Current Molecular Medicine - Volume 14, Issue 5, 2014

Conditions of poor oxygenation (hypoxia) are present in the majority of solid human tumors and are associated with poor patient prognosis due to both hypoxia-mediated resistance to treatment, and to hypoxiainduced biological changes that promote increased malignancy, including metastasis. Tumor cells respond to hypoxia by activating several oxygen-sensitive signaling pathways that include the hypoxia inducible f Read More

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are a class of small (18~25 nucleotides long) non-coding RNAs that regulate gene expression on the post-transcriptional level. During the last decade, the field of miRNA research has been exponentially expanding, revealing the widespread role of these molecules in numerous biological processes. Aberrant miRNA expression has been documented in multiple haematologic malignancies, including B c Read More

Kennedy disease (spinal and bulbar muscular atrophy, or SBMA) is a motor neuron disease caused by a CAG expansion in the androgen-receptor (AR) gene. Increasing evidence shows that SBMA may have a primary myopathic component and that mitochondrial dysfunction may have some role in the pathogenesis of this disease. In this article, we review the role of mitochondrial dysfunction and of the mitochondrial genome Read More

Bax inhibitor-1 (BI-1) is an evolutionarily-conserved endoplasmic reticulum protein. The expression of BI-1 in mammalian cells suppresses apoptosis induced by Bax, a pro-apoptotic member of the Bcl-2 family. BI-1 has been shown to be associated with calcium (Ca2+) levels, reactive oxygen species (ROS) production, cytosolic acidification, and autophagy as well as endoplasmic reticulum stress signaling pathways. According t Read More

Survival of myocytes and mesenchymal cells in the heart is tightly regulated by a number of adaptive processes that are invoked with the changes that occur within the parenchyma and stroma. Autophagy is implicated in cellular housekeeping duties and maintenance of the integrity of the intracellular milieu by removal of protein aggregates and damaged organelles, whereas under pathophysiological conditions, the chroni Read More

Galectins control cell behavior by acting on different signaling pathways. Most of the biological activities ascribed to these molecules rely upon recognition of extracellular glycoconjugates and establishment of multivalente interactions, which trigger adaptive biological responses. However, galectins are also detected within the cell in different compartments, where their regulatory functions still remain poorly understood. A Read More

The metastasis suppressor protein Kisspeptin regulates cancer cell proliferation and motility through its receptor, GRP54. However, the critical downstream effectors remain unclear. In this study, we investigated GPR54 signaling in breast cancer cells. Kisspeptin stimulation caused a decrease in migration of multiple breast cancer cell lines. Also, Kisspeptin inhibited MDA-MB-231 cell colony formation in 3D matrigel cul Read More

Cigarette smoking is associated with a series of lung diseases such as cancer, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), and asthma. Despite the intense interest, the underlying molecular mechanism in smoking-related diseases is incompletely understood. Here, we show that Lyn is involved in cytotoxicity of respiratory epithelial cells induced by cigarette smoke extracts (CSE), an in vitro culture model for evaluating t Read More

Thiol-containing antioxidant systems play an important role in regulating cellular redox homeostasis. Several anti-cancer agents act by targeting these systems by inducing the production of reactive oxygen species (ROS). Our earlier studies have shown that Eriocalyxin B (EriB), a diterpenoid isolated from Isodon eriocalyx, possesses anti-pancreatic tumour activities in vitro and in vivo. The present study further demonstrated t Read More

Frequent outbreaks caused by influenza viruses pose considerable public health threats worldwide. Virus-inflicted alveolar damage represents a major contributor of acute lung injury in influenza. We have previously demonstrated that hepatocyte growth factor (HGF) produced by macrophages enhances alveolar epithelial proliferation during influenza infection. Here, we investigated the therapeutic efficacy of reco Read More