Midkine (MK) is a cytokine that modulates amphetamine-induced striatal astrogliosis, suggesting a possible role of MK in neuroinflammation induced by amphetamine. To test this hypothesis, we studied astrogliosis and microglial response induced by amphetamine (10 mg/kg i.p. four times, every 2 h) in different brain areas of MK-/- mice and wild type (WT) mice. We found that amphetamine-induced mi...

Monosomal karyotype (MK), defined as 2 or more monosomies, or a single monosomy in the presence of structural abnormalities, has recently been reported as identifying a distinct subset of acute myeloid leukemia (AML) patients with an extremely poor prognosis. In an effort to confirm this observation, we analyzed the prognostic impact of MK in 1344 AML patients between the ages of 16 and 88 year...

6 List of original publications 7

Midkine (MK) is a unique growth and differentiation factor that modulates the proliferation and migration of various cells; however, little is known regarding its relationship to intestinal diseases. The aim of this study was to investigate MK expression and its role in dextran sulfate sodium (DSS)-induced colitis in rats. The expressions of MK, receptor-like protein-tyrosine phosphatase (RPTP)...

The cytokine midkine (MK) promotes tumor growth mainly by inducing angiogenesis. Here, we identified the source of MK in the vascular system under hypoxic conditions and demonstrated the relevance of MK during ischemia of normal tissue. Hypoxia increased MK protein expression in human polymorphonuclear neutrophils (PMN), monocytes, and human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVEC) compared wit...

Monosomal karyotype (MK), defined as > 2 autosomal monosomies or a single monosomy in the presence of other structural abnormalities, was confirmed by several studies to convey an extremely poor prognosis in patients with acute myeloid leukemia (AML) with a 4-year overall survival after diagnosis of < 4%. A recent investigation by the Southwest Oncology Group found that the only MK patients ali...

Interim results of the C-WORTHY trial of the nonstructural (NS) 3/4A protease inhibitor MK-5172 and the NS5A replication complex inhibitor MK-8742 suggest that the combination exerts robust virologic suppression in treatment-naive patients with genotype (GT) 1 hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection. Interim results of C-WORTHY, a phase 2b trial, were reported by Eric Lawitz, MD, of the University of...

BACKGROUND Midkine (MK) is a heparin-binding growth factor involved in diverse biological phenomena, eg, neural survival, carcinogenesis, and tissue repair. MK could have a protective action against ischemia/reperfusion (I/R) injury in the heart, because MK was shown to have cytoprotective activity in cultured neurons and tumor cells. We investigated this hypothesis in mice with and without gen...

The effect of zinc and vitamin K2 (menaquinone-7) on bone components in the femoral tissue of female elderly rats was investigated. Rats were orally administrated either vehicle (distilled water), zinc sulfate (1.0 mg Zn/100 g body weight), menaquinone-7 (MK-7, 0.5 mg/100 g) or zinc (1.0 mg/100 g) plus MK-7 (0.5 mg/100 g) once a day for 7 days. Femoral dry weight was significantly increased by ...

Effect of clozapine on MK-801-induced hyperlocomotion and stereotypy as well as open field behavior was studied. Clozapine (0.1-7.5 mg/kg) dose-dependently blocked MK-801(0.5 mg/kg)-induced stereotypy. Both total and ambulatory responses were blocked by even the lower doses (0.1-0.5 mg/kg) of clozapine. In open field test, clozapine selectively blocked hyperambulation induced by MK-801 (0.1 mg/...