To investigate the effects of a high-carbohydrate and low-fat (HC/LF) diet on plasma lipids and apolipoproteins (Apos) of healthy Chinese Han youth with different genotypes of lipoprotein lipase gene (LPL) rs326, 56 subjects were given a washout diet of 30.1% fat and 54.1% carbohydrate for seven days, followed by the HC/LF diet of 13.8% fat and 70.1% carbohydrate for six days, with no total ene...

lactoferrin (lf) has antimicrobial properties against bacteria, fungi and several viruses including herpes virus, hiv and hepatitis c virus. the aim of this study was to detect lf in pmns and plasma of the patients suffering from hepatitis c and the healthy persons. the sonicated solutions of pmns of two groups were evaluated by sds-page (10%), isoelectric focusing (30%) and dot blotting .the l...

Deficiency of methylenetetrahydrofolate reductase (MTHFR) predisposes to hyperhomocysteinemia and vascular disease. We tested the hypothesis that heterozygous disruption of the Mthfr gene sensitizes mice to diet-induced hyperhomocysteinemia and endothelial dysfunction. Mthfr(+/-) and Mthfr(+/+) mice were fed 1 of 4 diets: control, high methionine (HM), low folate (LF), or high methionine/low fo...

Lens epithelial cells differentiate into lens fibers (LFs) in response to a fibroblast growth factor (FGF) gradient. This cell fate decision requires the transcription factor Prox1, which has been hypothesized to promote cell cycle exit in differentiating LF cells. However, we find that conditional deletion of Prox1 from mouse lenses results in a failure in LF differentiation despite maintenanc...

Liu, Min, Ling Shen, Yin Liu, Stephen C. Woods, Randy J. Seeley, David D’Alessio, and Patrick Tso. Obesity induced by a high-fat diet downregulates apolipoprotein A-IV gene expression in rat hypothalamus. Am J Physiol Endocrinol Metab 287: E366–E370, 2004. First published April 13, 2004; 10.1152/ajpendo.00448.2003.— Apolipoprotein A-IV (apo A-IV) is an anorectic protein produced in the intestin...

Background: Anthrax is a particularly dangerous infectious disease that affects humans and livestock. Efficacious vaccines that can rapidly induce a long-term immune response are required to prevent anthrax infection in humans. Domains 4 and 1 of the protective antigen (PA) and lethal factor (LF), respectively, have very high antigenic properties. Aims: In this...

We compared overexpression of the magnetotactic bacterial gene MagA with the modified mammalian ferritin genes HF + LF, in which both heavy and light subunits lack iron response elements. Whereas both expression systems have been proposed for use in non-invasive, magnetic resonance (MR) reporter gene expression, limited information is available regarding their relative potential for providing g...

The present study investigates the applicability of nanoparticle delivery vectors for two-stage targeting that involves both cell entry by endocytosis and nuclear targeting using viral peptide signals. A nanoparticle vector consists of four components: a carrier nanoparticle, a stabilizer, targeting peptides, and a therapeutic cargo. Extensive study of bovine serum albumin (BSA)-peptide stabili...

Expression of the liver-specific a,-antitrypsin (a,AT) gene is extinguished in hepatoma/fibroblast hybrids. To define the mechanism of extinction, we identified DNA sequences involved in this process by transiently transfecting mutant a^AT promoters into parental and hybrid cells. The wild-type WjAT promoter ( -554 to +44 bp) was highly expressed in rat hepatoma cells, but activity was 100-fold...