The present studies defined the biological effects of a GST fusion protein of melanoma differentiation-associated gene-7 (mda-7), GST-MDA-7 (1 and 30 nmol/L), on cell survival and cell signaling in primary human glioma cells in vitro. GST-MDA-7, in a dose- and time-dependent fashion killed glioma cells with diverse genetic characteristics; 1 nmol/L caused arrest without death, whereas 30 nmol/L...

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE Dysregulation of respiratory mucins, MUC5AC in particular, has been implicated in respiratory disease and MUC5AC expression is up-regulated in response to environmental challenges and inflammatory mediators. The aim of this study was to examine the effect of genetic variation on susceptibility to common respiratory conditions. METHODS The association of MUC5AC and the...

We generated afatinib resistant clones of H1975 lung cancer cells by transient exposure of established tumors to the drug and collected the re-grown tumors. Afatinib resistant H1975 clones did not exhibit any additional mutations in proto-oncogenes when compared to control clones. Afatinib resistant H1975 tumor clones expressed less PTEN than control clones and in afatinib resistant clones this...

Networks of fixed topology are used to summarize the collective understanding of the flow of signaling information within a cell (i.e., canonical signaling networks). Moreover, these canonical signaling networks are used to interpret how observed oncogenic changes in protein activity or expression alter information flow in cancer cells. However, creating a novel branch within a signaling networ...

The epidermal growth factor family of receptor tyrosine kinases (ErbBs) plays essential roles in tumorigenesis and cancer disease progression, and therefore has become an attractive target for structure-based drug design. ErbB receptors are activated by ligand-induced homo- and heterodimerization. Structural studies have revealed that ErbB receptor dimers are stabilized by receptor-receptor int...

Endothelin (ET)-1 is a vasoconstrictor and mitogen involved in vascular remodeling. Changes in gene expression that underlie control of cell growth by ET-1 remain poorly characterized. To identify pathways of growth control we used microarrays to analyze ET-1-regulated gene expression in human mesangial cells, an important ET-1 vascular target cell in vivo. Statistical assessment of differentia...

Pituitary adenomas can invade surrounded tissue, but the mechanism remains elusive. Ether à go-go-1 (Eag1) potassium channel and epidermal growth factor receptors (ErbB1 and ErbB2) have been associated to invasive phenotypes or poor prognosis in cancer patients. However, cells arrange their cytoskeleton in order to acquire a successful migration pattern. We have studied ErbBs and Eag1 expressio...

Epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC) has a high mortality rate, which is due primarily to the fact that early clinical symptoms are vague and nonspecific; hence, this disease often goes undetected and untreated until in its advanced stages. Sensitive and reliable methods for detecting earlier stages of EOC are, therefore, urgently needed. Epidermal growth factor (EGF) is a ligand for EGF receptor (E...

BACKGROUND The ErbB receptors, Ras proteins and nucleolin are major contributors to malignant transformation. The pleiotropic protein nucleolin can bind to both Ras protein and ErbB receptors. Previously, we have demonstrated a crosstalk between Ras, nucleolin and the ErbB1 receptor. Activated Ras facilitates nucleolin interaction with ErbB1 and stabilizes ErbB1 levels. The three oncogenes syne...