Autophagy is an important cellular process that controls cells in a normal homeostatic state by recycling nutrients to maintain cellular energy levels for cell survival via the turnover of proteins and damaged organelles. However, persistent activation of autophagy can lead to excessive depletion of cellular organelles and essential proteins, leading to caspase-independent autophagic cell death. As such, inducing cell death through this autophagic mechanism could be an alternative approach to the treatment of cancers. Recently, we have identified a novel autophagic inducer, saikosaponin-d (Ssd), from a medicinal plant that induces autophagy in various types of cancer cells through the formation of autophagosomes as measured by GFP-LC3 puncta formation. By computational virtual docking analysis, biochemical assays and advanced live-cell imaging techniques, Ssd was shown to increase cytosolic calcium level via direct inhibition of sarcoplasmic/endoplasmic reticulum Ca2+ ATPase pump, leading to autophagy induction through the activation of the Ca2+/calmodulin-dependent kinase kinase–AMP-activated protein kinase–mammalian target of rapamycin pathway. In addition, Ssd treatment causes the disruption of calcium homeostasis, which induces endoplasmic reticulum stress as well as the unfolded protein responses pathway. Ssd also proved to be a potent cytotoxic agent in apoptosis-defective or apoptosis-resistant mouse embryonic fibroblast cells, which either lack caspases 3, 7 or 8 or had the Bax-Bak double knockout. These results provide a detailed understanding of the mechanism of action of Ssd, as a novel autophagic inducer, which has the potential of being developed into an anti-cancer agent for targeting apoptosis-resistant cancer cells. 相似文献
We have previously set up an in vitro mesenchymal-epithelial cell co-culture model which mimics the intestinal crypt villus axis biology in terms of epithelial cell differentiation. In this model the fibroblast-induced epithelial cell differentiation from secretory crypt cells to absorptive enterocytes is mediated via transforming growth factor-β (TGF-β), the major inhibitory regulator of epithelial cell proliferation known to induce differentiation in intestinal epithelial cells. The aim of this study was to identify novel genes whose products would play a role in this TGF-β-induced differentiation. 相似文献
Myiasis infestations caused by the larvae of flies mostly belonging to Cyclorapha suborders are frequently encountered in Turkey, which is located in the subtropical zone. The skin is a common site for myiasis, and the infestations are likely to develop in infected tissues and poorly attended wounds of the skin.
The case, a 30-year-old male patient, was diagnosed with psoriasis 18 years ago. He had psoriatic scales on his right big toe and was receiving corticosteroid and immunosuppressive drugs.
A total of 11 fly larvae were removed from the infected right first toe of the patient. Structures of the stigmas seen in the cross-sections taken from the final segments of these larvae were examined and determined as Sarcophaga spp. larvae.
Patients with infected tissues should be extremely cautious about their wound hygiene and take required fly control measures especially during summer as flies can find a suitable environment for sustenance. 相似文献
In order to identify pathogenic correlates of refractory rheumatoid arthritis (RA), antibodies against anti-cyclic citrullinated
protein (ACPAs) were investigated in RA patients in whom the dysregulated immune system had been ablated by high-dose chemotherapy
(HDC) and autologous haematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT). Six patients with refractory RA were extensively characterized
in terms of levels of total immunoglobulins, RA-specific autoantibodies (ACPAs and rheumatoid factor) and antibodies against
rubella, tetanus toxoid (TT) and phosphorylcholine before and after HDC plus HSCT. Additionally, the avidity of ACPAs was
measured before and after treatment and compared with the avidity of TT antibodies following repeated immunizations. Synovial
biopsies were obtained by arthroscopy before HDC plus HSCT, and analyzed by immunohistochemistry. In the three patients with
clinically long-lasting responses to HDC plus HSCT (median 423 days), significant reductions in ACPA-IgG levels after therapy
were observed (median level dropped from 215 to 34 arbitrary units/ml; P = 0.05). In contrast, stable ACPA-IgG levels were observed in three patients who relapsed shortly after HDC plus HSCT (median
of 67 days). Clinical responders had ACPA-IgG of lower avidity (r = 0.75; P = 0.08) and higher degree of inflammation histologically (r = 0.73; P = 0.09). Relapse (after 38 to 530 days) in all patients was preceded by rising levels of low avidity ACPA-IgG (after 30 to
388 days), in contrast to the stable titres of high avidity TT antibodies. In conclusion, humoral autoimmune responses were
differentially modulated by immunoablative therapy in patients with synovial inflammation and low avidity ACPA-IgG autoantibodies
as compared with patients with high levels of high avidity ACPA-IgG. The distinct clinical disease course after immunoablative
therapy based on levels and avidity of ACPA-IgG indicates that refractory RA is not a single disease entity. 相似文献
The post-genomic era has brought new challenges regarding the understanding of the organization and function of the human
genome. Many of these challenges are centered on the meaning of differential gene regulation under distinct biological conditions
and can be performed by analyzing the Multiple Differential Expression (MDE) of genes associated with normal and abnormal
biological processes. Currently MDE analyses are limited to usual methods of differential expression initially designed for
paired analysis. 相似文献
Many protein interactions, especially those involved in signaling, involve short linear motifs consisting of 5-10 amino acid
residues that interact with modular protein domains such as the SH3 binding domains and the kinase catalytic domains. One
straightforward way of identifying these interactions is by scanning for matches to the motif against all the sequences in
a target proteome. However, predicting domain targets by motif sequence alone without considering other genomic and structural
information has been shown to be lacking in accuracy. 相似文献
Deacetylation of histones plays a fundamental role in gene silencing, and this is mediated by a corepressor complex containing
Sin3 as an essential scaffold protein. In this report we examine the evolution of two proteins in this complex, the Sin3-associated
proteins SAP30L and SAP30, by using an archive of protein sequences from 62 species. 相似文献
B-cell depletion has become a common treatment strategy in anti-TNF-refractory rheumatoid arthritis (RA). Although the exact mechanism of how B-cell depletion leads to clinical amelioration in RA remains to be elucidated, repetitive treatment with B-cell-depleting agents leading to long-term B-cell depletion has been reported to be beneficial. The latter has led to the hypothesis that the beneficial effects of B-cell depletion might act through their influence on pathogenic autoreactive plasma cells.
Methods
In this study, we investigated the effects of a fixed retreatment regimen with anti-CD20 mAbs on the humoral (auto)immune system in a cohort of therapy-refractory RA patients.
Results
Fixed retreatment led to long-term B-cell depletion in peripheral blood, bone marrow and, to a lesser extent, synovium. Also, pathologic autoantibody secretion (that is, anticitrullinated peptide antibodies (ACPAs)) was more profoundly affected by long-term depletion than by physiological protective antibody secretion (that is, against measles, mumps and rubella). This was further illustrated by a significantly shorter estimated life span of ACPA-IgG secretion compared to total IgG secretion as well as protective antibody secretion.
Conclusion
By studying plasma cell function during an extensive 2-year period of B-cell depletion, autoantibody secretion was significantly shorter-lived than physiologically protective antibody secretion. This suggests that the longevity of autoreactive plasma cells is different from protective long-lived plasma cells and might indicate a therapeutic window for therapies that target plasma cells. 相似文献
SomaticSeq is an accurate somatic mutation detection pipeline implementing a stochastic boosting algorithm to produce highly accurate somatic mutation calls for both single nucleotide variants and small insertions and deletions. The workflow currently incorporates five state-of-the-art somatic mutation callers, and extracts over 70 individual genomic and sequencing features for each candidate site. A training set is provided to an adaptively boosted decision tree learner to create a classifier for predicting mutation statuses. We validate our results with both synthetic and real data. We report that SomaticSeq is able to achieve better overall accuracy than any individual tool incorporated.
Electronic supplementary material
The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s13059-015-0758-2) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. 相似文献