A wide range of cosmeceutical products are available on the market currently, but evidence to support their use is often lacking in the literature. Specifically, there is a substantial amount of evidence supporting the efficacy of tretinoin in photoaging, but the evidence supporting retinoid-based cosmeceuticals remains sparse. The authors review the current data in the literature related to vi...

Sodium transport in epithelial tissues is regulated by the physiological mineralocorticoid aldosterone. The response to aldosterone is mediated by the mineralocorticoid receptor (MR), for which the crystal structure of the ligand-binding domain has recently been established. The classical mode of action for this receptor involves the regulation of gene transcription. Several genes have now been...

Probiotics are live microorganisms that provide health benefits to the host when ingested in adequate amounts. The strains most frequently used as probiotics include lactic acid bacteria and bifidobacteria. Probiotics have demonstrated significant potential as therapeutic options for a variety of diseases, but the mechanisms responsible for these effects have not been fully elucidated yet. Seve...

The book represents the written minutes of the symposium on "Regulation of Cell Metabolism" held in London on July 28-30, 1958, sponsored by the Ciba Foundation. There is no problem of greater importance to the basic understanding of biology than the study of the autoregulatory mechanisms of the cell. The participants in this conference are all leaders in the field of biochemistry and the discu...

J Rehabil Med Suppl 41, 2003 DOI 10.1080/16501960310010151 Botulinum toxin is a potent neurotoxin produced by the bacterium Clostridium botulinum. There are seven serotypes, all of which block the release of acetylcholine from nerve endings, which gives the compound its theoretical base for reducing spasticity. Initial studies of the use of botulinum toxin in the management of spasticity were p...

T bisphosphonates have been known to chemists since the middle of the 19th century, when the first synthesis occurred in 1865 in Germany (1). Etidronate, the first bisphosphonate to be used to treat a human disease (2), was synthesized exactly 100 yr ago (3). Bisphosphonates were used in industry, mainly as corrosion inhibitors or as complexing agents in the textile, fertilizer, and oil industr...

Circulating hormones play an important role in regulating the flux through metabolic pathways. In general, hormones regulate either the activity of key enzymes of metabolism or the activity of protein transport systems such as those found in the plasma membrane and in the inner mitochondrial membrane. Little is known about the mechanism of action of hormones on transport systems, so the discuss...

Our appreciation of the physiological functions of estrogens and the mechanisms through which estrogens bring about these functions has changed during the past decade. Just as transgenic mice were produced in which estrogen receptors had been inactivated and we thought that we were about to understand the role of estrogen receptors in physiology and pathology, it was found that there was not on...

3.1. How Hormones Change Their Target Cells Hormones are chemical messengers that invoke profound changes within target cells. There are two fundamental mechanisms by which such changes occur: • Activation of enzymes and other dynamic molecules: Most enzymes shuttle between conformational states that are catalytically active versus inactive, on versus off. Many hormones affect their target cell...

Jasminum amplexicaule Buch.-Ham. (Oleaceae) has been commonly used in the traditional medicine in dysentery, diarrhoea and bellyache in China. In the present work, the methanol extract of Jasminum amplexicaule (JME) was examined for pharmacology on human colonic epithelial cell line T84 by the short-circuit current technique. The results showed that pretreatment of T84 cells with JME produced a...