Author Archives: Metabolism

The improvement of insulin sensitivity might be attributed to upregulation of effect oligosaccharides and metformin

Combined with the upregulation of IR and GLUT4 mRNA expression, the increased production of phosphorylated AMPK by oligomannuronate and its chromium complexes enhanced the GLUT4 expression to improve the glucose uptake. Further studies need to be carried out to decipher the intracellular targets of oligomannuronate and its chromium complex both in vitro and in vivo. A published report showed that polysaccharides could enter into liver cells by receptor-mediated endocytosis. We found FITC-labeled OM and OM2 could enter into the C2C12 cells within 15 min. The molecular mechanism of OM and OM2 internalization and its association with insulin related signaling pathway will be an interesting future research subject. Moreover, these two oligosaccharides distributed to mitochondria after internalization into C2C12 cells. These results FTY720 cost suggested that the insulin sensitizing effects of marine oligosaccharides might be associated with the functions of mitochondria in skeletal muscle cells. Insulin resistance was reported to be associated with impaired skeletal muscle oxidation capacity and reduced mitochondrial number and function. AMPK increases GLUT4 expression by a PGC-1a-dependent pathway. Here we showed that the oligosaccharides significantly increased the production of PGC-1a, and enhanced the phosphorylation of ACC protein, which suggested that these oligosaccharides could enhance the fatty acid oxidation in skeletal muscle cells. Combined with the result that the oligosaccharides distributed to the mitochondria, we suppose that these oligosaccharides could improve the functions of mitochondria to attenuate the insulin resistance by regulating energy metabolism. Chromium is a cofactor for insulin function that increases insulin binding, the number of insulin receptors, and insulin receptor phosphorylation, resulting in enhanced glucose transport into liver, muscle, and adipose tissue. Furthermore, it was suggested that Chromium, like insulin, affects protein phosphorylation-dephosphorylation reactions. The IR tyrosine kinase, responsible for the phosphorylation, can be activated by Chromium, to increase insulin sensitivity. Moreover, chromium picolinate was reported to activate AMPK signaling pathway in cardiac and skeletal muscle. Here we showed that the oligomannuronate-Chromium complex OM2 had a better effect on increasing insulin sensitivity than the original oligosaccharide OM, which suggested the introduction of Chromium to the oligosaccharide might be able to increase the phosphorylation of AMPK and PI3K in the signaling pathway. However, the insulin sensitizing effect of OM4 was lower than that of OM2 although it had higher content of chromium than OM2, which indicates that the content of chromium is not the major reason for the observed insulin sensitizing effect and the oligomannuronate-Chromium complex OM2 itself has best insulin sensitizing effect.In conclusion, we found that oligomannuronate and its chromium complexes, which were less cytotoxic than metformin, enhanced glucose uptake in C2C12 cells.

DLBCL is a heterogeneous lymphoma with various subtypes characterized by different gene expression profiles

Accurate diagnosis of BL and DLBCL is essential because adequate chemotherapy regimen differs between both types of lymphomas. BL is cured by high intensity chemotherapy, whereas DLBCL is usually treated by lower-dose chemotherapy regimens: cyclophosphamide, doxorubicin, vincristine, and prednisone, in association with LEE011 rituximab anti-CD20 antibody. Although Ig-myc translocation is the hallmark of BL, c-myc translocations are also found in other lymphomas. In particular, they are found in a subset of DLBCL and in a high proportion of lymphomas that are borderline between BL and DLBCL and were previously called « atypical BL » or « BL-like lymphoma ». These latter lymphomas are now categorized as « Bcell lymphomas, unclassifiable, with features intermediate between DLBCL and BL », and will be referred to as BL/DLBCL in this study. In BL/DLBCL and DLBCL, c-myc translocations often involve non-Ig partners and are associated with a complex caryotype. Several studies have shown that these cases represent aggressive forms with poor prognosis and the most appropriate treatments remain a matter of debate. In particular, a recent study showed that, among DLBCL patients treated with R-CHOP chemotherapy, those having c-myc gene rearrangements had an inferior prognosis compared to those without c-myc translocations, and it was suggested that treatment regimens similar to those used in BL would be more appropriate for these cases. These observations highlighted the importance of identifying cases of DLBCL with c-myc translocations. However, cytogenetic studies are not systematically performed. In previous immunohistochemical studies, we showed that Epstein-Barr virus -induced gene 3, a molecule related to the p40 subunit of interleukin -12, exhibited a restricted expression profile among B-cell lymphomas. We found that EBI3, which was originally characterized as a gene induced in EBV-transformed B cells by the viral oncogene LMP1, was also expressed in certain non-EBV-associated B-cell lymphomas such as DLBCL. Indeed, EBI3 was found to be expressed by tumoral cells in 18/22 cases of DLBCL, whereas it was not expressed in 6/6 cases of EBV-positive BL, consistent with the absence of LMP1 expression in EBV-associated BL. Subsequently, a study of gene profiling by Dave et al showed that EBI3 was among the NF-kB regulated genes that were selectively overexpressed in DLBCL compared to BL. These observations prompted us to further analyze the expression of EBI3 in large series of BL and DLBCL to clearly establish its differential expression profile among both types of lymphomas, and the usefulness of EBI3 immunohistochemistry for their differential diagnosis. In addition, we investigated whether EBI3 immunohistochemistry could be used as a tool to identify cases with potential c-myc gene rearrangements among BL/DLBCL and DLBCL.

Both cardiac and smooth muscle cells and is capable of activating both cardiac and smooth musclespecific gene expression

How is the specificity defined? We observed that the interaction between Tbx5 and myocardin helps mediate distinct smooth muscle and cardiac gene expression profiles. In differentiating smooth muscle cells, Tbx5 staining showed that it was present only in the cytoplasm, instead of the nucleus. Therefore the expression of cardiac genes in smooth muscle cells won’t be activated by the cooperation of Tbx5 and myocardin; however, the activation of smooth muscle genes by myocardin is not affected. Previous studies suggest that the cellular localization of Tbx5 protein might be controlled by its interaction partners, such as LMP4. It will be important to determine whether subcellular location of the Tbx5 proteins contributes to its function in the control of cardiac and smooth muscle gene expression. Tbx5 belongs to the family of T-box containing transcription factors. Several members of this family of transcription factors are also expressed in the heart. Interestingly, Tbx2 was shown to repress the expression of the ANF gene, in part, by impairing the recruitment of Nkx2.5 to the TBE or the NKE. On the other hand, Tbx20 was reported to synergize with Tbx5 to activate cardiac gene expression. Our data demonstrate that Tbx5 and myocardin synergistically activate the expression of cardiac, but not smooth muscle genes. It will be interesting to test whether other members of the Tbx family of transcription factors will also physically and functionally interact with myocardin to regulate cardiac gene expression during development. Multiple missense mutations of the human Tbx5 gene have been associated with the HOS. Interestingly, these mutations do not uniformly impair the function of Tbx5 in the same manner. For example, Tbx5 mutations G80R and R237Q have different effects on its synergistic transactivation of the cardiac-specific ANF gene, which will Tofacitinib distributor likely translate as subtle differences in the phenotype and severity of the HOS. The Tbx5 G80R mutant displayed more severe defect in co-operating with Nkx2.5 to activate the ANF than that of the R237Q mutant. In addition, the synergy of Tbx5 with Sall4 was slightly reduced by mutations Q49K and T54I but dramatically impaired by mutations Q80R and R237W for FGF10 activation. Given the fact that the expression of Tbx5 downstream genes is significantly affected by the dosage of Tbx5, it is reasonable to speculate that the interaction between Tbx5 and myocardin may differentially affect the expression of some genes, like ANF, but not others like SM22. The molecular mechanisms uncovered in this study suggest that the interaction of transcription factors contribute to the expression of their target genes and human disease. Prion diseases are neurodegenerative diseases characterized by misfolding of prion protein leading to pathologic amyloid deposits in brains of humans and other mammals. Cellular prion protein is composed of an N-terminal unstructured part and a globular Cterminal domain, composed of three a-helices and an antiparallel two-stranded b-sheet. This protein fold, which is conserved in all vertebrate prion proteins with determined structure, is stabilized by a tightly packed hydrophobic core.

The greatest understanding of mechanisms of metamorphosis insects it took many technical advancements

The advent of urchin genomics has heralded renewed interest in urchin development, and paired with modern manipulation techniques such as morpholino microinjection, the sea urchin is now one of only a handful of animals whose embryos are readily amenable to both classical and contemporary embryological techniques, including blastomere separations, cell transplantation, and more recently, genetic manipulations. While remarkable progress has been made in understanding the molecular and cellular basis of development in sea urchin embryos, comparatively little is known about the development of the adult body plan as the planktonic larva transitions to the benthic juvenile. That is, the range of experimental approaches enjoyed by urchin embryologists has not been applied to the development of juvenile tissues. Complex life histories –development through feeding planktonic larvae and metamorphosis to benthic juveniles– are widespread in the ocean, with numerous hypothesized independent origins of complex from simpler ancestral life cycles. Even more numerous are losses of larval feeding and/or planktonic development hypothesized for many metamorphic phyla. Thus, despite the importance and commonality of complex life cycles in marine organisms, we have little understanding of the internal and environmental factors that regulate the progression of such life cycles in even a single marine species. Sea urchins display one of the most dramatic metamorphic transitions among the animals. Their larvae are bilaterally symmetric, but their juveniles begin development as an asymmetric invagination of larval epithelial cells, which then, in concert with coelomic tissues VE-821 undergo morphogenesis into a juvenile rudiment, all internal to the larval epithelium. During juvenile rudiment development, the pentameral symmetry of the adult forms along with the primordia of many juvenile structures. After larvae having well-developed juvenile rudiments settle to the sea floor and select an appropriate benthic substrate, they rapidly undergo the most dramatic stage of the metamorphic transformation: in a matter of minutes the juvenile everts out of the larval body, the larval ectoderm I s withdrawn, and the juvenile begins to move along the sea floor using its tube feet. While this life cycle transformation in sea urchins has fascinated biologists for centuries, detailed functional studies of late larval development and the metamorphic transition have been lacking, due in large part to lengthy larval periods and the inherent limitations of accessing densely packed forming juvenile tissue. Still, indirectly developing sea urchin larvae are an ideal organism with which to gain insight into juvenile morphogenesis and metamorphosis. With proper technique, large numbers of sea urchin larvae can be reared synchronously to metamorphic competence, detailed descriptions of metamorphic stages have been published and many transient knockdown techniques have been applied to sea urchin embryos. Yet one significant challenge remains: how does one experimentally manipulate the development of juvenile tissues in sea urchins?

Monitoring gene regulation via mRNA levels to detect anabolic steroid administration

We could apply a similar strategy to other bacterial models, we inquired whether the i-tag could likewise increase expression of fluorescent proteins in other Gram-positive bacteria, namely Lactococcus lactis, Staphylococcus aureus and Bacillus subtilis. As the Leucine codon also varied in the different N-terminal regions that were tested, we speculated whether the use of less frequently used codons could prevent the successful expression of the Citrine fluorescent protein, as the introduction of less frequently used codons in the beginning of mRNA molecules may result in the reduction of the translation of the encoded proteins. This hypothesis had been previously suggested for B. subtilis, where a sequence encoding the first eight aminoacids of specific ComGA was proposed to overcome the slow translation initiation caused by the eukaryotic codon bias present in fluorescent proteins. This is due to the fact that the absence of tRNA molecules can result in a stalled translation process, which consequently may lead to the disassembly of the complex ribosome/mRNA. Regucalcin was first identified in 1978 as a calcium -binding protein, which does not contain the typical EF-hand Ca2+ -binding motif. Subsequently, RGN was identified as senescence marker protein-30 based on the characteristic down-regulation of this protein with ageing in the rat liver. As the name suggests, RGN regulates intracellular Ca2+ Life Science Reagents homeostasis through the modulation of the activity of Ca2+ channels, Ca2+ -ATPase in the membrane of mitochondria and endoplasmic reticulum and – ATPase in the plasma membrane. Moreover, RGN plays an important role in the regulation of Ca2+ -dependent enzymes, such as protein kinases, tyrosine kinases, phosphatases, phosphodiesterase, nitric oxide synthase and proteases. Several studies have showed a role for RGN in the regulation of cell death and proliferation; indeed, RGN also regulates DNA synthesis and fragmentation and modulates the expression of oncogenes, tumour suppressor genes and cell cycle regulators, influencing cell survival and apoptosis. RGN has been localised to the nucleus, cytoplasm and the mitochondria. RGN is widely expressed in a variety of tissues and cell lines and was first identified in the liver, where this protein is highly expressed. However, RGN mRNA and/or protein expression has also been detected in the male and female reproductive tract, submandibular glands, several brain districts, the heart, skeletal muscle, lung, kidney, adrenal glands, bone. RGN protein has been also shown to be secreted to biological fluids, namely plasma and seminiferous tubules fluid. The expression of RGN is regulated through many factors, including intracellular Ca2+ concentration and regulatory transcription factors, namely transcription factor AP-1, b-catenin, nuclear factor I-A1 and RGN gene promoter region-related protein. In addition, Ca2+ -independent mechanisms, including hormonal factors, such as thyroid, parathyroid and sex steroid hormones, have been described in the regulation of RGN expression in cells. The regulation of RGN expression through sex steroids in the rat liver, kidney and more recently, the breast, prostate gland and testis has also been demonstrated.