The matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs), a family of proteolytic enzymes that degrade different components of the extracellular matrix, play important roles in tumor development and invasion. A single adenine insertion/deletion polymorphism (6A/5A) in the MMP3 promoter region causes transcriptional elevation. The aim of this study was to assess the effects of this single nucleotide polymorphism (S...

PURPOSE The loss of Wnt-5a, a G-protein-coupled receptor ligand, or Syk, an intracellular kinase, has in separate studies been associated with poor prognosis of breast cancer patients. Both proteins are involved in cell adhesion, a key event in epithelial cancer metastasis. Here, we have investigated whether Syk is part of the Wnt-5a/discoidin domain receptor-1 (DDR1) signaling pathway and if a...

Wnt-5a is a synaptogenic factor that modulates glutamatergic synapses and generates neuroprotection against Aβ oligomers. It is known that Wnt-5a plays a key role in the adult nervous system and synaptic plasticity. Emerging evidence indicates that miRNAs are actively involved in the regulation of synaptic plasticity. Recently, we showed that Wnt-5a is able to control the expression of several ...

Oncogenic Wnt/B-catenin signaling occurs in a majority of colorectal cancers. In contrast, very little is known about the role of the nontransforming Wnt protein family member Wnt5a in those tumors. In the most common of the three colon cancer stages, Dukes B or lymph node–negative, the outcome is the hardest to predict. We searched for a predictive marker in this group and observed loss of or ...

We have characterised a short (30 base pair) element from the Xenopus Wnt-5a promoter which is nearly identical to one located in the human Wnt-5a promoter, and has the same position relative to the transcription start site. When placed in front of a LacZ gene, this element can reproduce the same expression pattern observed for Wnt-5a at the late gastrula stage. Further we show that gastrula st...

Background: Knowing the human platelet angens (HPA) and genes frequency in different populaons is important not only for populaon studies but also for clinical transfusion pracce. HPA genes frequency in Iran is not evaluated, so we invesgated the HPA-2, HPA-3, and HPA-5 frequency and their polymorphism. Materials and Methods: DNA from 120 Iranians (99 Iranian blood donors and 21 paents wi...

Analogs of the 2',5'-linked adenylate trimer diphosphate (pp5'A2'p5'A2'p5'A or 2-5A) containing 8-bromoadenosine in the first, second, third, first and third, or second and third nucleotide positions (from the 5' terminus) were synthesized and found to vary dramatically in their ability to bind to and activate the RNase L of mouse L cells. Whenever the 8-bromoadenosine residue was substituted f...

Amputation of the larval tail of Xenopus injures the notochord, spinal cord, muscle masses, mesenchyme, and epidermis, induces the growth and differentiation of cells in those tissues, and results in tail regeneration. A dorsal incision in the larval tail injures the same tissues and induces cell growth and differentiation, but never results in the formation of any extra appendages. The first s...

Human hematopoietic stem cells are defined by their ability to repopulate multiple hematopoietic lineages in the bone marrow of transplanted recipients and therefore are functionally distinct from hematopoietic progenitors detected in vitro. Although factors capable of regulating progenitors are well established, in vivo regulators of hematopoietic repopulating function are unknown. By using a ...

Epidemiological and phylogenetic studies of hepatitis C virus (HCV) have identified six major HCV genotypes and have attempted to characterize their origin and spread worldwide. Putative regions of endemic infection have been identified for all HCV genotypes except HCV genotype 5a. Although HCV genotype 5a was previously thought to be largely restricted to the northern part of South Africa, thi...