Search results for "cop"

Taking Advantage of Nature’s Gift: Can Endogenous Neural Stem Cells Improve Myelin Regeneration?

2016

Irreversible functional deficits in multiple sclerosis (MS) are directly correlated to axonal damage and loss. Neurodegeneration results from immune-mediated destruction of myelin sheaths and subsequent axonal demyelination. Importantly, oligodendrocytes, the myelinating glial cells of the central nervous system, can be replaced to some extent to generate new myelin sheaths. This endogenous regeneration capacity has so far mainly been attributed to the activation and recruitment of resident oligodendroglial precursor cells. As this self-repair process is limited and increasingly fails while MS progresses, much interest has evolved regarding the development of remyelination-promoting strateg…

2019

Resveratrol has been proposed to prevent tumor growth and the different steps of carcinogenesis; nevertheless, these biological effects are sometimes discordant between different cell types. Several hypotheses and works have suggested that the metabolism of resveratrol could be at the origin of a different cellular response. We show here, using colorectal tumor cell lines, that the biological effects of RSV result mainly from its carriage by carriers of the superfamily of ABC transporter, i.e., P-gP, MRP, or BCRP. Using cell lines overexpressing these different transporters, we have been able to highlight the importance of P-gP in the response of cells to RSV. These results were confirmed b…

Resveratrol-Induced Temporal Variation in the Mechanical Properties of MCF-7 Breast Cancer Cells Investigated by Atomic Force Microscopy

2019

Atomic force microscopy (AFM) combined with fluorescence microscopy has been used to quantify cytomechanical modifications induced by resveratrol (at a fixed concentration of 50 &micro

Long Term Culture of the A549 Cancer Cell Line Promotes Multilamellar Body Formation and Differentiation towards an Alveolar Type II Pneumocyte Pheno…

2016

Pulmonary research requires models that represent the physiology of alveolar epithelium but concerns with reproducibility, consistency and the technical and ethical challenges of using primary or stem cells has resulted in widespread use of continuous cancer or other immortalized cell lines. The A549 'alveolar' cell line has been available for over four decades but there is an inconsistent view as to its suitability as an appropriate model for primary alveolar type II (ATII) cells. Since most work with A549 cells involves short term culture of proliferating cells, we postulated that culture conditions that reduced proliferation of the cancer cells would promote a more differentiated ATII ce…

Cell-Autonomous and Non-cell-autonomous Function of Hox Genes Specify Segmental Neuroblast Identity in the Gnathal Region of the Embryonic CNS in Dro…

2016

During central nervous system (CNS) development neural stem cells (Neuroblasts, NBs) have to acquire an identity appropriate to their location. In thoracic and abdominal segments of Drosophila, the expression pattern of Bithorax-Complex Hox genes is known to specify the segmental identity of NBs prior to their delamination from the neuroectoderm. Compared to the thoracic, ground state segmental units in the head region are derived to different degrees, and the precise mechanism of segmental specification of NBs in this region is still unclear. We identified and characterized a set of serially homologous NB-lineages in the gnathal segments and used one of them (NB6-4 lineage) as a model to i…

Gut-CNS-Axis as Possibility to Modulate Inflammatory Disease Activity-Implications for Multiple Sclerosis.

2017

In the last decade the role of environmental factors as modulators of disease activity and progression has received increasing attention. In contrast to classical environmental modulators such as exposure to sun-light or fine dust pollution, nutrition is an ideal tool for a personalized human intervention. Various studies demonstrate a key role of dietary factors in autoimmune diseases including Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD), rheumatoid arthritis or inflammatory central nervous system (CNS) diseases such as Multiple Sclerosis (MS). In this review we discuss the connection between diet and inflammatory processes via the gut–CNS-axis. This axis describes a bi-directional communication syst…

Cytotoxic benzylbenzofuran derivatives from Dorstenia kameruniana

2018

Abstract Chromatographic separation of the extract of the roots of Dorstenia kameruniana (family Moraceae) led to the isolation of three new benzylbenzofuran derivatives, 2-(p-hydroxybenzyl)benzofuran-6-ol (1), 2-(p-hydroxybenzyl)-7-methoxybenzofuran-6-ol (2) and 2-(p-hydroxy)-3-(3-methylbut-2-en-1-yl)benzyl)benzofuran-6-ol(3) (named dorsmerunin A, B and C, respectively), along with the known furanocoumarin, bergapten (4). The twigs of Dorstenia kameruniana also produced compounds 1–4 as well as the known chalcone licoagrochalcone A (5). The structures were elucidated by NMR spectroscopy and mass spectrometry. The isolated compounds displayed cytotoxicity against the sensitive CCRF-CEM and …

2020

The periodontal ligament (PDL) is exposed to different kinds of mechanical stresses such as bite force or orthodontic tooth movement. A simple and efficient model to study molecular responses to mechanical stress is the application of compressive force onto primary human periodontal ligament fibroblasts via glass disks. Yet, this model suffers from the need for primary cells from human donors which have a limited proliferative capacity. Here we show that an immortalized cell line, PDL-hTERT, derived from primary human periodontal ligament fibroblasts exhibits characteristic responses to glass disk-mediated compressive force resembling those of primary cells. These responses include inductio…

Aptamers as smart ligands for nano-carriers targeting

2016

The development of enhanced drug delivery systems is one of the most attractive fields of pharmaceutical sciences, as some of the highly effective chemo/biotherapeutics for cancer treatment can not be administrated due to their high toxicities for normal cells or low stability in physiological media. However, drugs that are currently not administrable will become valuable if specific cell-targeted drug carriers can protect the normal cells from adverse effects and also improve drug pharmacokinetics. Aptamers are attractive and promising biomaterials developed with high affinity and specificity against numerous valuable targets. They could act similar to monoclonal antibodies (mAbs), and off…

A community resource of experimental data for NMR / X-ray crystal structure pairs

2015

We have developed an online NMR / X-ray Structure Pair Data Repository. The NIGMS Protein Structure Initiative (PSI) has provided many valuable reagents, 3D structures, and technologies for structural biology. The Northeast Structural Genomics Consortium was one of several PSI centers. NESG used both X-ray crystallography and NMR spectroscopy for protein structure determination. A key goal of the PSI was to provide experimental structures for at least one representative of each of hundreds of targeted protein domain families. In some cases, structures for identical (or nearly identical) constructs were determined by both NMR and X-ray crystallography. NMR spectroscopy and X-ray diffraction …