Following the invitation from IRPA to comment on the article written by Professor Roger Clarke entitled 'Control of low-level radiation exposure: time for a change?', the Board of the French Society for Radiation Protection (SFRP) decided to set up a working group on 'controllable dose'. The latter, which worked from April 1999 to July 2000, consisted of some 20 members representing the stakeho...

A significant epidemiological association between obesity and pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) has previously been described, as well as a correlation between the degree of pancreatic steatosis, PDAC risk and prognosis. The underlying mechanisms are still not completely known.After co-culture of 3T3-L1 adipocytes and MiaPaCa2 with an in vitro transwell system we observed the appearance o...

The majority of proteins in eukaryotes are composed of multiple domains, and the number and order of these domains is an important determinant of protein function. Although multidomain proteins with a particular domain architecture were initially considered to have a common evolutionary origin, recent comparative studies of protein families or whole genomes have reported that a minority of mult...

Retinoic acid (RA) derived from vitamin A is necessary for, among other things, mammalian embryonic development. Although the impact of RA-dependent gene-regulation on embryonic development has been examined through genetic disruption of the retinoid receptors, the understanding of the underlying molecular mechanism remain unclear, in part, due to the difficulty in identifying RA-regulated gene...

INTODUCTION Acute myeloid leukemia (AML) is a heterogeneous group of hematologic malignancies with abundant changeability in the pathogenesis. DNA methylation of CpG islands within the promoters of specific genes may play roles in tumor initiation and progression. Secreted frizzled-related proteins (SFRPs) are negative regulator of the Wnt signaling pathway. In the present study, we examined th...

Hippocampal synapses play a key role in memory and learning processes by inducing long-term potentiation and depression. Wnt signaling is essential in the development and maintenance of synapses via several mechanisms. We have previously found that Wnt5a induces the production of nitric oxide (NO), which modulates NMDA receptor expression in the postsynaptic regions of hippocampal neurons. Here...

Aberrations of the Wnt canonical pathway (WCP) are known to contribute to the pathogenesis of various types of cancer. We hypothesize that these defects may exist in mantle cell lymphoma (MCL). Both the upstream and downstream aspects of WCP were examined in MCL cell lines and tumors. Using WCP-specific oligonucleotide arrays, we found that MCL highly and consistently expressed Wnt3 and Wnt10. ...

The invasion of activated fibroblasts represents a key pathomechanism in fibrotic diseases, carcinogenesis and metastasis. Invading fibroblasts contribute to fibrotic extracellular matrix (ECM) formation and the initiation, progression, or resistance of cancer. To construct transcriptome-wide signatures of fibroblast invasion, we used a multiplex phenotypic 3D invasion assay using lung fibrobla...

The Receptor Tyrosine kinase (RTK) and TGF-β signaling pathways play essential roles during development in many organisms and regulate a plethora of cellular responses. From the genome sequence of Strongylocentrotus purpuratus, we have made an inventory of the genes encoding receptor tyrosine kinases and their ligands, and of the genes encoding cytokines of the TGF-β superfamily and their downs...