Plants and many lower organisms, but not mammals, express alternative oxidases (AOXs) that branch the mitochondrial respiratory chain, transferring electrons directly from ubiquinol to oxygen without proton pumping. Thus, they maintain electron flow under conditions when the classical respiratory chain is impaired, limiting excess production of oxygen radicals and supporting redox and metabolic...

We report a new technique to detect enzyme activity inside cells. The method based on Fluorescence Lifetime Imaging (FLIM) technology allows one to follow sensor cleavage by proteolytic enzyme caspase-3. Specifically, we use the FLIM FRET of living cells via the confocal fluorescence microscopy. A specially designed lentivector pLVT with the DNA fragment of TagRFP-23-KFP was applied for transdu...

Recent experiments point to the great value of lentiviral vectors for the transduction of human hematopoietic stem cells (hHSCs). Vectors used so far, however, have been poorly satisfying in terms of either biosafety or efficiency of transgene expression. Herein is described the results obtained with human immunodeficiency virus-based vectors optimized in both of these aspects. It is thus shown...

Gene therapy for HIV-1 infection has been proposed as an alternative to antiretroviral drug regimens due to emerging drug resistance and toxicity that raises concerns about HAART as a long-term therapy. VIRxSYS has developed an HIV-based lentiviral vector platform for delivery of genetic therapies. For the first clinical application of the gene delivery technology, VIRxSYS created VRX496, a len...

BACKGROUND The objective of this study was to investigate the role and mechanism of long non-coding RNA MIAT in gastric cancer (GC). METHODS Real-time PCR was used to determine MIAT level in 120 GC tissues, and in two gastric cancer cell lines. The clinicopathological characteristics of MIAT in GC patients were analyzed. Small interfering RNA specific for MIAT (si-MIAT) and lentivector for si...

RNAi is proving to be a powerful experimental tool for the functional annotation of mammalian genomes. The full potential of this technology will be realized through development of approaches permitting regulated manipulation of endogenous gene expression with coordinated reexpression of exogenous transgenes. We describe the development of a lentiviral vector platform, pSLIK (single lentivector...

To date, gene therapy with transiently derived lentivectors has been very successful to cure rare infant genetic diseases. However, transient manufacturing is unfeasible to treat adult malignancies because large vector lots are required. By contrast, stable manufacturing is the best option for high-incidence diseases since it reduces the production cost, which is the major current limitation to...