Glucose-regulated protein 78 (GRP78) is expressed abundantly in various types of cancer cells and is believed to contribute to chemotherapeutic resistance. In this study, we investigated the effect of a continuous approach for the expression of a short hairpin RNA (shRNA) targeted to GRP78 with retrovirus transduction on the sensitivity to the anticancer drugs VP-16 and cisplatin. The reduction...

Altered levels of trace elements are associated with increased oxidative stress that is eventually responsible for pathologic conditions. Oxidative stress has been proposed to be involved in eye diseases, including cataract formation. We visualized the distribution of metals and other trace elements in the eye of zebrafish embryos by micro X-ray fluorescence (μ-XRF) imaging. Many elements showe...

CENP-A is a centromere-specific histone H3 variant that is essential for kinetochore formation. Here, we report that the fission yeast Schizosaccharomyces pombe has at least two distinct CENP-A deposition phases across the cell cycle: S and G2. The S phase deposition requires Ams2 GATA factor, which promotes histone gene activation. In Delta ams2, CENP-A fails to retain during S, but it reaccum...

Heat shock protein 90 is a molecular chaperon that maintains the correct folding and function of multiple client proteins. The inhibition of heat shock protein 90, which leads to the simultaneous degradation of multiple proteins involved in oncogenic signaling pathways, has revealed an innovative strategy to treat a variety of cancer types. We evaluated the therapeutic effects of ganetespib, a ...

We found that a cold acclimation protein from an ice-nucleating bacterium, lhtoea ananas KUIN-3, has refolding actiyity on frozen denatured protein. Based on a SDS-PAGE analysis, we confirmed that the co]d shock-treated cells of strain KUIN-3 could produce some cold acclimation proteins that inhibit their syntheses by the addition of chloramphenicol during the cold acclimation. Among such prote...

BACKGROUND Viscerotropic leishmaniasis caused by Leishmania tropica poses a significant problem in the diagnosis and treatment management. Since differential gene expression is more important in outcome of the infection, we employed proteomic approach to identify potential proteins involved in visceralization of L. tropica. METHODS The proteomes profiling of L. tropica isolated from cutaneous...

Protein farnesylation is required for the activation of multiple proteins involved in cell differentiation and function. In white adipose tissue protein, farnesylation has shown to be essential for the successful differentiation of preadipocytes into adipocytes. We hypothesize that protein farnesylation is required for PPARgamma2 expression and activation, and therefore for the differentiation ...

Translation of the sigma factor RpoS is activated by DsrA, RprA and ArcA, three small non-coding sRNAs (sRNA) that expose the ribosome-binding site (RBS) by opening up an inhibitory loop. In the RpoS network, no sRNAs have been found to pair with the RBS, a most common sRNA target site in bacteria. Here, we generate Ribo-0, an artificial sRNA, which represses rpoS translation by pairing with th...

Notch is a transmembrane receptor that mediates the cell-cell interactions necessary for many cell-fate decisions. Endocytic trafficking of Notch plays important roles in the activation and downregulation of this receptor. A Drosophila O-FucT-1 homolog, encoded by O-fut1, catalyzes the O-fucosylation of Notch, a modification essential for Notch signaling and ligand binding. It was recently prop...

Systemic deletion of the gene encoding for adipose triglyceride lipase (ATGL) in mice leads to severe cardiac dysfunction due to massive accumulation of neutral lipids in cardiomyocytes. Recently, impaired peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor α (PPARα) signaling has been described to substantially contribute to the observed cardiac phenotype. Disturbances of the ubiquitin-proteasome syste...