The p53 tumor suppressor controls a cell cycle arrest and apoptosis pathway that is central to tumor suppression and often disrupted in cancer. The accumulation and activity of p53 are positively controlled by the p14/ARF tumor suppressor and full restoration of the pathway in cancer cells may require that both p53 and p14ARF be supplied [corrected]. To address this issue, we have constructed a...

Drug resistance genes can protect normal hematopoietic cells from the toxicity of anticancer agents. Because chemotherapeutic agents are often used in combination in current clinical protocols, coexpression of two different drug resistance genes should be useful in protecting normal bone marrow cells from the hematotoxicities caused by combination chemotherapy. In this study, we have combined t...

The rate-limiting step(s) of translation in the nervous system have not been clearly identified. We have been examining this question in the cell body of the Aplysia sensory neuron, where translational regulation is important for the regulation of synaptic strength. In the present study, we examined the role of the adaptor protein eIF4G. We cloned Aplysia eIF4G (Ap4G) and Ap4G contains all the ...

BACKGROUND Cytotoxic T lymphocytes play a crucial role in the immunological control of microbial infections and in the design of vaccines and immunotherapies. Measurement of cytotoxic T lymphocyte activity requires that the test antigen is presented by target cells having the same or compatible class I major histocompatibility complex antigens as the effector cells. Conventional assays use targ...

Fibroblast growth factor 2 (FGF-2) is a powerful mitogen involved in proliferation, differentiation, and survival of various cells including neurons. FGF-2 expression is translationally regulated; in particular, the FGF-2 mRNA contains an internal ribosome entry site (IRES) allowing cap-independent translation. Here, we have analyzed FGF-2 IRES tissue specificity ex vivo and in vivo by using a ...

Haemorrhagic Septicaemia (HS), an acute and fatal disease of cattle and buffalo is primarily caused by serotype B:2 or E:2 of Pasteurella multocida. The transferrin binding protein A (TbpA) has been found to act as immunogen and potent vaccine candidate in various Gram negative bacteria including P. multocida. The present study was carried out to evaluate the potential of this antigen as a DNA ...

BACKGROUND We have previously validated the use of micro-positron emission tomography (microPET) for monitoring the expression of a single PET reporter gene in rat myocardium. We now report the use of a bicistronic adenoviral vector (Ad-CMV-D2R80a-IRES-HSV1-sr39tk) for linking the expression of 2 PET reporter genes, a mutant rat dopamine type 2 receptor (D2R80a) and a mutant herpes simplex viru...

The recent emergence of inducible expression systems for mammalian cells has greatly facilitated the in vivo analysis of gene function. The ecdysone-inducible expression system is particularly attractive because of (i) extremely low basal expression and high-level induced expression, (ii) the lack of pleiotropic effects caused by the inducer or activator, and (iii) the rapid penetrance and clea...