PURPOSE VPP mice, which possess a mutant transgene for opsin (V20G, P23H, P27L), exhibit a progressive rod degeneration that resembles one form of human autosomal dominant retinitis pigmentosa. In the present study the association of the development of VPP rod degeneration with abnormal operation of the retinoid visual cycle was examined. METHODS Dark-adapted VPP mice and normal littermates w...

Retinoid signaling via retinoic acid (RA) and retinoid X receptors (RARs and RXRs) regulates mammary epithelial cell growth and differentiation. Loss of RAR-b might represent an early event during breast carcinogenesis. Higher differentiated, estrogen-dependent, estrogen receptor (ER)-positive (ER) mammary carcinoma cells have been found to contain relatively high levels of RAR-a and to be resp...

BACKGROUND Several lines of evidence suggest that retinoids (retinol-ROL or vitamin A, and its active metabolites, retinoic acids-RAs) play important pathogenic roles in HIV infection and combination antiretroviral therapy (cART)-related events. We previously reported that antiretrovirals alter RAs synthesis in vitro. We hypothesised that in vivo serum retinoid concentrations are affected by bo...