Chronic exposure to polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), a class of ubiquitous environmental toxicants, causes neurocognitive anomalies. The transcription factor repressor element 1-silencing transcription factor (REST) plays a critical role in neuronal phenotype elaboration in both neural progenitor cells and non-neuronal cells. Here, we investigated the possible relationship between PCBs and RES...

Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) are stable, lipophilic compounds that accumulate in the environment and in the food chain. Though some studies provided evidence that PCBs had adverse effects on reproductive function, most of these results were from in vitro models. Therefore we investigated the effect of Aroclor 1254 (a commercial PCBs mixture) treatments on in vivo maturation and developmenta...

The polychlorinated biphenyl mixture, Aroclor 1254, is a powerful inducer of both cytochromes P-450 and P-448 exhibiting the catalytic properties of both cytochromes in the liver. Addition of Aroclor 1254 to hepatic microsomes produces a type I difference spectrum. When administered to rats, the hemeprotein induced by Aroclor 1254 displayed spectral properties which are a combination of the spe...

The CO-difference spectrum of microsomes from rats treated with the polychlorinated biphenyls mixture, Aroclor 1254, has an absorption maximum at 448 nm. With ethylisocyananide as the ligand for reduced microsomes, Aroclor 1254 treatment causes a shift in the 455-nm peak to 453 nm and increases the ratio of absorbance of 455 nm to that at 430 nm from 0.53, obtained with untreated rats, to 1.24....

Polychlorinated biphenyl (PCB) t residues have been found in the milk of cows. In some instances the residue levels exceeded the FDA guideline 0.2 ppm in milk (equivalent to 5.0 ppm in milk, fat), and the milk was removed from the market. The major source of PCB residues in milk is Aroclor 1254 that has been used in coatings for concrete silos. Aroclor 1254 is unaltered in silos, and most of th...

Neuroblastoma is characterized by a wide range of clinical manifestations and associated with poor prognosis when there is amplification of MYCN oncogene or high expression of Myc oncoproteins. In a previous in vitro study, we found that the glycolytic inhibitor 2-deoxyglucose (2DG) could suppress the growth of neuroblastoma cells, particularly in those with MYCN amplification. In this study, w...

The genome of influenza A viruses (IAV) is split into eight viral RNAs (vRNAs) that are encapsidated as viral ribonucleoproteins. The existence of a segment-specific packaging mechanism is well established, but the molecular basis of this mechanism remains to be deciphered. Selective packaging could be mediated by direct interaction between the vRNA packaging regions, but such interactions have...

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are a class of small non-coding RNAs, which direct post-transcriptional gene silencing (PTGS) and function in a vast range of biological events including cancer development. Most miRNAs pair to the target sites through seed region near the 5' end, leading to mRNA cleavage and/or translation repression. Here, we demonstrated a miRNA-induced dual regulation of heme oxygenase-1 ...

Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) are common environmental contaminants that represent a considerable risk to reproductive toxicity in exposed human populations. Although some experimental studies have suggested an association between the levels of PCBs and semen quality, the direct effects of PCBs on human sperm parameters remain largely unexplored. To this aim, a short-term in vitro incubation...