To avoid systemic toxicity of the cytotoxic drug methotrexate (MTX) and to improve tumor selectivity, MTX was bound to human serum albumin (HSA) as a drug carrier. To understand more about the mechanism of action of MTX conjugated to HSA (MTX-HSA), the uptake of MTX-HSA into the cell was determined as well as the effect of MTX-HSA on thymidylate synthase (TS), cell cycle distribution, and cell ...

OBJECTIVES Currently available cardioplegic solutions provide excellent protection in patients with normal surgical risk; in high-risk patients, however, such as in emergency coronary artery bypass surgery, there is still room for improvement. As most of the cardioplegic solutions primarily protect myocytes, the addition of substances for protection of the endothelium might improve their protec...

Human serum albumin (HSA) is used as an important plasma volume expander in clinical practice. However, the infused HSA may extravasate into the interstitial space and induce peripheral edema in treating the critical illness related to marked increase in capillary permeability. Such poor intravascular retention also demands a frequent administration of HSA. We hypothesize that increasing the mo...

Breast cancer is the second leading cause of cancer-associated mortality in females in the USA. Hsa-miR-599 was demonstrated to function as a tumour suppressor during cancer progression. However, the function and mechanism of the hsa-miR-599 in human breast cancer remain elusive. Thus, the aim of the present study was to investigate the potential role of hsa-miR-599 in breast cancer biology. Th...

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are small non-coding RNAs that regulate translation of mRNA into protein and play a crucial role for almost all biological activities. However, the identification of miRNAs from mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs), especially from dental pulp, is poorly understood. In this study, dental pulp stem cells (DPSCs) were characterized in terms of their proliferation and differentiation c...

The potentiation of monoclonal antibody/ligand toxin (immunotoxin) cytotoxicity by the ionophore monensin (Mo) or by human serum albumin-monensin (HSA-Mo) conjugates was investigated. Since disulfide cross-linked HSA-Mo (HSA-SPDP-Mo) is rapidly inactivated by human serum (M. Colombatti et al., Cancer Res., 50: 1385-1391, 1990), we synthesized thioether cross-linked HSA-Mo conjugates (HSA-SIA-Mo...

Acetohexamide is a drug used to treat type II diabetes and is tightly bound to the protein human serum albumin (HSA) in the circulation. It has been proposed that the binding of some drugs with HSA can be affected by the non-enzymatic glycation of this protein. This study used high-performance affinity chromatography to examine the changes in acetohexamide-HSA binding that take place as the gly...

In recent studies, the cytotoxic activity of NO has been investigated for its potential use in anticancer therapies. Nitrosated human serum albumin (NO-HSA) may act as a reservoir of NO in vivo. However, there are no published reports regarding the effects of NO-HSA on cancer. Therefore, the present study investigated the antitumor activity of NO-HSA. NO-HSA was prepared by incubating HSA, whic...

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES Hsa-miR-429 is increased in bladder cancer. Its roles in bladder cancer are poorly understood. METHODS The expression levels of hsa-miR-429 and cyclin-dependent kinase inhibitor 2B (CDKN2B) were determined using Real-Time qPCR in a total of 50 patients with bladder cancer. Bladder cancer T24 and 5637 cells were transfected CDKN2B siRNA or hsa-miR-429 mimic. CDKN2B ex...

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) have been shown in the pathogenesis of human neurological disorders. The study aims to identify the involvement of miRNAs in the pathophysiology of narcolepsy. Here, we conducted three independent high-throughput analysis of miRNA (miRNA microarray) in peripheral blood from 20 narcolepsy patients who fulfilled the criteria compared to 20 healthy controls with validation exper...