OBJECTIVE Calpains, calcium-activated proteases, mediate the angiogenic signals of vascular endothelial growth factor. However, their involvement in vascular repair has not been investigated and the underlying mechanisms remain to be fully elucidated. METHODS AND RESULTS A rapidly progressive form of glomerulonephritis in wild type and transgenic mice expressing high levels of calpastatin, a ...

The c-Myc transcription factor is commonly dysregulated in cancer. c-Myc also sensitizes cells to apoptosis induced by a variety of toxic events. c-Myc turnover is rapid and mediated by the proteasome and intracellular calpains. Therefore, c-Myc accumulation could contribute to cell death associated with protease inhibitors. We investigated the response of c-Myc-positive and c-Myc-negative rat ...

Lewy bodies, a pathological hallmark of Parkinson's disease (PD), contain aggregated alpha-synuclein (αSyn), which is found in several modified forms and can be discovered phosphorylated, ubiquitinated and truncated. Aggregation-prone truncated species of αSyn caused by aberrant cleavage of this fibrillogenic protein are hypothesized to participate in its sequestration into inclusions subsequen...

AIMS The present study was to investigate the role of calpain in reactive oxygen species (ROS) production in endothelial cells and endothelium-dependent vascular dysfunction under experimental conditions of diabetes. METHODS AND RESULTS Exposure to high glucose activated calpain, induced apoptosis and reduced nitric oxide (NO) production without changing eNOS protein expression, its phosphory...

genotypes of iranian zel sheep for calpastatin(cast) locus were determined by polymerase chain reaction-restriction fragment length polymorphism (pcr-rflp) and polymerase chain reaction-single strand conformation polymorphism (pcr-sscp) methods and for calpain(capn) locus by pcr-sscp. blood samples were collected from 200 purebred zel sheep of zel breeding station located in golestan province i...

In this study, we adopted a model of tenderness classification in order to determine the factors affecting the tenderness and tenderization characteristics of beef longissimus, using cluster analysis on the basis of Warner-Bratzler shear force and myofibril fragmentation index, at 1, 7, and 14 d. The rate of tenderization was effectively differentiated by pH, R-values, mu-calpain activity, and ...

The objective of this experiment was to determine whether the caspase proteolytic system has a role in postmortem tenderization. Six ewes and 6 wethers that were noncarriers and 6 ewes and 6 wethers that were expressing the callipyge gene were used for this study. Caspase activities were determined in LM at 7 different time points during the postmortem storage period: 0 h, 4 h, 8 h, 24 h, 2 d, ...

Two forms of Ca2+-dependent cysteine proteinase (calpain, EC 3.4.22.17) and their specific endogenous inhibitor (calpastatin) were partially purified from porcine retina: calpain I (low-Ca2+-requiring form) was half-maximally activated at 8 microM-Ca2+, and calpain II (high-Ca2+-requiring form) at 250 microM-Ca2+. Both calpain I and calpain II were inhibited by calpastatin. Calpain I from porci...

The African lungfish has the ability to undergo aestivation, yet somehow manage to avoid disuse muscular atrophy in the process. The changes in various protein abundances during aestivation and arousal from aestivation is unknown. In this study, muscle and intestine tissues from the aestivating P. annectens were observed for changes in levels of μ-calpain, calpastatin, pan actin, myosin and myo...