Current Signal Transduction Therapy - Volume 6, Issue 3, 2011

Neurological disorders such as Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, Huntington's disease, stroke and multiple sclerosis (MS) are caused by an extensive loss of neurons and glial cells into the brain. Regrettably, there are no effective treatments against any of these disorders, yet. Recently, cell replacement and gene transfer into the damaged brain have shown a high potential for the design of novel therapeutic strategies to Read More

Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a demyelinating immune-mediated disease of the central nervous system (CNS). It is the most common cause of acquired disability in young adults and affects over 2 Mio people worldwide. Current treatments target primarily the immune system, reduce the relapse rate and the formation of inflammatory lesions in the CNS, however with only temporary and limited success. Unfortunately, self-repair mech Read More

Neural stem cells (NSC) are cells that have the capacity to generate multiple types of differentiated brain cells. In conditions in which there is a loss of key functional cell groups, such as neurons, inducing or introducing neural stem cells to replace the function of those cells that were lost during the disease has the greatest potential therapeutic applications. Indeed, the achievement of one of the main objectives of various investi Read More

The subventricular zone (SVZ), lining the lateral ventricular system, is the largest germinal region in mammals. In there, neural stem cells express markers related to astroglial lineage that give rise to new neurons and oligodendrocytes in vivo. In the adult human brain, in vitro evidence has also shown that astrocytic cells isolated from the SVZ can generate new neurons and oligodendrocytes. These proliferative cells are strongly Read More

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is a major cause of mortality and morbidity in the world. Unfortunately, no effective treatments are currently available for TBI. On the other hand, different types of stem cells have shown to selectively target injured brain and improve functional recovery. Moreover, recent data suggest that strategies regarding neurogenesis and angiogenesis following brain injuries may provide promising results. This Read More

Human fetal mesencephalic tissue can be successfully used in dopamine (DA) cell replacement therapy in Parkinson's disease (PD), nevertheless, further advances have been impeded due to limited tissue availability. Stem cell-based approaches have received much hype as potential treatments for neurodegenerative disorders, but have shown poor cell survival. The brains of three patients with Parkinson's disease wh Read More

Stem cells - based therapy is one of the most promising therapeutic approaches for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), which is a fatal neurodegenerative disease without cure. This paper reviews the most intriguing pre-clinical and clinical studies and reports the current status of knowledge regarding ALS pathogenesis, confronting it with stem cell applications and their effects. Here we summarize various therape Read More

Stroke is the leading cause of disability in developed countries, and investigations to identify ways to recover lost neurological function continue. The potential of stem cell therapy could be enormous, but current knowledge and techniques remain limited. In this review article, findings related to the therapeutic potential of acceleration of endogenous neurogenesis and neuronal stem cell transplantation are introduced. The the Read More

Protein Kinase C isoforms (PKCs) are serine/threonine kinases that mediate multiple cellular functions and have been implicated in the patho-physiology of cancer, diabetes and cardiovascular diseases such as ischemia, cardiac hypertrophy, heart failure, and atherosclerosis. Blood components such as platelets contribute to thrombus formation resulting in stroke and myocardial infarction under patho-physiological c Read More

The animal ribonucleases and plant nucleases are selective cytotoxic enzymes with several biological activities inclusively also with antitumorous effects. The first attention from animal researches is dated to 1938 year, meanwhile plant enzyme investigators awoke their attention in last time. The bovine pancreatic ribonuclease, after the first structurally studies, allured very soon the peoples with functionally interests. The resu Read More

The EGF and its receptor (EGFR) play an important role in the pathogenesis of different tumors. Gefitinib (Iressa) has been shown to suppress the activation of EGFR signaling required for cell survival and proliferation in nonsmall cell lung cancer (NSCLC) cell lines. We recently demonstrated that gefitinib-sensitive cells show efficient endocytosis of EGFR. In contrast, gefitinib-resistant cells showed internalized EGFR accumulati Read More

In this work, we computationally identified the most detrimental missense mutations of ABL tyrosine kinase in Chronic Myelogenous Leukemia (CML) and analyzed the drug resistance from these detrimental missense mutations. Out of 45 missense mutations, 20 variants were commonly found less stable, deleterious and damaging by I-Mutant2.0, SIFT and PolyPhen programs respectively. Subsequently, we performed mo Read More

Signalling from receptor tyrosine kinases is presumably the most investigated pathway so far and myriad of protein components and respective interactions involved have been outlined. Considerably, disconcerted receptor tyrosine kinase signalling has been implicated in the generation and maintenance of many different human diseases. The two crucial interlinked axes in receptor tyrosine kinase signalling have received im Read More

The malignant brain tumour, glioblastoma, is invariably fatal with an average survival of 8-11 months (recent pharmacology has increased the median survival to 15, and rarely to 18 months). Different growth factors participate in the malignant development of the brain, especially IGF-1, EGF, TGF-beta and VEGF. Among the strategies applied to target and arrest the expression of growth factors, their receptors (tyrosine ki Read More

Some of Alzheimer's syndromes are investigated and it is demonstrated that principal reason of them is brain shrinking. In this situation size of holes in brain is smaller than natural state. Natural frequency of holes is calculated for healthy and Alzheimer brains and it is demonstrated that an applied ultrasound wave with this frequency can resonate oscillation of holes diameter and consequently can restore health of brain. Be Read More

This review summarizes the key role of Toll-Like Receptor (TLRs) molecules for igniting the immune system. Activated by a broad spectrum of pathogens, cytokines or other specific molecules, TLRs trigger innate immune responses. Published data demonstrate that the targeting and suppression of TLRs and TLR-related proteins with particular inhibitors may provide pivotal treatments for patients with cancer, asthma, Read More

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