In order to more accurately determine the mechanism by which retinoic acid causes embryonic defects, we have developed a simple method of locally applying retinoic acid rather than immersing the whole embryo in retinoic acid solutions. Retinoic acid was suspended in corn oil and then injected between the surface and the deep ectodermal layers of an early gastrula Xenopus embryo. When droplets c...

Retinoic acid has recently been shown to control the phenotype and extracellular matrix composition of corneal stromal cells cultured in vitro as monolayers. This study set out to investigate the effects of retinoic acid on human corneal keratocytes within a 3D environment. Human corneal keratocytes were encapsulated in collagen gels, which were subsequently compressed under load, and cultured ...

To identify potential biomarkers of therapy response, we have previously done a large-scale gain-of-function genetic screen to identify genes whose expression confers resistance to histone deacetylase inhibitors (HDACI). This genetic screen identified two genes with a role in retinoic acid signaling, suggesting that HDACIs target retinoic acid signaling as part of their anticancer effect. We st...

The inositol trisphosphate (Inspa) receptor is an essential regulator of intracellular calcium in many cells including chemoattractantand cytokine-stimulated neutrophils and differentiated promyelocytic leukemic (HL-60) cells. We examined the expression and function of the InsP3 receptor and the transcriptional regulation of the InsP3 receptor gene in HL-60 cells and in HL-60 cells treated for ...

Retinoic acid is essential for skin growth and differentiation, and its concentration in skin is controlled tightly. In humans, four different members of the short-chain dehydrogenase/reductase (SDR) superfamily of proteins were proposed to catalyze the rate-limiting step in the biosynthesis of retinoic acid (the oxidation of retinol to retinaldehyde). Epidermis contains at least three of these...

Objective(s):To culture thein vitro mouse embryonic stem cells (mESCs) and to direct their  differentiation to germ-line cells; in present study we used a vector backbone containing the fusion construct Stra8-EGFP to select differentiated ES cells that entered meiosis.  Retinoic acid was used to differentiate embryonic stem cells to germ cells. Materials and Methods: A fragment of Stra8 gene pr...

The mechanisms underlying the growth-inhibitory effect of retinoids on normal human B lymphocytes are not well understood. We addressed this issue by examining the effect of retinoic acid on the cell cycle machinery involved in G1/S transition. When retinoic acid was administered to B cells stimulated into mid to late G1 by anti-IgM antibodies (anti-μ) and Staphylococcus aureus crude cell suspe...