The desert hedgehog (Dhh) signaling pathway is involved in the development of peripheral nerves (PNs). Dhh-null mice show abnormal neuronal development and perineurial barrier function. As it was previously shown that dhh is mainly expressed in developmental nerves and Sonic hedgehog protein (dhh homologous) has therapeutic effects in neuronal survival, we attempted to investigate the possible ...

Introduction  Insulin-like growth factor I (IGF-I) which is produced in abundance in the normal adult liver, is deeply involved in hepatocyte survival, growth, and differentiation during liver development. IGF-I plays the roles via the receptor (IGF-IR) signaling pathway. IGF-IR unlike IGF-I is expressed strongly in the developing liver, but much more weakly in adults. Objective:  We hypothesi...

Background: The canonical Wnt signal transduction (or the Wnt/β-catenin pathway) plays a crucial role in the development of animals and in carcinogenesis. Beta-catenin is the central component of this signaling pathway. The activation of Wnt/β-catenin signaling results in the cytoplasmic and nuclear accumulation of β-catenin. In the nucleus, β-catenin interacts with the TCF/LEF transcription fa...

Background: Acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) as the most common malignancy in children is associated with high mortality and significant relapse. Currently, the non-invasive diagnosis of pediatric ALL is a main challenge in the early detection of patients. In the present study, a systems biology approach was used through network-based analysis to identify the key candidate genes related to AL...

The present study was designed to investigate the in-vitro morphological assessment of apoptotic effect caused by nimbolide on the selected cancer cell lines (DU-145, PC-3, A-549) and normal cell lines (NIH3T3, CCD-18Co). The cells were grown in 6 well tissue culture plates after treatment with different concentrations of nimbolide and untreated control cells. Apoptotic and necrotic ce...

background: human cripto-1, a member of the egf-cfc family, is involved in embryonic development, embryonic stem cell maintenance, and tumor progression. it also participates in multiple cell signaling pathways including wnt, notch, and tgf-β. remarkably, it is expressed in cancer stem cell (csc) compartments, boosting tumor cell migration, invasion, and angiogenesis. although cripto-1 is overe...

introduction: the neuroprotective role of opioid morphine against 6-hydroxydopamineinduced cell death has been demonstrated. however, the exact mechanism(s) underlying such neuroprotection, especially the role of subtype receptors, has not yet been fully clarified. methods: here, we investigated the effects of different opioid agonists on 6-ohda-induced neurotoxicity in human neuroblastoma sh-s...