Background: The objectives of a series of studies undertaken was to improve farm animal reproductive efficiency in terms of embryo production efficiency, conception rate and litter size by immunoneutralization of inhibin in conjunction with other conventional reproductive techniques. Materials and Methods: A recombinant porcine inhibin alpha-subunit mature peptide was produced by mass scale and...

The regulation of reproductive processes involves a complex network of communication systems between the brain, endocrine organs, the gonads and other reproductive tissues. Classically, our understanding has focused on the role of endocrine hormones, but more recently interest has also dwelt on the paracrine and autocrine regulation of these cell systems. In this review, the structure and physi...

Activin A and related proteins (inhibins, follistatin [FS], follistatin-related gene [FLRG], endometrial bleeding associated factors [ebaf]) are involved in the complex mechanisms allowing the establishment and the maintenance of pregnancy. As a consequence of ovarian progesterone stimuli, activin A is expressed and secreted by the stromal endometrial cells, which locally induces the decidualiz...

Tomoregulin-1, a type-I transmembrane protein with two follistatin modules, a unique epidermal growth factor (EGF) domain and a short, highly conserved cytoplasmic tail, was studied. A number of hematopoietic cell lines (L1210, CEM, Jurkat, U937, K562, JY, THP-1 and T2) express tomoregulin-1 endogenously. In these cells, apoptosis was induced by an antiserum (C29) and purified IgG against the f...

The mechanism of skeletal myoblast fusion is not well understood. We show that endogenous nitric oxide (NO) generation is required for myoblast fusion both in embryonic myoblasts and in satellite cells. The effect of NO is concentration and time dependent, being evident only at the onset of differentiation, and direct on the fusion process itself. The action of NO is mediated through a tightly ...

Ovarian Cancer Treatment In article number 2204436 by Daniel L. Marks, Oleh Taratula, and co-workers, follistatin mRNA delivered lipid nanoparticles targets ovarian cancer clusters dispersed in the peritoneal cavity of mice. When combined with platinum chemotherapy, proposed treatment may allow complete cytoreduction, enhance resilience to iatrogenic burden chemotherapeutic intervention, increa...

Skeletal muscle tissue engineering holds great promise for pharmacological studies. Herein, we demonstrated an in vitro drug testing system using tissue-engineered skeletal muscle constructs. In response to epigenetic drugs, myotube differentiation of C2C12 myoblast cells was promoted in two-dimensional cell cultures, but the levels of contractile force generation of tissue-engineered skeletal ...

Follistatin 288 (FS288) was produced using the follistatin expressing plasmid (pSV2HF288), a gift from Professor Shunichi Shimasaki (University of California, San Diego, USA). The FS288 gene was amplified from pSV2HF288 by PCR and sub-cloned into pAPEX3P vector. The pAPEX3P-FS288 plasmid was transfected into 293EBNA cells, and puromycin-resistant cells expanded to form the stable 293EBNA FS cel...

BACKGROUND In vitro simulation of developmental processes is an invaluable tool to shed light on the intrinsic mechanism of developmental biosystems such as central nervous system in mammals. Chick somites have been used to simulate the neural differentiation of human neural progenitor cells. In the present study, we aimed to indicate whether somites have the ability to express required neural ...