Although chronic inflammation is believed to contribute to the pathology of age-related macular degeneration (AMD), knowledge regarding the events that elicit the change from para-inflammation to chronic inflammation in the pathogenesis of AMD is lacking. We propose here that lipocalin-2 (LCN2), a mammalian innate immunity protein that is trafficked to the lysosomes, may contribute to this proc...

The tumor suppressor gene HIC1 is frequently deleted or epigenetically silenced in human cancer, where its restorationmay improve cancer prognosis. Here, we report results illuminating howHIC1 silencing alters effect or signals in triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC), which are crucial for its pathogenesis. HIC1 expression was silenced only in TNBC compared with other molecular subtypes of brea...

Objective(s) Neutrophil gelatinase-associated lipocalin (NGAL/Lcn2), comprise a group of small extracellular proteins with a common P-sheet-dominated 3-dimensional structure. In the past, it was assumed that the predominant role of lipocalin was acting as transport proteins. Recently it has been found that oxidative stress induces Lcn2 expression. It has been also proved that electromagnetic f...

Fabry disease is a lysosomal storage disease caused by a deficiency of alpha-galactosidase A, which results in aberrant glycosphingolipid metabolism and accumulation of globotriaosylceramide (Gb3). Since a correlation between the level of Gb3 and clinical manifestations of Fabry disease has not been observed, we investigated potential diagnostic biomarkers. Hepatic and renal gene expression of ...

To be able to colonize its host, invading Salmonella enterica serovar Typhimurium must disrupt and severely affect host-microbiome homeostasis. Here we report that S. Typhimurium induces acute infectious colitis by inhibiting peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor gamma (PPARγ) expression in intestinal epithelial cells. Interestingly, this PPARγ down-regulation by S. Typhimurium is independ...

Mammalian sperm undergomultiple maturation steps after leaving the testis in order to become competent for fertilization, but the molecular mechanisms underlying this process remain unclear. In terms of identifying factors crucial for these processes in vivo, we found that lipocalin 2 (Lcn2), which is knownas an innate immune factor inhibiting bacterial and malarial growth, can modulate sperm m...

Immune fibroblastic cell (IFC) subpopulations of dermal fibroblasts differentiate into adipocytes and provide skin immune defense in response to infection. To better understand the role these fibroblast subsets, we have undertaken a systematic analysis models inflammation. First, communication from mesenchymal, epithelial, bone-marrow derived cells was investigated using unbiased machine learni...

Due to the heterogeneous nature of breast cancer, metastasis organotropism has been poorly understood. This study assessed specific cancer-related gene expression changes occurring with metastatic cancer recurrence distant organs compared non-metastatic cancer. We found that several secreted mediators encoding genes notably, LCN2 and S100A8 overexpressed at site spine (LCN2, 5-fold; S100A8, 6-f...

Replication initiator 1 (Repin1) is a zinc finger protein highly expressed in liver and adipose tissue and maps within a quantitative trait locus (QTL) for body weight and triglyceride (TG) levels in the rat. The QTL has further been supported as a susceptibility locus for dyslipidemia and related metabolic disorders in congenic and subcongenic rat strains. Here, we elucidated the role of Repin...

We validated a single-stranded, DNA aptamer-based, diagnostic method capable of detecting Lipocalin-2 (LCN2), a biomarker from clinically relevant hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) patient serum, in the sandwich assay format. Nine aptamers (LCN2_apta1 to LCN2_apta9) for LCN2 were screened with SELEX processes, and a sandwich pair (LCN2_apta2 and LCN2_apta4) was finally chosen using surface plasmon...