The treatment and prognosis of cancers the nervous system remain unfavorable to patient, which makes it necessary study alternative therapies as primary or adjuvant treatments existing methods. Photodynamic Therapy (PDT) is a method that consists combining photosensitizer (PS), light source at appropriate wavelength, molecular oxygen, forming reactive oxygen species (ROS), leading death in targ...

An industrial strain of Bacillus subtilis (natto) was used to produce poly-gamma-DL-glutamate (gammaPGA), a polymer of DL-glutamate linked by a gamma-peptide bond. In spite of efforts to improve gammaPGA production by modifying the medium, little attention has been paid to the expression of the gammaPGA synthetase gene. In this study, we investigated the expression of the gammaPGA synthetic gen...

N-octanoyl cyclopentylamide (C8-CPA) was found to moderately inhibit quorum sensing in Pseudomonas aeruginosa PAO1. To obtain more powerful inhibitors, a series of structural analogs of C8-CPA were synthesized and examined for their ability to inhibit quorum sensing in P. aeruginosa PAO1. The lasB-lacZ and rhlA-lacZ reporter assays revealed that the chain length and the ring structure were crit...

The Drosophila egg chamber provides an excellent model for studying the link between patterning and morphogenesis. Late in oogenesis, a portion of the flat follicular epithelium remodels to form two tubes; secretion of eggshell proteins into the tube lumens creates the dorsal appendages. Two distinct cell types contribute to dorsal appendage formation: cells expressing the rhomboid-lacZ (rho-la...

GABAA receptor alpha6 subunit gene expression marks cerebellar granule cell maturation. To study this process, we used the Deltaalpha6lacZ mouse line, which has a lacZ reporter inserted into the alpha6 gene. At early stages of postnatal cerebellar development, alpha6-lacZ expression is mosaic; expression starts at postnatal day 5 in lobules 9 and 10, and alpha6-lacZ is switched on inside-out, a...

The avidity of Ag-specific CTL is a critical determinant for clearing viral infection and eliminating tumor. Although previous studies have demonstrated that vaccines using enhanced costimulation will enhance the level and avidity of Ag-specific T cells from naive mice, there are conflicting data about the effects of vaccines using enhanced costimulation (vector or dendritic cell based) on the ...

Regulation of the surfactant protein B gene (SP-B) is developmentally controlled and highly tissue specific. To elucidate the SP-B gene temporal/spatial expression pattern in lung development at the transcriptional level, a transgenic mouse model line carrying the human SP-B (hSP-B) 1.5-kb 5'-flanking regulatory region and the lacZ gene was established. Expression of hSP-B 1.5-kb lacZ gene star...

Recombinant adeno-associated virus type 2 (rAAV) is being explored as a vector for gene therapy because of its broad host range, good safety profile, and persistent transgene expression in vivo. However, accumulating evidence indicates that administration of AAV vector may initiate a detectable cellular and humoral immune response to its transduced neo-antigen in vivo. To elucidate the cellular...

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE Exogenous delivery of vascular endothelial growth factor gene (VEGF) may provide a useful approach to the treatment of brain ischemia. We investigated the use of a hypoxia-responsive element to control VEGF expression given for neuroprotection. METHODS Three groups (n=36) of mice received AAVH9-VEGF, AAVH9-lacZ, or saline injection. Five days after gene transfer, the mi...