Search results for "ACTIVATION"

Selective Stimulation of Hepatitis C Virus and Pestivirus NS5B RNA Polymerase Activity by GTP

1999

NS5B of the hepatitis C virus is an RNA template-dependent RNA polymerase and therefore the key player of the viral replicase complex. Using a highly purified enzyme expressed with recombinant baculoviruses in insect cells, we demonstrate a stimulation of RNA synthesis up to 2 orders of magnitude by high concentrations of GTP but not with ATP, CTP, UTP, GDP, or GMP. Enhancement of RNA synthesis was found with various heteropolymeric RNA templates, with poly(C)-oligo(G)12 but not with poly(A)-oligo(U)12. Several amino acid substitutions in polymerase motifs B, C, and D previously shown to be crucial for RdRp activity were tested for GTP stimulation of RNA synthesis. Most of these mutations, …

Horizon: Resilience – Design of a Serious Game for Ecological Momentary Intervention for Depression

2021

Depression is the world’s most prevalent mental disorder and the primary source of disability adjusted life years (DALY). While traditional face-to-face therapies have been shown to be effective, alternative delivery methods, e.g. internet-based therapies, have been investigated to overcome barriers to access, such as lack of availability of therapists and infrastructure. This article presents the design of a mobile serious game as a novel psychological momentary ecological intervention for depressive symptoms. We discuss how selected principles and techniques of common psychological frameworks used to tackle depression, namely Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (including Behavioral Activation) …

Proliferation of gastrointestinal carcinoma cells by T lymphocyte factors interleukin-3 and granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor

1991

Hematopoietic growth factors have been well characterized by cDNA cloning in recent years. In order to determine the influence of rhGM-CSF and rhIL-3 on epithelial cells of the gastrointestinal tract, their influence on in vitro cultured gastric and pancreas cancer cells was determined. A more than two-fold enhancement of proliferation was observed by IL-3 and GM-CSF in Mz-Sto-1 gastric and 818-4 pancreas carcinoma cells, applying a sensitive microculture system which allows precise quantification. The highest growth rates were obtained adding 1-10 ng/ml of the growth factors, but even picogram amounts were effective. Expression of mRNA for GM-CSF and IL-3 remained undetectable in the cell …

Unifying prospective and retrospective interval-time estimation: A fading-Gaussian activation-based model of interval-timing

2014

International audience; Hass and Hermann (2012) have shown that only variance-based processes will lead to the scalar growth of error that is characteristic of human time judgments. Secondly, a major meta-review of over one hundred studies (Block et al., 2010) reveals a striking interaction between the way in which temporal judgments are queried and cognitive load on participants’ judgments of interval duration. For retrospective time judgments, estimates under high cognitive load are longer than under low cognitive load. For prospective judgments, the reverse pattern holds, with increased cognitive load leading to shorter estimates. We describe GAMIT, a Gaussian spreading-activation model,…

MboII endonuclease heat inactivation before agarose gel electrophoresis to prevent artifactual bands in restriction patterns

1999

Role for Tumor Necrosis Factor Alpha in Murine Cytomegalovirus Transcriptional Reactivation in Latently Infected Lungs

2004

ABSTRACT Interstitial pneumonia is a major clinical manifestation of primary or recurrent cytomegalovirus (CMV) infection in immunocompromised recipients of a bone marrow transplant. In a murine model, lungs were identified as a prominent site of CMV latency and recurrence. Pulmonary latency of murine CMV is characterized by high viral genome burden and a low incidence of variegated immediate-early (IE) gene expression, reflecting a sporadic activity of the major IE promoters (MIEPs) and enhancer. The enhancer-flanking promoters MIEP1/3 and MIEP2 are switched on and off during latency in a ratio of ∼2:1. MIEP1/3 latency-associated activity generates the IE1 transcript of the ie1/3 transcrip…

Patchwork Pattern of Transcriptional Reactivation in the Lungs Indicates Sequential Checkpoints in the Transition from Murine Cytomegalovirus Latency…

1999

The lungs are a relevant organ site of primary and recurrent human cytomegalovirus (hCMV) disease (for overviews, see references 21, 22, 31, 34, 39, and 44). Murine CMV (mCMV) can serve us as a model for studying CMV pneumonia in acute infection (6, 27, 33, 37) as well as for studying viral latency, reactivation, and recurrence in the lungs (2, 17, 18, 42, 43). We have shown recently that transcription from the major immediate-early (MIE) transcription unit ie1-ie3 (hereafter referred to as ie1/3), which is driven by a strong MIE promoter-enhancer (MIEPE) (3), occurs during pulmonary latency of mCMV but fails to initiate the productive cycle (17). Notably, the paralogous MIEPE of hCMV can f…

Phage-borne factors and host LexA regulate the lytic switch in phage GIL01.

2011

ABSTRACT The Bacillus thuringiensis temperate phage GIL01 does not integrate into the host chromosome but exists stably as an independent linear replicon within the cell. Similar to that of the lambdoid prophages, the lytic cycle of GIL01 is induced as part of the cellular SOS response to DNA damage. However, no CI-like maintenance repressor has been detected in the phage genome, suggesting that GIL01 uses a novel mechanism to maintain lysogeny. To gain insights into the GIL01 regulatory circuit, we isolated and characterized a set of 17 clear plaque ( cp ) mutants that are unable to lysogenize. Two phage-encoded proteins, gp1 and gp7, are required for stable lysogen formation. Analysis of …

ΔNp73β is oncogenic in hepatocellular carcinoma by blocking apoptosis signaling via death receptors and mitochondria

2010

p73 belongs to the p53 family of transcription factors known to regulate cell cycle and apoptosis. The Trp73 gene has two promoters that drive the expression of two major p73 isoform subfamilies: TA and ΔN. In general, TAp73 isoforms show proapoptotic activities, whereas members of the N-terminally truncated (ΔN) p73 subfamily that lack the transactivation domain show antiapoptotic functions. We found that upregulation of ΔNp73 in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) correlated with reduced survival. Here, we investigated the molecular mechanisms accounting for the oncogenic role of ΔNp73 in HCC.ΔNp73β can directly interfere with the transcriptional activation function of the TA (containing the t…

HIF-1α induces MXI1 by alternate promoter usage in human neuroblastoma cells

2009

Adaptation to low oxygen conditions is essential for maintaining homeostasis and viability in oxygen-consuming multi-cellular tissues, including solid tumors. Central in these processes are the hypoxia-inducible transcription factors, HIF-1 and HIF-2, controlling genes involved in e.g. glucose metabolism and neovascularization. Tumor hypoxia and HIF expression have also been associated with a dedifferentiated phenotype and increased aggressiveness. In this report we show that the MAX interactor-1 (MXI1) gene is directly regulated by HIF proteins in neuroblastoma and breast cancer cells. HIF-binding and transactivation were detected within MXI1 gene regulatory sequences in the vicinity of th…