Rapid growth and formation of new gas exchange units (alveogenesis) are hallmarks of the perinatal lung. Bronchopulmonary dysplasia (BPD), common in very premature infants, is characterized by premature arrest of alveogenesis. Mesenchymal cells (fibroblasts) regulate both lung branching and alveogenesis through mesenchymal-epithelial interactions. Temporal or spatial deficiency of late-gestatio...

Ophiocoma erinaceus Muller &Troschel (Ophiocomidae) is part of the extensive group of echinoderm that contains bioactive metabolites. As, the anti cancer potential of brittle star saponin has not been reported against cervical cancer, the present study was conducted to evaluate the anticancer effect of extracted crude saponin. Saponin extraction was conducted using conventional method such as f...

Human rhinoviruses (HRVs) are responsible for more than half of all cases of the common cold and cost billions of USD annually in medical visits and missed school and work. An assessment was made of the antiviral activities and mechanisms of action of paeonol (PA) and 1,2,3,4,6-penta-O-galloyl-β-D-glucopyranose (PGG) from Paeonia lactiflora root toward HRV-2 and HRV-4 in MRC5 cells using a tetr...

shiga toxins (stxs) are bacterial virulence factors produced by shigella dysenteriae serotype 1 and escherichia coli strains. stxs are critical factors for the development of diseases such as severe bloody diarrhea and hemolytic uremic syndrome. additionally, stxs trigger the secretion of pro- inflammatory cytokines and chemokines, particularly in monocytes or macrophages. the inflammatory cyto...

We have studied transferrin receptor expression in MRC5 human fibroblasts in response to tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF, cachectin) or interleukin 1-alpha (IL-1). Treatment of exponentially growing MRC5 cells with these cytokines led to a 3-4-fold increase in transferrin receptor mRNA and a coordinate increase in transferrin receptor protein by 24 h. Under these conditions, stimulation of [3H...

background and aims: coxsackievirus b3 (cvb3) is the most common agent known to cause viral myocarditis. the viral genome encodes a single polyprotein that is cleaved to produce several proteins by virally encoded proteases. most of this proteolytic processing is catalyzed by a cysteine protease called 3c. the 3c protease plays major role in viral replication and cellular damage. methods: to un...

Glucosaminyl(acyl)phosphatidylinositol [GlcN(acyl)PI], the third intermediate in the mammalian glycosylphosphatidylinositol (GPI) anchor pathway, is undetectable in most cells. This intermediate was previously shown to accumulate, however, in murine lymphoma mutant E and in yeast mutant dpm1, both of which lack dolicholphosphomannose synthase activity. Here we report that a mammalian HeLa S3 su...

sophora pachycarpa schrenk ex c.a.mey. belongs to the family fabaceae. some species of the genus sophora have shown to possess anti-proliferative and apoptosis-inducing activites in cancer cells. however, there is no available information addressing this effect in s. pachycarpa. here, we investigated the cytotoxic effects of methanol extract and different fractions obtained from s. pachycarpa r...

it has been reported that several conifers possess cytotoxic activities on some human tumor cell lines. taxol as a natural cytotoxic compound has been extracted from this family. in a program to screen the cytotoxic effects of natural resources, male and female branchlets, fruit or bark of two different species of iranian conifers were collected, identified and the cytotoxic effects of their hy...