Control of growth and differentiation during mammalian embryogenesis may be regulated by growth factors. With the use of a very sensitive method, the reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction, expression of some growth factor transcripts was examined during ovine peri-implantation development. Transcripts for transforming growth factor-alpha (TGF-alpha) were found in day 15 to day 30 conc...

Platelet-derived growth factor (PDGF) has been implicated in several nonmalignant pathophysiological processes, including proliferative diseases of the kidney. Glomerular mesangial cells secrete a PDGF-like factor and express the PDGF A-chain and c-sis (or B-chain) mRNAs. We report here that both mRNAs are induced by serum and this effect can be mimicked by recombinant PDGF, which also markedly...

Objective(s):We investigated the influence of genetic variation of the transforming growth-factor alpha (TGFA) locus on the relationship between smoking and oral clefts. Materials and methods:In this study 105 Iranian infants with non-syndromic cleft lip/palate and 218 controls with non-cleft birth defects were examined to test for associations among maternal exposures, genetic markers, and ora...