Basic fibroblast growth factor (bFGF) is a secreted multifunctional cytokine and a potent stimulator of angiogenesis in vivo. Elevated bFGF concentrations have been detected in the serum and urine of cancer patients. We measured bFGF by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay from sera taken from 160 non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma (NHL) patients before treatment and stored at 220°C. The patients had been obs...

To survive and proliferate in pure culture, human melanocytes require basic fibroblast growth factor (bFGF) and cAMP. Without these factors, even in the presence of serum, the cells die. Melanocytes cultured in the presence of keratinocytes, however, survive for weeks without added bFGF and cAMP. We show here that the growth factor for melanocytes produced by human keratinocytes is bFGF because...

Basic fibroblast growth factor (bFGF) is a growth factor with proangiogenetic properties. Elevated bone marrow (BM) and peripheral serum bFGF levels have been reported in patients with multiple myeloma (MM) 1-3 ; however, the source of bFGF in patients with MM is not completely elucidated. Recently, Bisping et al, 4 in line with others, 1 have reported that human myeloma cell lines (HMCLs) (RPM...

We examined the possibility that basic fibroblast growth factor (bFGF) is involved in synaptic transmissions. We found that bFGF rapidly induced the release of glutamate and an increase in the intracellular Ca2+ concentration through voltage-dependent Ca2+ channels in cultured cerebral cortical neurons. bFGF also evoked a significant influx of Na+. Tetanustoxin inhibited the bFGF-induced glutam...

Basic fibroblast growth factor (bFGF) and growth and differentiation factor (GDF)-5 stimulate the healing of medial collateral ligament (MCL) injury. However, the effect of isolated and combined use of bFGF/GDF-5 remains still unclear. We investigated cellular proliferation and migration responding to bFGF/GDF-5 using rabbit MCL fibroblasts. Rabbit MCL injury was treated by bFGF and/or GDF-5 wi...

Osteonectin (secreted protein acidic and rich in cysteine, 40-kDa basement membrane) is a glycoprotein abundantly expressed in bone and in other tissues undergoing active remodeling. Fibroblast growth factors (FGFs) are important in skeletal development and fracture repair, events associated with extracellular matrix remodeling. We used the murine osteoblastic cell line MC3T3 to determine wheth...

Basic fibroblast growth factor (bFGF) was injected with dissociated substantia nigral cells into the striatum of rats prepared by unilateral lesion of the nigrostriatal pathway with 6-hydroxydopamine. The transplanted cells with 5 and 50 ng bFGF reduced the apomorphine-induced rotations by 40 and 30%, respectively, while the decrement of rotations was only 15% in the grafted control without bFG...

Extracts from atrial and ventricular heart tissue of several species (chicken, rat, sheep, and cow) are strongly mitogenic for chicken skeletal myoblasts, with the highest apparent concentration of biological activity in the atrial extracts. Using several approaches (biological activity assay and biochemical and immunological analyses), we have established that (a) all cardiac extracts contain ...

Decreasing Connexin43 (Cx43) expression and dysfunction of gap junction intercellular communication (GJIC) is associated with increasing proliferation and the grade of human glioma cells. Our group has previously reported that bFGF knockdown interferes connexin43 expression, however, the mechanisms underlying this interference remain unknown. We hypothesized that the bFGF signaling pathway may ...

The growth of cells is controlled by stimulatory or inhibitory factors. More than twenty different families of polypeptide growth factors have been structurally and functionally characterized. Basic fibroblast growth factor (bFGF) of the fibroblast growth factor family was characterized in 1974 as having proliferative activity for fibroblastic cells. The inhibitory effects of ethanol on cell pr...