Ribozymes are a new pharmaceutical class of reagents that offer potential in treating a number of different medical disorders, including infectious diseases and cancer. As a first step towards using ribozymes for the treatment of liver disorders such as viral hepatitis, adenovirus vectors that contain a ribozyme expression cassette under the control of different promoters directed against human...

BACKGROUND Based on the increasing body of evidence that adults with human growth hormone (hGH) deficiency exhibit signs of impaired health, many countries have approved the use of hGH (somatotropin) as a replacement therapy in deficient adults. The results and efficacy of hGH therapy are strikingly consistent. Untreated hGH deficient adults are shown to have increased cardiovascular mortality,...

Regulation of human placental growth-hormone variant (hGH-V) in the presence of its own promoter has been studied. At term, 10-20% of placental mRNA is specific for chorionic somatomammotropin (hCS-A and -B) compared with 0.05% hGH-V, yet these genes show more than 90% sequence similarity at the nucleotide level. By using stable gene transfer of intact hGH-V and hCS-A genes into rat pituitary (...

Sensitive and selective methods for the detection of human growth hormone (hGH) over a wide range of concentrations (high levels of 50-100 ng ml(-) (1) and minimum levels of 0.03 ng ml(-) (1)) in circulating blood are essential as variable levels may indicate altered physiology. For example, growth disorders occurring in childhood can be diagnosed by measuring levels of hGH in blood. Also, the ...

Protein splicing is a post-translational autocatalystic excision of internal protein sequence (intein) with the subsequent ligation of the flanking polypeptides (exteins). The high specificity of excision ensured by intein makes it possible to use a phenomenon of protein splicing for the biotechnology purposes. The aim of this work was optimization of obtaining and purification of the recombina...

Human tissues express growth hormone receptors (hGHR) by the 3rd mo of gestation. We assessed developmental changes in hGHR function in fibroblasts and liver, testing binding and hormonal response. Fetal cells showed low but reproducible hGH binding. No age-related changes occurred in fibroblasts (9 wk-34 yr). In contrast, there was a fourfold increase in hGH binding in postnatal liver, with a ...

There is consensus among practitioners of age-management/longevity medicine that progressive failure of neuroendocrine function leads to hormone insuffi ciency, which underlies many of the maladaptive consequences of aging. Accordingly, one of the most commonly employed clinical interventions in aging is balanced hormone replacement therapy (HRT). This approach is often quite effective since ma...