OBJECTIVES Autologous vein grafts are still widely used, but their long-term patency is suboptimal. The objective of the current study was to determine whether wrapping a vein graft in gelatin hydrogel sheet incorporating basic fibroblast growth factor improves their mechanical and physiological properties. METHODS AND RESULTS Autologous femoral vein was interposed into the abdominal aorta in...

Ornithine decarboxylase (ODC), the first enzyme of polyamine biosynthesis, was found to increase in cancer cells, especially lung cancer cells. Some chemotherapeutic agents aimed at decreasing ODC gene expression showed inhibitory effects on cancer cells. In this study, we examined the effects of adenoviral transduced antisense ODC on lung cancer cells. An adenovirus carrying antisense ODC (rAd...

Hyperoxic rats treated with inosine during oxygen exposure have increased levels of active transforming growth factor (TGF)-beta in the bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL), yet alveolar epithelial type 2 cells (AEC2) isolated from these animals demonstrate less hyperoxia-induced DNA damage and increased expression of active Smad2. To determine whether TGF-beta1 signaling per se protected AEC2 against ...

A biotinylated nucleotide analog containing a disulfide bond in the 12-atom linker joining biotin to the C-5 of the pyrimidine ring has been synthesized. This analog, Bio-SS-dUTP, is an efficient substrate for Escherichia coli DNA polymerase I. Bio-SS-dUTP supported DNA synthesis in a standard nick-translation reaction at 35%-40% the rate of an equal concentration of the normal nucleotide, TTP....

Some barley mutants can synthesize neither anthocyanins nor proanthocyanidins in the seed coat, which is related to several genes in locus Ant13, but the exact model of action remains unknown. We used the cDNA microarray technology with barley transcription-deficient mutant (ant13-152) that does not synthesize proanthocyanidins as the tester, and its wild type genotype (Triumph) as the driver, ...

The current view that death of dystrophin-deficient muscle fibers is a necrotic process relies primarily upon the histological appearance of the tissue after the degenerative process is well advanced. Here, we tested this view by examining the possibility that apoptosis is a component of dystrophin-deficient muscle cell death. Three assays for apoptosis were employed in analyzing prenecrotic, p...

Human immune cells infected by HIV naturally contain high uracil content, and HIV reverse transcriptase (RT) does not distinguish between dUTP and dTTP. Many DNA viruses and retroviruses encode a dUTPase or uracil-DNA glycosylase (UNG) to counteract uracil incorporation. However, although HIV virions are thought to contain cellular UNG2, replication of HIV produced in cells lacking UNG activity...

The gene encoding the Epstein-Barr virus (EBV)-specific dUTPase was amplified from virus DNA by PCR. The active enzyme was expressed in Escherichia coli and in insect cells as a non-fusion protein. The protein from E. coli specifically converted dUTP to dUMP and did not react with other dNTPs or NTPs. Preliminary experiments yielded a Km value of about 0.8 microM for dUTP. MAbs against the dUTP...

We have used fluorescent microscopy to map DNA replication sites in the interphase cell nucleus after incorporation of biotinylated dUTP into permeabilized PtK-1 kangaroo kidney or 3T3 mouse fibroblast cells. Discrete replication granules were found distributed throughout the nuclear interior and along the periphery. Three distinct patterns of replication sites in relationship to chromatin doma...