Recent studies of human disease and transgenic animal experiments have clearly demonstrated the importance of desmosomes in normal tissue architecture. Furthermore, desmosomal components are down-regulated in certain types of carcinomas, suggesting a possible role for desmosomes in suppression of invasion and metastasis. However, there is no functional evidence to support such a hypothesis. To ...

The role of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) mutations and mtDNA recombination in cancer cell proliferation and developmental biology remains controversial. While analyzing the mtDNAs of several mouse L cell lines, we discovered that every cell line harbored multiple mtDNA mutants. These included four missense mutations, two frameshift mutations, and one tRNA homopolymer expansion. The LA9 cell lines ...

Incubation of L929 cells with three different glucocorticoids, hydrocortisone, dexamethasone and triamcinolone acetonide, rendered the cells unable to support plaque formation by several unrelated DNA and RNA viruses. The establishment of this antiviral state by dexamethasone coincided with an inhibition of cell growth and induction of glutamine synthetase activity. These steroid-mediated activ...

the influenza viruses are major etiologic agents of human respiratory infections, and inflict a sizable health and economic burden. this study examines the antiinfluenza virus activity of hydroalcoholic extract of olive leaves (olhe). olive leaves were collected from gardens around the city of shiraz, characterized, dried, ground to powder, and its hydroalcoholic extract was prepared. the influ...

background: rna interference (rnai) is the mechanism of gene silencing-mediated messenger rna degradation by small interference rna (sirna), which becomes a powerful tool for in vivo research, especially in the areas of cancer. in this research, the potential use of an expression vector as a specific sirna producing tool for silencing of bcr-abl in k562 cell line has been investigated. methods:...

expression of receptor tyrosine kinase ror1 in a wide variety of cancers has emerged as a new era focusing on targeting this receptor in cancer therapy. our preliminary re-sults indicate the presence of a truncated transcript of ror1 in tumor cells. the trun-cated ror1 encompasses extracellular and transmembrane domains, lacking catalytic kinase domain (ror1-ecd). as enzyme activity is highly d...

After characterization of the porin OmpF and selection of molecular structures responsible for leukocyte activation by using computer-assisted epitope analysis, the analogs OmpF (153-174) (containing amino acids 153 to 174), OmpF (157-174), and OmpF (275-285) were synthesized and tested. Like the native protein, the segments were mitogenic for BALB/c splenocytes and induced B lymphocyte differe...

Introduction: Traditionally Prangos ferulacea root is being used as an effective wound healing agent especially for pus-filled wounds both in human and stocks in the western north of Iran. Regarding the subject we decided to study P. ferulacea roots essential oil (PFE) for its antimicrobial and wound healing activities. Methods: The in vitro wound healing activity of PFE was evaluated in the mo...

OBJECTIVES The choice of cell line for in vitro biological tests which assess the cytotoxicity of dental materials remains controversial, yet this issue is important because these tests are widely used to rate the biocompatibility of new and existing materials, and many different cell lines are commonly used. The purpose of the current study was to quantify the responses of four cell lines (Bal...