Purpose: The study objective was to investigate and validate plasma Growth Differentiation Factor-15 (GDF-15) as predictor of lymph node metastasis and poor prognosis in primary endometrial cancer. Experimental design: Plasma samples from 510 women treated for endometrial cancer in a primary investigation cohort (n = 44) and a secondary validation cohort (n = 466) were analyzed for GDF-15. Plas...

The research interest in risk markers in general, and biochemical risk markers in particular, has exploded in the last 2 decades. A Medline search on “cardiovascular risk markers” yields only 21 hits for the publication year 1990. By contrast, for 2010 the figure has risen almost 100-fold to 2032 hits. Despite the high number of new biomarkers examined, only a few have gained widespread use in ...

PURPOSE Growth and differentiation factor-11 (GDF-11) is a TGF-β family member that plays important regulatory roles in development of multiple tissues which include axial skeletal patterning, palatal closure, and tooth formation. Proteins that have been identified as GDF-11 inhibitors include GDF-associated serum protein-1 (GASP-1) and GASP-2. Recently, we found that mice genetically engineere...

It is widely recognized that around 20% of cardiovascular events occurring in the general population cannot be inferred from conventional risk factors. This led to a growing interest in novel measurable humoral biomarkers, hopefully leading to an improvement of global cardiovascular risk stratification. Growth differentiation factor-15 (GDF-15) is the latest promising marker in this field. Grow...

AIMS The aim of this study was to determine whether growth differentiation factor-15 (GDF-15) predicts mortality and morbidity after cardiac resynchronization therapy (CRT). Growth differentiation factor-15, a transforming growth factor-beta-related cytokine which is up-regulated in cardiomyocytes via multiple stress pathways, predicts mortality in patients with heart failure treated pharmacolo...

A subclass of the bone morphogenetic proteins (BMPs), known as growth/differentiation factors (GDFs) 5, 6, and 7, have been shown to affect several skeletal processes, including endochondral ossification, synovial joint formation, and tendon and ligament repair. Mice deficient in GDF-5 have also been shown to exhibit biomechanical abnormalities in tendon that may be associated with altered type...

Prenylated Rab GTPases occur in the cytosol in their GDP-bound conformations bound to a cytosolic protein termed GDP-dissociation inhibitor (GDI). Rab-GDI complexes represent a pool of active, recycling Rab proteins that can deliver Rabs to specific and distinct membrane-bound compartments. Rab delivery to cellular membranes involves release of GDI, and the membrane-associated Rab protein then ...

Replacement of degenerated cartilage with cell-based cartilage products may offer a long-term solution to halt arthritis' degenerative progression. Chondrocytes are frequently used in cell-based FDA-approved cartilage products; yet human marrow-derived stromal cells (hMSCs) show significant translational potential, reducing donor site morbidity and maintaining their undifferentiated phenotype w...

This paper addresses power allocation problems for a dual-hop full-duplex multicarrier decode-forward relay system with or without a direct link from the source to the destination. The full-duplex relay has a residual self-interference proportional to its transmitted power. We consider two schemes of decodeforward at the relay: carrier-wise decode-forward (CDF) and group-wise decode-forward (GD...