We have previously described ECIF-1, a DNA-binding factor present in nuclear extracts of murine embryonal carcinoma cells which specifically recognizes a region within the human beta-interferon promoter. We show that the promoter region located between -112 and -93 is sufficient for this binding activity, which is not due to binding of interferon-regulatory factor 1 or 2. By mutational analysis...

BACKGROUND The Rho kinase pathway plays a key role in many early cell/tissue determination events that take place in embryogenesis. Rho and its downstream effector Rho kinase (ROCK) play pivotal roles in cell migration, apoptosis (membrane blebbing), cell proliferation/cell cycle, cell-cell adhesion and gene regulation. We and others have previously demonstrated that inhibition of ROCK blocks e...

Embryonic stem cells provide one potential source of cardiomyocytes for cardiac transplantation; however, after differentiation of stem cells in vitro, cardiomyocytes usually account for only a minority of cells present. To gain insights into improving cardiomyocyte development from stem cells, we examined the role of the Na(+)/H(+) exchanger isoform 1 (NHE1) in cardiomyocyte differentiation. N...

introduction: setting up a system to study the in vitro hematopoiesis is helpful to understand the mechanism of hematopoiesis. the effects of several cytokines and hormones such as erythropoietin (epo) in differentiation of hematopoietic stem cells have been investigated in vivo. there are no records considering the potential differentiation of p19 cell line (embryonic carcinoma cells) to hemat...

The nuclear lamina is an intermediate filament-type network underlying the inner nuclear membrane. It is believed to be important for nuclear envelope integrity and the organization of interphase chromatin. On the basis of biochemical properties and sequence criteria, vertebrate lamin proteins are classified as either A- or B-type. While B-type lamins are expressed in almost all cell types, no ...

When aggregated and treated with dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO), P19 embryonal carcinoma cells differentiate into cell types normally derived from the mesoderm and endoderm including epithelium and cardiac and skeletal muscle. The Brachyury gene is expressed transiently in these differentiating cultures several days before the appearance of markers of the differentiated cell types. The expression of...

Changes in the neuronal content of neurofilament proteins occur in some neuropathological conditions, but little is known about the molecular mechanisms that control both the cell type specificity and the levels of expression of neurofilament genes. In addition to TATA and Sp1 elements, we report here the presence in the neurofilament light (NF-L) promoter region of other regulatory elements, n...

Embryonic stem (ES) cells and embryonal carcinoma (EC) cells express high amounts of functional connexin43 (Cx43). During mesoderm formation and subsequent cardiac differentiation, Cx43 is initially down-regulated but is up-regulated again as the emerging cardiomyocytes mature. In this study, we investigated the regulation of Cx43 expression during early phases of differentiation in F9 and P19 ...

Nanodiamond is a promising carbon nanomaterial developed for biomedical applications. Here, we show fluorescent nanodiamond (FND) with the biocompatible properties that can be used for the labeling and tracking of neuronal differentiation and neuron cells derived from embryonal carcinoma stem (ECS) cells. The fluorescence intensities of FNDs were increased by treatment with FNDs in both the mou...