Mycophenolic acid (MPA) is the active metabolite of mycophenolate mofetil. This study designed to investigate the mechanism of cytotoxicity of MPA on the genetically engineered PC12 Tet Off (PTO) neuronal cells with p53 gene. Alamar Blue (AB) reduction showed concentration-dependent cytotoxicity of MPA on PTO cells with IC50 value of 32.32 ± 4.61 mM. The reactive oxygen species (ROS) generation...

Prostate cancer is one of the most frequent cancers among men in the United States. In the current study, we examined the susceptibility of the human LNCaP prostate cancer cells to the apoptotic effect of marina crystal minerals (MCM), a crystallized mixture of minerals and trace elements from sea water, in vitro. Cancer cells were cultured with MCM at different concentrations (0-1000 microg/ml...

Smooth muscle cells (SMCs) have a pivotal role in cardiovascular diseases and are responsible for hyaluronan (HA) deposition in thickening vessel walls. HA regulates SMC proliferation, migration, and inflammation, which accelerates neointima formation. We used the HA synthesis inhibitor 4-methylumbelliferone (4-MU) to reduce HA production in human aortic SMCs and found a significant increase of...

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE Certain virulence factors participating in periodontitis may relate to cardiovascular diseases. This study was to evaluate the pro-apoptotic effect of protein extracts from Porphyromonas gingivalis on bovine aortic endothelial cells (BAECs). MATERIAL AND METHODS The BAECs were exposed to trypsin-like protease-active protein extracts from P. gingivalis, and apoptosis w...

The protein complex S100A8/A9, abundant in the cytosol of neutrophils, is secreted from the cells upon cellular activation and induces apoptosis in tumor cell lines and normal fibroblasts in a zinc-reversible manner. In the present study, we present evidence that the S100A8/A9 also exerts its apoptotic effect by a zinc-independent mechanism. Treatment of the colon carcinoma cells with different...

The aim of this study was to demonstrate that zebrafish embryos subjected to a priming exposure provided by one environmental stressor (low-dose alpha particles) can induce an adaptive response against a subsequent challenging exposure provided by another environmental stressor (heavy metal Cd). The effect thus identified would be an antagonistic multiple stressor effect. The effects of alpha p...

The effect of delta9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the major psycho-active component of marijuana, in human prostate cancer cells PC-3 was investigated. THC caused apoptosis in a dose-dependent manner. Morphological and biochemical changes induced by THC in prostate PC-3 cells shared the characteristics of an apoptotic phenomenon. First, loss of plasma membrane asymmetry determined by fluorescent...

Although evidence has shown the regulating effect of n-3 poly-unsaturated fatty acid (n-3 PUFA) on cell signaling transduction, it remains unknown whether n-3 PUFA treatment modulates estrogen signaling. The current study showed that docosahexaenoic acid (DHA, C22:6), eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA, C20:5) shifted the pro-survival and proliferative effect of estrogen to a pro-apoptotic effect in hu...

Abstract The ovary contains numerous macrophages, and macrophage depletion in mice leads to dysfunctional ovulation. Macrophage function the is presumed be related efferocytosis, however, absence of macrophages also disrupts follicular development corpus luteum development. Granulosa cells (GC) are critical ovarian follicle survival, we hypothesized that macrophage-GC crosstalk promoted GC func...