Background/Aim: Colon cancer is the second deadliest malignancy for human. Its correlation with obesity has led to an increasing number of studies focusing on role adipokines in colon development. Apelin, which belongs family adipokines, affects several pathological processes, including heart diseases, and carcinogenesis. In this study, we examined importance apelin receptor (APJ) during motili...

Fibroblast migration, proliferation, extracellular matrix protein synthesis and degradation, all of which play important roles in inflammation, are themselves induced by various growth factors and cytokines. Less is known about the interaction of these substances on lung fibroblast function in pulmonary fibrosis. The goal of this study was to investigate the effects of PDGF alone and in combina...

Cathepsin K, the most potent mammalian collagenase, has been implicated in osteoporosis, cancer metastasis, atherosclerosis, and arthritis. Although procathepsin K is stable and readily detected, the active mature cathepsin K eludes detection by in vitro methods due to its shorter half-life and inactivation at neutral pH. We describe, for the first time, reliable detection, visualization, and q...

Angiostrongylus costaricensis is a nematode that causes abdominal angiostrongyliasis, a widespread human parasitism in Latin America. This study aimed to characterize the protease profiles of different developmental stages of this helminth. First-stage larvae (L1) were obtained from the faeces of infected Sigmodon hispidus rodents and third-stage larvae (L3) were collected from mollusks Biompha...

BACKGROUND/AIM The intraluminal thrombus (ILT) is considered to participate in abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA) evolution. To assess whether this role proceeds via ILT influence on biological activity of the AAA wall, we studied the relationships between the levels of some relevant proteases and microparticles (MP) released by ILT versus wall in rat experimental AAAs. METHODS AND RESULTS Two w...

OBJECTIVE Although we recently showed that the administration of catechins reduced the neointimal formation in a rat balloon-injury model, the precise molecular mechanisms are largely unknown. In the present study, we tried to determine these mechanisms using an in vitro SMC invasion system. METHODS AND RESULTS Boyden chamber assay was used to examine the effect of catechins on the invasive b...

In order to investigate the involvement of cyclooxygenase (COX)-2 in cell growth and invasion of oral cancer, a human epidermoid carcinoma cell line KB minimally expressing COX-2 protein was transfected with COX-2 cDNA and these activities were compared with mock-transfected KB in vitro and in vivo. KB/COX-2 clones showed a similar growth rate in vitro compared to KB/neo clones, but demonstrate...

The infective third-stage larvae of Angiostrongylus cantonensis secrete a proteolytic enzyme that is thought to be essential for both larval penetration into the intestinal wall of the host and full development. Protease activity in these larvae during culture in vitro was determined by zymography, pH optimum, and substrate and inhibitor specificity. Excretory-secretory (ES) products of the thi...

Matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs) are a family of zinc-dependent endopeptidases, capable of degrading all the molecular components of extracellular matrix. MMPs have been shown to play critical roles in tumor cell invasion and metastasis. We verified the activity of MMPs in the sera and in the urine of patients with kidney carcinoma by gelatin zymo...