The application of lidocaine can lead to nerve damage. Evidence suggests that patients with diabetic neuropathy are at a higher risk for neurotoxicity. In the present study, the successful induction of diabetic neuropathic pain (DNP) in rats via a high-sugar, high-fat diet and intraperitoneal injection of 1% streptozotocin was verified and pronounced tactile allodynia was observed. It was found...

Manganese superoxide dismutase (MnSOD) catalyzes the dismutation of superoxide anions (O(2)(-)) into hydrogen peroxide (H(2)O(2)). We altered the intracellular status of reactive oxygen species by introducing human MnSOD cDNA into the human ovarian cancer cell line SK-OV-3. The overexpression of MnSOD inhibited cell growth and induced a concomitant increase in the level of H(2)O(2) in SK-OV-3 c...

Hypertrophic scars (HTS), the excessive deposition of scar tissue by fibroblasts, is one of the most common skin disorders. Fibroblasts derived from surgical scar tissue produce high levels of α-smooth muscle actin (α-SMA) and transforming growth factor-β1 (TGF-β1). However, the molecular mechanisms for this phenomenon is poorly understood. Thus, the purpose of this study was to evaluate the mo...

During myocardial ischemia, connexin 43 (Cx43) is dephosphorylated in vitro, and the subsequent opening of gap junctions formed by two opposing Cx43 hexamers was suggested to propagate ischemia/reperfusion injury. Reduction of infarct size (IS) by ischemic preconditioning (IP) involves activation of protein kinase C (PKC) and p38 mitogen activated protein kinase (MAPK), both of which can phosph...

Abnormal survival of retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) cells contributes to the pathogenesis of proliferative vitreoretinopathy (PVR), a sight-threatening disease. In this study, we explored the effect of the anti-rheumatic agent auranofin (AF) on RPE cell survival and studied the underlying signaling mechanisms in vitro. Our results showed that AF inhibited ARPE-19 cell survival in a dose and t...

Proinsulin C-peptide has been reported to have some biological activities and to be possibly involved in the development of diabetic microangiopathy. In the present study, we examined the effects of C-peptide on the mitogen-activated protein kinase pathway in LEII mouse lung capillary endothelial cells. Stimulation of the cells with C-peptide increased both p38 mitogen-activated protein kinase ...

Oxidative stress, owing to the excessive production of ROS (reactive oxygen species), is one of the leading causes for the progression of AD (Alzheimer’s disease). Increasing evidences suggested that oxidative stress insult impaired the physiological functioning of neuronal cells by inducing cell apoptosis. The search for drug candidates that can effectively protect neurons from oxidative stres...

Foreign CpG-DNA from viruses and bacteria can activate memory B cells through binding to toll-like receptor 9, and this pathway has been hypothesized to be involved in the continuous activation of memory B cells ensuring life-long humoral immunity. In this study, we demonstrate that retinoic acid (RA) is a potent coactivator of this pathway in human B cells. RA enhanced the CpG-mediated prolife...

ADAMTS18 is a novel tumor suppressor and is critical to the pathology of human colorectal cancer. However, the underlying mechanism is not clear. Here we generated an Adamts18-deficient mouse strain as an in vivo model to investigate the role of ADAMTS18 in the pathogenesis of colorectal cancer. In AOM/DSS-induced colitis-associated colorectal cancer, the deficiency of Adamts18 in mice resulted...

BACKGROUND To examine the corneal epithelial phenotype in an altered basement membrane. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS Corneas from 9 patients with symptoms of continuous unstable corneal curvature (CUCC) were harvested by penetrating keratoplasty and subjected to histology examination and immunohistochemical staining with transactivating and N-terminally truncated pP63 transcript (ΔNp63), cy...