Background: Survival of the conceptus is dependent on continuous progesterone signaling in the maternal decidua but how this is achieved under conditions of oxidative stress that characterize early pregnancy is unknown. Materials and Methods: Laboratory-based analysis of endometrial biopsies and primary endometrial cultures. Results: Using primary cultures, we show that modest levels of reactiv...

Objective(s): Vascular smooth muscle cells (VSMCs) play a key role in the pathogenesis of diabetic vascular disease. Our current study sought to explore the effects of tanshinone IIA on the proliferation and migration of VSMCs induced by advanced glycation end products (AGEs). Materials and Methods: In this study, we examined the effects of tanshinone IIA by cell proliferation assay and cell mi...

Objective(s):Several investigations have revealed that caspase-14 is responsible for the epidermal differentiation and cornification, as well as the regulation of moisturizing effect. However, the precise regulation mechanism is still not clear. This study was aimed to investigate the expression of caspase-14 in filaggrin-deficient normal human epidermal keratinocytes (NHEKs) and to explore the...

Recent genetic studies in Drosophila identified a novel non-canonical Wnt pathway, the planar cell polarity (PCP) pathway, that signals via JNK to control epithelial cell polarity in Drosophila. Most recently, a pathway regulating convergent extension movements during gastrulation in vertebrate embryos has been shown to be a vertebrate equivalent of the PCP pathway. However, it is not known whe...

The role of JNK in neutrophil chemotaxis and killing of microbial pathogens remains unclear. Using a recently described cell-permeable peptide inhibitor of the JNK pathway, based on the JBD of JIP-1, coupled to the protein transduction domain of HIV-TAT (TAT-JIP), in association with control peptides, we demonstrate that the JNK pathway plays a major role in regulating human neutrophil chemotax...

objective(s):several investigations have revealed that caspase-14 is responsible for the epidermal differentiation and cornification, as well as the regulation of moisturizing effect. however, the precise regulation mechanism is still not clear. this study was aimed to investigate the expression of caspase-14 in filaggrin-deficient normal human epidermal keratinocytes (nheks) and to explore the...

Purpose: To investigate whether the cytoprotective effect of anthocyanin (Anc) on oxygen-glucose deprivation/reperfusion (OGD/R)-induced cell injury is related to apoptosis signal-regulating kinase 1 (ASK1)/c-Jun N-terminal (JNK)/p38 signaling pathway.
 Methods: PC12 cells were pre-treated with various concentrations Anc (10, 50, and 100 ?g/mL) in OGD/R-induced model. The 3-(4, 5)-dimethyl...

Signalling networks that control the life or death of a cell are of central interest in modern biology. While the defined roles of the c-Jun N-terminal kinase (JNK) pathway in regulating cell death have been well-established, additional factors that modulate JNK-mediated cell death have yet to be fully elucidated. To identify novel regulators of JNK-dependent cell death, we performed a dominant...

Abstract Mycobacterium tuberculosis contains diverse immunologically active components. This study investigated the biological function of a newly identified component, Rv1654, with potential to induce apoptosis in macrophages. Recombinant Rv1654 induced macrophage caspase‐9/3‐dependent manner through production reactive oxygen species (ROS) and interaction Toll‐like receptor 4. In addition, tu...

The JNK signal transduction pathway mediates a broad, complex biological process in response to inflammatory cytokines and environmental stress. These responses include cell survival and apoptosis, proliferation tumorigenesis and the immune response. The divergent cellular responses caused by the JNK signal transduction pathway are often regulated by spatial and cell type contexts , as well as ...