background: acanthamoeba keratitis develops by pathogenic acanthamoeba such as a. pal­es­tinen­sis . indeed this species is one of the known causative agents of amoebic keratitis in iran. mannose binding protein (mbp) is the main pathogenicity factors for developing this sight threatening disease. we aimed to characterize mbp gene in pathogenic acanthamoeba isolates such as a. palestinensis . m...

Intramolecular binding of a ligand with an alkyl link, (-CH(2))(3), covalently bound to a residue near the active site of the protein forms a novel steroid-sensing model. A genetically engineered big up tri, open(5)-3-ketosteroid isomerase (KSI) was designed to conjugate uniquely with this ligand at its Cys-86 through the formation of a disulfide bond. The steady-state protein-ligand binding, m...

The effects of various substrates on the binding of agonists to muscarinic receptors were studied in the rat hypothalamus and adenohypophysis by competition experiments using the highly specific tritiated muscarinic antagonist N-methyl-4-piperidyl benzilate. It was found that agonist binding properties were affected only by the steroid sex hormones (beta-estradiol and progesterone), both of whi...

The mechanism by which sex steroids influence very low density hepatic lipoprotein triglyceride production has not been fully elucidated. In previous studies we showed that [(14)C]oleate utilization and incorporation into triglycerides were greater in hepatocyte suspensions from adult female rats than from males. The sex differences were not related to activities of the enzymes of triglyceride ...

Previous studies in ovine uterine arteries have demonstrated that sex steroid hormones upregulate extracellular signal-regulated kinase 1/2 expression and downregulate the protein kinase C signaling pathway, resulting in the attenuated myogenic tone in pregnancy. The present study tested the hypothesis that chronic hypoxia during gestation inhibits the sex steroid-mediated adaptation of extrace...

To measure the concentration of testosterone (T) that is not bound to sex-steroid-binding protein (SBP) in plasma, we quantified by radioimmunoassay the T in the supernates of plasma samples after precipitation with 50%-saturated ammonium sulfate. The concentrations of non-SBP-bound T. directly measured with this assay, correlated significantly (P less than 0.001) with those deduced from measur...

Sex steoid binding plasma protein (Sbp) in man and in monkeys binds the androgens dihydrotestosterone and testosterone and the estrogen estradiol with high affinity (Kd approximately 0.5, 1, and 2 nM, respectively). Detailed studies of steroid binding specificity give the same results in all primates, except that in humans and chimpanzees estrone does not compete for dihydrotestosterone binding...

background:   objective: this study was conducted to determine the effect of omega-3 supplementation on sex hormone-binding protein (shbg), testosterone, free androgen index (fai) and menstrual status in women with pcos.   materials and methods: this double-blind randomized clinical trial was conducted on 78 overweight/obese women with pcos. participants were randomized to receive omega-3 (3gr/...

To investigate the role of steroid receptors in mediating the reported effects of steroids on Schwann cell (SC) myelination and growth, we determined mRNA contents and transcriptional activities of the corticosteroid (glucocorticosteroid and mineralocorticosteroid) receptors (GR and MR) and sex steroid (progesterone, androgen, and estrogen alpha and beta) receptors in rat SC cultured under prol...

Immunoadsorption, Ecdysteroids, Calliphorin, Steroid-Binding Protein, Photoaffinity-Labelling Endogenous ecdysteroids as well as radiolabelled exogenous ecdysone were crosslinked to a protein when haemolymph from blowfly larvae was irradiated with UV-light under optimized conditions. This indicates that larval haemolymph of blowflies contains an ecdysteroid-binding protein. The crosslinked ecdy...