iridescence, a component of their complex, dynamic camouflage and communication. In the species Euprymna scolopes, the light-organ iridescence is static and is due to reflectin protein-based platelets assembled into lamellar thin-film reflectors called iridosomes, contained within iridescent cells called iridocytes. Squid in the family Loliginidae appe...

32 33 Hagfishes are the most ancient of the extant craniates, and demonstrate a 34 high tolerance for a number of unfavorable environmental conditions including 35 elevated ammonia. Proposed mechanisms of ammonia excretion in aquatic 36 organisms include vesicular NH4+ transport and release by exocytosis in marine 37 crabs, and passive NH3 diffusion, active NH4+ transport and paracellular leaka...