Vitamin K2 (MK4) has antitumor effects on various types of cancer cell lines in vitro, and its efficacy has also been reported in clinical applications for patients with leukemia, myelodysplastic syndrome, and hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). However, details of the mechanism of the antitumor effects of MK4 remain unclear. In the present study, we examined the antitumor effects of MK4 on cholang...

In the endosymbiotic unit of Paramecium bursaria (Ciliata) and Chlorella sp. (Chlorophyceae) algae are enclosed individually in perialgal vacuoles, which do not show acid phosphatase activity and thus differ from digestive vacuoles. Both types of vacuoles have been studied by freeze-fracture. Perialgal vacuoles are nearly spherical; their membrane always fits tightly to the algal surface. The v...

The vacuole is the largest compartment of a mature plant cell and may occupy up to 95% of the total cell volume. In such mature cells, the cytosol is visible only as a thin layer, which is separated from the cell wall by the plasma membrane, and from the vacuolar sap (cell sap) by the vacuolar membrane (tonoplast). The constituents of the cell sap are mainly inorganic salts and water. The vacuo...

It is well known that phenobarbital (PB) treatment produces an increase in the amount of cytoplasmic membranes of hepatocytes, with a parallel enhancement in the activity of drug-metabolizing enzymes. However, little is known about how the induced membranes are removed after the drug treatment is stopped. To consider this problem, the recovery of rat hepatocytes from PB induction (five daily in...

Previous studies have shown that L. pneumophila multiplies intracellularly in human monocytes and alveolar macrophages within a membrane-bound cytoplasmic vacuole studded with ribosomes. In this paper, the formation of this novel vacuole is examined. After entry into monocytes, L. pneumophila resides in a membrane-bound vacuole. During the first hour after entry, vacuoles containing L. pneumoph...

Soybean cotyledonary cells harvested every 5-10 days at 15 to 60 days after flowering (OAF), were investigated by means of light and transmission electron microscopy. In the early developing stages (15-20 OAF) most of the cells were occupied by large, centrally located vacuoles while the cytoplasm was restricted to a thin layer against the cell wall and contained numerous ribosomes, mitochondri...

Basidiomycete fungal hyphae grow continuously by divisions of a tip cell. This results in an extensive mycelium, of which the tip cell is the final outpost. Growth of this cell requires continuous synthesis of cell wall, as well as migration of cytoplasm and organelles. Cell division produces a file of cells that, in contrast to the tip cell, grow only by branching. The result is an extensive, ...

Dental pulp capillaries were studied in human. They were of the continuous type, with the exception of a small number which were of the fenestrated type, located in the vicinity of the odontoblasts. A characteristic morphological peculiarity was found in the endothelial cells. In places there was a large quantity of multi-sized vacuoles. The vacuoles were evidently of pinocytotic origin, and th...

background: oral squamous cell carcinoma is the sixth most common malignancy in the world today.  ing1b/p33 is a newly-discovered tumor suppressor which enhances p53 activity. transfer of p33 protein from nucleus to cytoplasmic compartment has been previously reported in leukemias. the objective of this study was to determine the correlation between p33ing1b cytoplasmic transfer and lymph node ...