Geranylgeranoic acid (GGA) is one of the most potent cancer-preventive acyclic retinoids. GGA has been shown to induce cell death in human hepatoma-derived HuH-7 cells. We have recently reported the natural occurrence of GGA and its related compounds in several medicinal herbs such as turmeric, basil, rosehip, cinnamon and others [Shidoji and Ogawa, J. Lipid Res., 45: 1092-1103, 2004]. In the p...

We investigated whether pretreatment with geranylgeranylacetone (GGA), a potent heat shock protein (HSP) inducer, could inhibit proinflammatory cytokine liberation and nitric oxide (NO) production in lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-treated murine macrophages. The levels of NO and tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-alpha) released from murine macrophage RAW 264 cells were increased dose- and time-depende...

Early reperfusion of myocardial infarction area is the most effective and important therapy to acute myocardial infarction, but could induce reperfusion injury. Geranylgeranylacetone (GGA), an acyclic polyisoprenoid used as an oral anti-ulcer medication, has been reported to have protective effects on reperfusion injury. In the present study, we explored the protective effect of GGA against MIR...

The Golgi-localized, γ-ear-containing, ARF binding proteins (GGAs) are a highly conserved family of monomeric clathrin adaptor proteins implicated in clathrin-mediated protein sorting between the trans-Golgi network and endosomes. GGA RNAi knockdowns in Drosophila have resulted in conflicting data concerning whether the Drosophila GGA (dGGA) is essential. The goal of this study was to define th...

It has been shown that orally administered geranylgeranylacetone (GGA), an anti-ulcer drug, induces expression of heat shock protein 72 (HSP72) and provides protection against ischemia-reperfusion in rat hearts. The underlying protective mechanisms, however, remain unknown. Mitochondria have been shown to be a selective target for heat stress-induced cardioprotection. Therefore, we hypothesized...

Depression is a highly debilitating and widely distributed illness in the general population. Geranylgeranylacetone (GGA), a non-toxic anti-ulcer drug, has been reported to have protective effects in the central nervous system. The aim of this study was to determine the antidepressant effect of GGA in a chronic mild stress (CMS) model of depression. We confirmed that CMS in rats caused a reduct...

The c-myb promoter contains multiple GGA repeats beginning 17 bp downstream of the transcription initiation site. GGA repeats have been previously shown to form unusual DNA structures in solution. Results from chemical footprinting, circular dichroism and RNA and DNA polymerase arrest assays on oligonucleotides representing the GGA repeat region of the c-myb promoter demonstrate that the elemen...

There have been many comparisons of computational methods applied to ground states, but studies of organic reactions usually require calculations on transition states, and these provide a different test of the methods. We present calculations of the geometries of nineteen covalent-bond forming transition states using HF and twelve different functionals, including GGA, hybrid-GGA and hybrid meta...

ADP-ribosylation factors (ARFs) are a family of small GTPases that are involved in various aspects of membrane trafficking events. These include ARF1-ARF6, which are divided into three classes on the basis of similarity in the primary structure: Class I, ARF1-ARF3; Class II, ARF4 and ARF5; and Class III, ARF6. Previous studies identified a novel family of potential ARF effectors, termed GGA1-GG...