channel activities, particularly those of calcium channels, have vital roles in the process of sperm maturation, motility and sperm-egg interaction. a group of the recently discovered ion channels associated with these processes is four novel channel-like proteins known as catsper (cation channel sperm) gene family. catsper1 and catsper2 show sperm specific expression patterns. however, neither...

background: linum album, a herbaceous and medicinal plant, has been shown to accumulate anti-tumor podophyllotoxin (ptox) and related lignans. objective: in this study, we have verified the time-course of cell growth, lignan production in cells treated with chitosan and chitin oligomers. to study mechanism of chitosan and chitin oligomers action, expression of phenylalanine ammonio-lyase (pal),...

introduction: during the last 3 decades, human is exposed to extremely low frequency electromagnetic fields (elf-emf) emitted by power lines and electronic devices. it is now well accepted that elf-emf are able to produce a variety of biological effects, although the molecular mechanism is unclear and controversial. investigation of different intensities effects of 50 hz elf-emf on cell morphol...

background: toxoplasmosis is a worldwide-distributed infection which is mostly asymptomatic but can cause serious health problems in congenitally-infected newborns and immunecompromised individuals. research is undergoing both to improve toxoplasma serological tests, which play the main role in laboratory diagnosis of the infection, and develop an effective vaccine to prevent the infection. som...

expression of receptor tyrosine kinase ror1 in a wide variety of cancers has emerged as a new era focusing on targeting this receptor in cancer therapy. our preliminary re-sults indicate the presence of a truncated transcript of ror1 in tumor cells. the trun-cated ror1 encompasses extracellular and transmembrane domains, lacking catalytic kinase domain (ror1-ecd). as enzyme activity is highly d...

chicken has been used as a suitable model for lipid metabolism studies, because dietary modifications especially dietary fat type can change chicken body composition. fats act as a condense source of energy and certain fatty acids such as polyunsaturated fatty acids (pufas) are required for both animal and human health. the n-3 pufas, especially, eicosapentaenoic acid (epa) and docosahexaenoic ...

background: this study aimed to compare the cytochrome p450 1a1 (cyp1a1) gene expression in the cord blood of infants born from mothers living in low- and high-air polluted areas. materials and methods: te study was conducted in spring 2012 in isfahan, the second large and air-polluted city in iran. the study comprised 60 neonates, consisting of 30 infants born from mothers residing in areas wi...

alterations in the expression of micrornas (mirnas) have been proposed to play a role in the pathogenesis of acute lymphoblastic leukemia (all) and chronic lymphocytic leukemia (cll). dicer is one of the main regulators of mirna biogenesis, and deregulation of its expression has been indicated as a possible cause of mirna alterations observed in various cancers. our aim was to analyze the expre...

background: the multifunctional transforming growth factor beta (tgf-β) is a glycoprotein that exists in three isoforms. tgf-β3 expression increases in fetal wound healing and reduces fibronectin and collagen i and iii deposition, and also improves the architecture of the neodermis which is a combination of blood vessels and connective tissue during wound healing. fibroblasts are key cells in t...