Increased vascular 20-hydroxyeicosatetraenoic acid (20-HETE), a cytochrome P450 arachidonic acid metabolite, promotes vascular dysfunction, injury, and hypertension that is dependent, in part, on the renin angiotensin system (RAS). We have shown that, in human microvascular endothelial cells, 20-HETE increases angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) mRNA, protein, and ACE activity via an epidermal ...

Understanding the molecular pathways perturbed in smokeless tobacco- (ST) associated head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) is critical for identifying novel complementary agents for effective disease management. Activation of nuclear factor-kappaB (NF-κB) and cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2) was reported in ST-associated HNSCC by us [Sawhney,M. et al. (2007) Expression of NF-kappaB parallels CO...

Survivin and transcription factor p65 (NF‑κB p65) participate in the progression of esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC). However, the mechanism of NF‑κB p65 activation in ESCC remains to be elucidated. The aim of the present study was to investigate the role of survivin in the activation of NF‑κB p65 in ESCC. The expression levels of survivin, NF‑κB p65, inhibitor of nuclear factor κB kin...

Hepatocyte growth factor activator inhibitor type 1 (HAI-1), encoded by the Spint1 gene, is a membrane-bound serine protease inhibitor expressed on the epithelial cell surface. We have previously reported that the intestine-specific Spint1-deleted ApcMin/+ mice showed accelerated formation of intestinal tumors. In this study, we focused on the role of nuclear factor-κB (NF-κB) signaling in the ...

Nuclear factor-κB (NF-κB) is a transcription factor regulating a wide array of genes mediating numerous cellular processes such as proliferation, differentiation, motility and survival, to name a few. Aberrant activation of NF-κB is a frequent event in numerous cancers, including glioblastoma, the most common and lethal form of brain tumours of glial cell origin (collectively termed gliomas). G...

Hypoxia and inflammation are intimately linked. It is known that nuclear factor κB (NF-κB) regulates the hypoxia-inducible factor (HIF) system, but little is known about how HIF regulates NF-κB. Here, we show that HIF-1α represses NF-κB-dependent gene expression. HIF-1α depletion results in increased NF-κB transcriptional activity both in mammalian cells and in the model organism Drosophila mel...

Tumor necrosis factor-α (TNFα) activates both cell death and cell survival pathways. The activation of survival pathway renders most cancer cells resistant to TNF-induced cytotoxicity. We found that pretreatment with digitoflavone, a plant flavonoid, greatly sensitized TNFα-induced apoptotic cell death in several human pancreatic cancer cells. In search of the molecular basis of the sensitizati...

OBJECTIVE Inflammatory activation of valve endothelium is an early phase of aortic valve disease pathogenesis, but subsequent mechanisms are poorly understood. Adult valve endothelial cells retain the developmental ability to undergo endothelial-to-mesenchymal transformation (EndMT), but a biological role has not been established. Here, we test whether and how inflammatory cytokines (tumor necr...

Oridonin was extracted and purified from Rabdosia rubescens its protective effect on intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH)-induced brain injury in rats investigated. The were divided into sham, model, low-dose oridonin, middle-dose oridonin high-dose groups. ICH-induced model established latter four After modeling, the low-, middle- groups treated with 10, 20, 40 mg/kg at 2h 24 h after respectively. R...

We previously showed that tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α) induces the dysregulation of intracellular calcium [Ca(2+)](i) in β-cells by decreasing the levels of the cytoplasmic Ca(2+) binding protein calbindin-D(28k). The purpose of the present study was to test the hypothesis that TNF-α-induced dysregulation of [Ca(2+)](i) in insulin-producing β-cells causes proteolytic degradation of IκBα and ...