Over-activation of B7/CD28 co-stimulatory signal is believed to play an important role in promoting hyperfunctional immune response which contributes to autoimmune diseases. In the present study, we generated the recombinant lentivirus transcribing short hairpin RNA (shRNA) specific for mouse B7-2 gene silencing and B7/CD28 signal inhibition to explore and evaluate a potential candidate approac...

Cytokine-induced killer (CIK) cells are in vitro-expanded cells harboring potent toxicity against tumor cells. Recently, it was identified that the cytotoxicity and proliferation of CIK cells are restricted by a prolonged CIK cell culture period. Cytotoxic T lymphocyte-associated antigen 4 (CTLA-4) serves a negative role in T cell activation and proliferation. This study aims to determine wheth...

PURPOSE Lentivirus-mediated gene transfer is an important approach to modify the function of progenitor cells in ex vivo gene therapy, but may be susceptible to downregulation due to transcriptional silencing. The purpose of this study was to analyze the stability of lentivirus-mediated transgene expression in undifferentiated and differentiated retinal progenitor cells (RPCs), and to character...

In glutaric aciduria type 1 (GA1), glutaryl-CoA dehydrogenase (GCDH) deficiency has been shown to be responsible for the accumulation of glutaric acid and striatal degeneration. However, the mechanisms by which GA1 induces striatal degeneration remain unclear. In this study, we aimed to establish a novel neuronal model of GA1 and to investigate the effects of GCDH deficiency and lysine-related ...

Successful live attenuated vaccines mimic natural exposure to pathogens without causing disease and have been successful against several viruses. However, safety concerns prevent the development of attenuated human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) as a vaccine candidate. If a safe, replicating virus vaccine could be developed, it might have the potential to offer significant protection against HIV ...

Lentivirus vectors can transduce dividing and nondividing cells. Using three-plasmid transient transfections, high-titer (>10(9) IU/ml) recombinant lentivirus vectors pseudotyped with vesicular stomatitis virus G (VSV-G) protein can be generated (T. Kafri et al., Nat. Genet. 17:314-317, 1997; H. Miyoshi et al., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 94:10319-10323, 1997; L. Naldini et al., Science 272:263-...

Neuropilin-1 (NRP-1) is a novel receptor of vascular endothelial growth factor 165 that promotes angiogenesis, tumor growth, tumor invasion and metastasis. However, its role in tumorigenesis and progression of human hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is unknown. In this study, lentivirus-mediated short hairpin RNA (shRNA) was used to silence NRP-1 in the HCCLM6 cell line to explore its role in regu...

INTRODUCTION The purpose of this study was to investigate the changes of chitinase 3-like 1 (CHI3L1) in the aorta of patients with coronary atherosclerosis and to determine whether inhibition of CHI3L1 by lentivirus-mediated RNA interference could stabilize atherosclerotic plaques in apolipoprotein E-knockout (ApoE(-/-)) mice. METHODS We collected discarded aortic specimens from patients unde...

Multiple sclerosis (MS) is an autoimmune disease characterized by inflammatory cell infiltration of the central nervous system (CNS) and multifocal demyelination. Clinical data and clinical indicators demonstrate that estrogen improves the relapse-remittance of MS patients. This study aimed to investigate the anti-inflammatory effects and the underlying mechanism(s) of action of estrogen and es...