Search results for "22"

Stem Cell-Derived, microRNA-Carrying Extracellular Vesicles: A Novel Approach to Interfering with Mesangial Cell Collagen Production in a Hyperglycae…

2016

Extracellular vesicles (EVs) that are derived from stem cells are proving to be promising therapeutic options. We herein investigate the therapeutic potential of EVs that have been derived from different stem cell sources, bone-marrow (MSC) and human liver (HLSC), on mesangial cells (MCs) exposed to hyperglycaemia. By expressing a dominant negative STAT5 construct (ΔNSTAT5) in HG-cultured MCs, we have demonstrated that miR-21 expression is under the control of STAT5, which translates into Transforming Growth Factor beta (TGFβ) expression and collagen production. A number of approaches have been used to show that both MSC- and HLSC-derived EVs protect MCs from HG-induced damage via the trans…

2016

Regulatory T cells (Treg) are essential for T cell homeostasis and maintenance of peripheral tolerance. They prevent activation of auto-reactive T effector cells (Teff) in the context of autoimmunity and allergy. Otherwise, Treg also inhibit effective immune responses against tumors. Besides a number of Treg-associated molecules such as Foxp3, CTLA-4 or GARP, known to play critical roles in Treg differentiation, activation and function, the involvement of additional regulatory elements is suggested. Herein, kinase activities seem to play an important role in Treg fine tuning. Nevertheless, our knowledge regarding the complex intracellular signaling pathways controlling phenotype and functio…

β1-Integrin– and K(V)1.3 channel–dependent signaling stimulates glutamate release from Th17 cells

2020

Although the impact of Th17 cells on autoimmunity is undisputable, their pathogenic effector mechanism is still enigmatic. We discovered soluble N-ethylmaleimide–sensitive factor attachment receptor (SNARE) complex proteins in Th17 cells that enable a vesicular glutamate release pathway that induces local intracytoplasmic calcium release and subsequent damage in neurons. This pathway is glutamine dependent and triggered by binding of β1-integrin to vascular cell adhesion molecule 1 (VCAM-1) on neurons in the inflammatory context. Glutamate secretion could be blocked by inhibiting either glutaminase or K(V)1.3 channels, which are known to be linked to integrin expression and highly expressed…

Simple Muscle Architecture Analysis (SMA): An ImageJ macro tool to automate measurements in B-mode ultrasound scans

2020

In vivo measurements of muscle architecture (i.e. the spatial arrangement of muscle fascicles) are routinely included in research and clinical settings to monitor muscle structure, function and plasticity. However, in most cases such measurements are performed manually, and more reliable and time-efficient automated methods are either lacking completely, or are inaccessible to those without expertise in image analysis. In this work, we propose an ImageJ script to automate the entire analysis process of muscle architecture in ultrasound images: Simple Muscle Architecture Analysis (SMA). Images are filtered in the spatial and frequency domains with built-in commands and external plugins to hi…

Morphological Evidence of Telocytes in Skeletal Muscle Interstitium of Exercised and Sedentary Rodents

2021

Skeletal muscle atrophy, resulting from states of hypokinesis or immobilization, leads to morphological, metabolic, and functional changes within the muscle tissue, a large variety of which are supported by the stromal cells populating the interstitium. Telocytes represent a recently discovered population of stromal cells, which has been increasingly identified in several human organs and appears to participate in sustaining cross-talk, promoting regenerative mechanisms and supporting differentiation of local stem cell niche. The aim of this morphologic study was to investigate the presence of Telocytes in the tibialis anterior muscle of healthy rats undergoing an endurance training protoco…

Physiological and Molecular Adaptations to Strength Training

2018

High muscle contraction forces that lead to gains in muscle function, size, and strength characterize resistance exercise training. The purpose of this chapter is to outline the adaptations in myofiber size and metabolism that occur by stimuli of hormones and local growth factors, mechanical and metabolic stress of muscle tissue, and myofibrillar disruptions induced by a resistance exercise bout. The chapter will highlight the network of intracellular pathways (including mTOR signaling) that ultimately lead to increases in gene expression and protein synthesis. Accumulation of acute exercise responses by systematic training over time modulate the muscle proteome that can be observed as chan…

Molecular docking-based design and development of a highly selective probe substrate for UDP-glucuronosyltransferase 1A10

2018

Intestinal and hepatic glucuronidation by the UDP-glucuronosyltransferases (UGTs) greatly affect the bioavailability of phenolic compounds. UGT1A10 catalyzes glucuronidation reactions in the intestine, but not in the liver. Here, our aim was to develop selective, fluorescent substrates to easily elucidate UGT1A10 function. To this end, homology models were constructed and used to design new substrates, and subsequently, six novel C3-substituted (4-fluorophenyl, 4-hydroxyphenyl, 4-methoxyphenyl, 4-(dimethylamino)phenyl, 4-methylphenyl, or triazole) 7-hydroxycoumarin derivatives were synthesized from inexpensive starting materials. All tested compounds could be glucuronidated to nonfluorescen…

The shared frameshift mutation landscape of microsatellite-unstable cancers suggests immunoediting during tumor evolution

2020

The immune system can recognize and attack cancer cells, especially those with a high load of mutation-induced neoantigens. Such neoantigens are abundant in DNA mismatch repair (MMR)-deficient, microsatellite-unstable (MSI) cancers. MMR deficiency leads to insertion/deletion (indel) mutations at coding microsatellites (cMS) and to neoantigen-inducing translational frameshifts. Here, we develop a tool to quantify frameshift mutations in MSI colorectal and endometrial cancer. Our results show that frameshift mutation frequency is negatively correlated to the predicted immunogenicity of the resulting peptides, suggesting counterselection of cell clones with highly immunogenic frameshift peptid…

2020

Sclerosing spindle cell rhabdomyosarcoma (SSRMS) is a rare rhabdomyosarcomas (RMS) subtype. Especially cases bearing a myogenic differentiation 1 (MYOD1) mutation are characterized by a high recurrence and metastasis rate, often leading to a fatal outcome. SSRMS cell lines are valuable in vitro models for studying disease mechanisms and for the preclinical evaluation of new therapeutic approaches. In this study, a cell line established from a primary SSRMS tumor of a 24-year-old female after multimodal chemotherapeutic pretreatment has been characterized in detail, including immunohistochemistry, growth characteristics, cytogenetic analysis, mutation analysis, evaluation of stem cell marker…

Discovery and Subtyping of Neo-Epitope Specific T-Cell Responses for Cancer Immunotherapy: Addressing the Mutanome

2016

Cancer accumulates 10s to 1000s of genomic mutations of which a fraction is immunogenic and may serve as an Achilles' heel of tumor cells. Mutation-specific T cells can recognize these antigens and destroy malignant cells. Strategies to immunotherapeutically address individual tumor mutations employing peptide or mRNA based vaccines are now actively investigated in mice and humans. An important step of determining the therapeutic potential of a mutanome vaccine is the detection of mutation reactive T-cell responses. In this chapter we provide protocols to identify and subtype mutation specific T cells in mice based on IFN-γ ELISpot and flow cytometry.