Glucocorticoids (GCs) cause cell cycle arrest and apoptosis in lymphoid cells which is exploited to treat lymphoid malignancies. The mechanisms of these anti-leukemic GC effects are, however, poorly understood. We previously defined a list of GC-regulated genes by expression profiling in children with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) during systemic GC monotherapy and in experimental systems ...

MHC class II-expressing thymocytes can efficiently mediate positive selection of CD4 T cells in mice. Thymocyte-selected CD4 (T-CD4) T cells have an innate-like phenotype similar to invariant NKT cells. To investigate the development and function of T-CD4 T cells in-depth, we cloned TCR genes from T-CD4 T cells and generated transgenic mice. Remarkably, positive selection of T-CD4 TCR transgeni...

The (pro)renin receptor ((P)RR) signaling is involved in different pathophysiologies ranging from cardiorenal end-organ damage via diabetic retinopathy to tumorigenesis. We have previously shown that the transcription factor promyelocytic leukemia zinc finger (PLZF) is an adaptor protein of the (P)RR. Furthermore, recent publications suggest that major functions of the (P)RR are mediated ligand...

A novel idea that there is an alternative pathway for intrathymic generation of mature CD4+ T cells came from the observation that immature thymocytes were also able to express MHC class II on their cell surfaces during fetal thymic development [1]. This idea was subsequently confirmed both by in vitro reaggregate thymic organ culture (RTOC) [2] and in vivo plck-CIITAtg mouse system [3,4] where...

promyelocytic leukemia (APL) is characterized by a variety of chromoso-mal translocations into the retinoic acid receptor-α (RARα) gene. The first of these cloned was t(15;17), a transloca-tion that results in fusion of the PML gene with RARα. This translocation is also the most prevalent, found in 95% of APL cases. Other translocations associated with fusion proteins in variant APLs were subse...

The environmental niche of the spermatogonial stem cell pool is critical to ensure the continued generation of the germ cell population. To study the consequences of an aberrant testicular environment in cryptorchidism we used a mouse model with a deletion of Rxfp2 gene resulting in a high intra-abdominal testicular position. Mutant males were infertile with the gross morphology of the cryptorc...

The aim of the present study was to examine effect quercetin on survival and primary culture ovine spermatogonial stem cells (SSCs). two-time enzymatic digestion process employed obtain SSCs from lamb testes. In next step, use filtration differential plating methods caused an increase in number cell suspension resulting mechanical digestions. Mitomycin-C-treated Sertoli were used prepare feeder...

Retinoic acid receptors (RARs) are hormone-regulated transcription factors that control key aspects of normal differentiation. Aberrant RAR activity may be a causal factor in neoplasia. Human acute promyelocytic leukemia, for example, is tightly linked to chromosomal translocations that fuse novel amino acid sequences (denoted PML, PLZF, and NPM) to the DNA-binding and hormone-binding domains o...