Articles

miR-26a inhibits atherosclerosis progression by targeting TRPC3

Atherosclerosis, a chronic multi-factorial vascular disease, has become a predominant cause of a variety of cardiovascular disorders. miR-26a was previously reported to be involved in atherosclerosis progressi...

Authors: Min Feng, Daqian Xu and Lirui Wang

Epigenetic alterations in TRAMP mice: epigenome DNA methylation profiling using MeDIP-seq

We investigated the genomic DNA methylation profile of prostate cancer in transgenic adenocarcinoma of the mouse prostate (TRAMP) cancer model and to analyze the crosstalk among targeted genes and the related ...

Authors: Wenji Li, Ying Huang, Davit Sargsyan, Tin Oo Khor, Yue Guo, Limin Shu, Anne Yuqing Yang, Chengyue Zhang, Ximena Paredes-Gonzalez, Michael Verzi, Ronald P. Hart and Ah-Ng Kong

Characterization and selective incorporation of small non-coding RNAs in non-small cell lung cancer extracellular vesicles

Extracellular vesicles (EVs) play important roles in intercellular communication through the delivery of their cargoes, which include proteins, lipids, and RNAs. Increasingly, multiple studies have reported th...

Authors: Chuang Li, Fang Qin, Fen Hu, Hui Xu, Guihong Sun, Guang Han, Tao Wang and Mingxiong Guo

Aspirin inhibited the metastasis of colon cancer cells by inhibiting the expression of toll-like receptor 4

The metastasis of colorectal cancer frequently tends to liver, which is one of the three leading causes of cancer-related deaths worldwide. Growing evidence showed that aspirin could effectively inhibit liver ...

Authors: Jun Ying, Hai-yang Zhou, Peng Liu, Qing You, Fei Kuang, Yi-nan Shen and Zhi-qian Hu

Hypoxic 3D in vitro culture models reveal distinct resistance processes to TKIs in renal cancer cells

The aim of this study is to determine the effect of hypoxia on axitinib and sorafenib-treated renal cell carcinoma (RCC) cells. Hypoxia is a crucial factor influencing transcription process via protein modulat...

Authors: Zofia F. Bielecka, Agata Malinowska, Klaudia K. Brodaczewska, Aleksandra Klemba, Claudine Kieda, Paweł Krasowski, Elżbieta Grzesiuk, Jan Piwowarski, Anna M. Czarnecka and Cezary Szczylik

Heart regeneration in adult Xenopus tropicalis after apical resection

Myocardium regeneration in adult mammals is very limited, but has enormous therapeutic potentials. However, we are far from complete understanding the cellular and molecular mechanisms by which heart tissue ca...

Authors: Souqi Liao, Wenyan Dong, Luocheng Lv, Hongyan Guo, Jifeng Yang, Hui Zhao, Ruijin Huang, Ziqiang Yuan, Yilin Chen, Shanshan Feng, Xin Zheng, Junqi Huang, Weihuan Huang, Xufeng Qi and Dongqing Cai

The lncRNA MEG3 downregulation leads to osteoarthritis progression via miR-16/SMAD7 axis

Osteoarthritis (OA) is a chronic joint disease and there is no a definitive cure at present. Long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) have been confirmed to play important roles in the development of OA. However, the un...

Authors: Jin Xu and Yaozeng Xu

miR-124 promotes proliferation and differentiation of neuronal stem cells through inactivating Notch pathway

Neural stem cells (NSCs) are able to differentiate into neurons and astroglia. miRNAs have been demonstrated to be involved in NSC self-renewal, proliferation and differentiation. However, the exact role of mi...

Authors: Shujie Jiao, Yaling Liu, Yaobing Yao and Junfang Teng

Exogenous H₂S restores ischemic post-conditioning-induced cardioprotection through inhibiting endoplasmic reticulum stress in the aged cardiomyocytes

A gasotransmitter hydrogen sulfide (H₂S) plays an important physiological and pathological role in cardiovascular system. Ischemic post-conditioning (PC) provides cardioprotection in the young hearts but not in t...

Authors: Weiming Sun, Jinxia Yang, Yuanzhou Zhang, Yuxin Xi, Xin Wen, Di Yuan, Yuehong Wang, Can Wei, Rui Wang, Lingyun Wu, Hongzhu Li and Changqing Xu

Methylation mediated Gadd45β enhanced the chemosensitivity of hepatocellular carcinoma by inhibiting the stemness of liver cancer cells

Defects of the growth arrest DNA damage-inducible gene 45β (Gadd45β) play an important role in the progression of tumor and confer resistance to chemotherapy. However, the role of Gadd45β in the apoptosis of h...

Authors: Xiao-Juan Hou, Qiu-Dong Zhao, Ying-Ying Jing, Zhi-Peng Han, Xue Yang, Li-Xin Wei, Yu-Ting Zheng, Feng Xie and Bai-He Zhang

Long non-coding RNA GAS5 suppresses pancreatic cancer metastasis through modulating miR-32-5p/PTEN axis

Long non-coding RNA growth arrest-specific transcript 5 (lncRNA GAS5) is a well-known tumor suppressor in the pathogenesis of a variety of human cancers. The precise role of GAS5 in pancreatic cancer (PC) prog...

Authors: Zhi-Qiang Gao, Jun-feng Wang, De-Hua Chen, Xue-Song Ma, Yang Wu, Zhe Tang and Xiao-Wei Dang

Long non-coding RNA H19 regulates E2F1 expression by competitively sponging endogenous miR-29a-3p in clear cell renal cell carcinoma

Numerous recent studies indicate that the long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) are frequently abnormal expressed and take critical roles in many cancers. Renal cell carcinoma is the secondary malignant tumors in the...

Authors: Haowei He, Nana Wang, Xiaoming Yi, Chaopeng Tang and Dong Wang

Role of metastasis-induced protein S100A4 in human non-tumor pathophysiologies

S100A4, an important member of the S100 family of proteins, is best known for its significant role in promoting cancer progression and metastasis. In addition to its expression in tumors, upregulation of S100A...

Authors: Fei Fei, Jie Qu, Chunyuan Li, Xinlu Wang, Yuwei Li and Shiwu Zhang

Overexpression of hypoxia-inducible factor and metabolic pathways: possible targets of cancer

Cancer, the main cause of human deaths in the modern world is a group of diseases. Anticancer drug discovery is a challenge for scientists because of involvement of multiple survival pathways of cancer cells. ...

Authors: Davinder Singh, Rohit Arora, Pardeep Kaur, Balbir Singh, Rahul Mannan and Saroj Arora

Tumorigenesis as a process of gradual loss of original cell identity and gain of properties of neural precursor/progenitor cells

Cancer is a complex disease without a unified explanation for its cause so far. Our recent work demonstrates that cancer cells share similar regulatory networks and characteristics with embryonic neural cells....

Authors: Ying Cao

Cloning, expression and identification of KTX-Sp4, a selective Kv1.3 peptidic blocker from Scorpiops pococki

Specific and selective peptidic blockers of Kv1.3 channels can serve as a valuable drug lead for treating T cell-mediated autoimmune diseases, and scorpion venom is an important source of kv1.3 channel inhibit...

Authors: Yan Zou, Feng Zhang, Yaxian Li, Yuanfang Wang, Yi Li, Zhengtao Long, Shujuan Shi, Li Shuai, Jiukai Liu, Zhiyong Di and Shijin Yin

Strain differences in cuprizone induced demyelination

Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a severe neurological disorder, characterized by demyelination of the central nervous system (CNS), and with a prevalence of greater than 2 million people worldwide. In terms of rese...

Authors: Qili Yu, Ryan Hui, Jiyoung Park, Yangyang Huang, Alexander W. Kusnecov, Cheryl F. Dreyfus and Renping Zhou

14-3-3ζ loss leads to neonatal lethality by microRNA-126 downregulation-mediated developmental defects in lung vasculature

The 14-3-3 family of proteins have been reported to play an important role in development in various mouse models, but the context specific developmental functions of 14-3-3ζ remain to be determined. In this s...

Authors: Jun Yang, Sonali Joshi, Qingfei Wang, Ping Li, Hai Wang, Yan Xiong, Yi Xiao, Jinyang Wang, Jan Parker-Thornburg, Richard R. Behringer and Dihua Yu

Differential regulation of IFNα, IFNβ and IFNε gene expression in human cervical epithelial cells

Interferonε (IFNε) is a unique type I IFN that has distinct functions from IFNα/β. IFNε is constitutively expressed at mucosal tissues, including the female genital mucosa, and is reported to be modulated by e...

Authors: Jennifer Couret, Carley Tasker, Jaeha Kim, Tiina Sihvonen, Saahil Fruitwala, Alison J. Quayle, Pierre Lespinasse, Debra S. Heller and Theresa L. Chang

Combination of EZH2 inhibitor and BET inhibitor for treatment of diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma

Diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma is an infiltrative, often high-grade glioma of the brainstem that is not amenable to surgical resection. The current treatment of DIPG by radiation therapy showed dramatically ...

Authors: Yaqin Zhang, Weijie Dong, Junying Zhu, Lizhu Wang, Xinjian Wu and Hong Shan

Sirtinol regulates the balance of Th17/Treg to prevent allograft rejection

Current immunosuppressive medications used after transplantation induce significant toxicity , and a new medication regimen is needed. Based on recent research, Sirt1 exerts a proinflammatory effect on the imm...

Authors: Qing Ye, Mingjian Zhang, Yang Wang, Shangxi Fu, Shu Han, Liming Wang and Quanxing Wang

Gut microbiota as a potential target of metabolic syndrome: the role of probiotics and prebiotics

Metabolic syndrome (MS) comprises central obesity, increased plasma glucose levels, hyperlipidemia and hypertension, and its incidence is increasing due to changes in lifestyle and dietary structure in recent ...

Authors: Mingqian He and Bingyin Shi

The expanding functions of thyroid hormone

Authors: Jiemin Wong and Shaochung Victor Hsia

Differential impact of various reactive oxygen species (ROS) on HIF-1α/p53 direct interaction in SK-N-MC neuroblastoma cells

A vital property of eukaryotic cells physiology is their rather quick response to variation of oxygen tension, mainly by a transcription factor known as hypoxia-inducible factor-1 (HIF-1). Aside from its trans...

Authors: Elham Parandavar and Razieh Yazdanparast

miR-125a suppresses viability and glycolysis and induces apoptosis by targeting Hexokinase 2 in laryngeal squamous cell carcinoma

miR-125a usually functions as a tumor suppressor in cancers. However, the role of miR-125a in laryngeal squamous cell carcinoma (LSCC) has not been determined.

Authors: Zhanwei Sun, Wenqi Zhang and Qian Li

Apigenin in cancer therapy: anti-cancer effects and mechanisms of action

Apigenin is a common dietary flavonoid that is abundantly present in many fruits, vegetables and Chinese medicinal herbs and serves multiple physiological functions, such as strong anti-inflammatory, antioxida...

Authors: Xiaohui Yan, Miao Qi, Pengfei Li, Yihong Zhan and Huanjie Shao

Catching global interactions in vivo

Histone proteins and transcription factors (TFs) play critical roles in gene transcription and development of multicellular organisms. Although antibody mediated protein isolation couple with mass spectrometry...

Authors: Yi Qiu and Suming Huang

A good sugar, d-mannose, suppresses autoimmune diabetes

It is well known that too much sugar uptake causes many health problems, including diabetes and obesity (Lustig et al. in Nature 482:27–29, 2012). However, a team of researchers led by Dr. Wanjun Chen of the Nati...

Authors: Yun-Bo Shi and Deling Yin

Genome editing of the HIV co-receptors CCR5 and CXCR4 by CRISPR-Cas9 protects CD4⁺ T cells from HIV-1 infection

The main approach to treat HIV-1 infection is combination antiretroviral therapy (cART). Although cART is effective in reducing HIV-1 viral load and controlling disease progression, it has many side effects, a...

Authors: Zhepeng Liu, Shuliang Chen, Xu Jin, Qiankun Wang, Kongxiang Yang, Chenlin Li, Qiaoqiao Xiao, Panpan Hou, Shuai Liu, Shaoshuai Wu, Wei Hou, Yong Xiong, Chunyan Kong, Xixian Zhao, Li Wu, Chunmei Li…

Enhancing antitumor immunogenicity of HPV16-E7 DNA vaccine by fusing DNA encoding E7-antigenic peptide to DNA encoding capsid protein L1 of Bovine papillomavirus

Human papillomavirus (HPV) has been identified as the primary etiologic factor of cervical cancer, the fourth leading cause of cancer death in females worldwide. We have previously shown that coadministration ...

Authors: Andrew Yang, Shiwen Peng, Emily Farmer, Qi Zeng, Max A. Cheng, Xiaowu Pang, T. -C. Wu and Chien-Fu Hung

Investigation of host–pathogen interaction between Burkholderia pseudomallei and autophagy-related protein LC3 using hydrophobic chromatography-based technique

Burkholderia pseudomallei is an intracellular bacteria causing Melioidosis, the disease widely disseminates in Southeast Asia and Northern Australia. B. pseudomallei has ability to inv...

Authors: Pattamaporn Joompa, Saranyoo Ponnikorn, Sittiruk Roytrakul and Sumalee Tungpradabkul

Ginkgetin aglycone ameliorates LPS-induced acute kidney injury by activating SIRT1 via inhibiting the NF-κB signaling pathway

Ginkgetin aglycone (GA), a novel Ginkgo biloba extract (GBE) by acid hydrolysis and recrystallization, is characterized by higher liposolubility and antioxidation than classical GBEs. There is no study depicting ...

Authors: Junwei Zhang, Suxia Yang, Fang Chen, Huicong Li and Baoping Chen

Phosphorylation of astrocytic connexin43 by ERK1/2 impairs blood–brain barrier in acute cerebral ischemia

Connexins are a family of transmembrane proteins that form gap junctions, which are important for diffusion of cytosolic factors such as ions and second messenger signaling molecules. Our previous study has sh...

Authors: Wei Chen, Jiugeng Feng and Wusong Tong

Diabetic retinopathy: reversibility of epigenetic modifications and new therapeutic targets

In recent years, considerable progress has been made in the molecular mechanisms of epigenetics in disease development and progression, the reversible characteristics of epigenetic modification provide new ins...

Authors: Xinyuan Zhang, Lin Zhao, Brett Hambly, Shisan Bao and Kaiyue Wang

A human plasma derived supplement preserves function of human vascular cells in absence of fetal bovine serum

Current techniques for cell culture routinely use animal-derived components. Fetal bovine serum (FBS) is the most widely applied supplement, but it often displays significant batch-to-batch variations and is g...

Authors: C. Castells-Sala, J. Martorell and M. Balcells

The 2016 Ming K Jeang Award for Excellence in Cell & Bioscience

Two research groups led by Dr. Jim Hu of University of Toronto, Canada and Dr. Renping Zhou of Rutgers University, USA, respectively, won the 2016 Ming K Jeang Award for Excellence in Cell & Bioscience. ...

Authors: Yun-Bo Shi

TGF-β in pancreatic cancer initiation and progression: two sides of the same coin

Pancreatic cancer is highly lethal malignant tumor with characterised rapid progression, invasiveness and resistance to radiochemotherapy. Transforming growth factor-β (TGF-β) signaling plays a dual role in bo...

Authors: Wei Shen, Guo-qing Tao, Yu Zhang, Bing Cai, Jian Sun and Zhi-qiang Tian

The miR-290-295 cluster as multi-faceted players in mouse embryonic stem cells

Increasing evidence indicates that embryonic stem cell specific microRNAs (miRNAs) play an essential role in the early development of embryo. Among them, the miR-290-295 cluster is the most highly expressed in...

Authors: Kai Yuan, Wen-Bing Ai, Lin-Yan Wan, Xiao Tan and Jiang-Feng Wu

Isocitrate dehydrogenases in physiology and cancer: biochemical and molecular insight

Isocitrate dehydrogenases play important roles in cellular metabolism and cancer. This review will discuss how the roles of isoforms 1 and 2 in normal cell and cancer metabolism are distinct from those of isof...

Authors: Hamoud Al-Khallaf

Stromal Senp1 promotes mouse early folliculogenesis by regulating BMP4 expression

Mammalian folliculogenesis, maturation of the ovarian follicles, require both growth factors derived from oocyte and surrounding cells, including stromal cells. However, the mechanism by which stromal cells an...

Authors: Shu Tan, Boya Feng, Mingzhu Yin, Huanjiao Jenny Zhou, Ge Lou, Weidong Ji, Yonghao Li and Wang Min

Genome editing is revolutionizing biology

Authors: Yiping Qi

The roles of microRNA families in hepatic fibrosis

When hepatocytes are damaged severely, a variety of signaling pathways will be triggered by inflammatory factors and cytokines involving in the process of hepatic fibrosis. The microRNA (miRNA) family consists...

Authors: Xue-Ping Jiang, Wen-Bing Ai, Lin-Yan Wan, Yan-Qiong Zhang and Jiang-Feng Wu

ZNF300 tight self-regulation and functioning through DNA methylation and histone acetylation

Accumulating evidence demonstrates that the KRAB-ZNFs involve in various biological processes. As a typical member of KRAB-ZNFs, dysregulation of ZNF300 contributes to multiple pathologies such as leukemia and...

Authors: Feng-Juan Yan, Jingyi Fan, Zan Huang and Jun-Jian Zhang

Erratum to: A new paradigm of DNA synthesis: three-metal-ion catalysis

Authors: Wei Yang, Peter J. Weng and Yang Gao

Kv1.3 channel blocker (ImKTx88) maintains blood–brain barrier in experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis

Disruption of blood–brain barrier (BBB) and subsequent infiltration of auto-reactive T lymphocytes are major characteristics of multiple sclerosis (MS) and experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis (EAE). Kv1....

Authors: Jie Huang, Song Han, Qi Sun, Yipeng Zhao, Junchen Liu, Xiaolu Yuan, Wenqian Mao, Biwen Peng, Wanhong Liu, Jun Yin and Xiaohua He

iPSCs are safe!

Induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) hold great promises in cell therapy. However, the potential safety issues have dampened the enthusiasm of their clinical development. One of the biggest concerns came fro...

Authors: Hualong Yan, Yun-Bo Shi and Jing Huang

APOBEC3B, a molecular driver of mutagenesis in human cancers

Human cancers results in large part from the accumulation of multiple mutations. The progression of premalignant cells is an evolutionary process in which mutations provide the fundamental driving force for ge...

Authors: Jun Zou, Chen Wang, Xiangyi Ma, Edward Wang and Guang Peng

Chloroquine inhibits Ca²⁺ permeable ion channels-mediated Ca²⁺ signaling in primary B lymphocytes

Chloroquine, a bitter tastant, inhibits Ca²⁺ signaling, resulting in suppression of B cell activation; however, the inhibitory mechanism remains unclear.

Authors: Yi-Fan Wu, Ping Zhao, Xi Luo, Jin-Chao Xu, Lu Xue, Qi Zhou, Mingrui Xiong, Jinhua Shen, Yong-Bo Peng, Meng-Fei Yu, Weiwei Chen, Liqun Ma and Qing-Hua Liu

Epigenetic regulation of Runx2 transcription and osteoblast differentiation by nicotinamide phosphoribosyltransferase

Bone degenerative disorders like osteoporosis may be initiated by age-related shifts in anabolic and catabolic responses that control bone homeostasis. Although there are studies suggesting that metabolic chan...

Authors: Min Ling, Peixin Huang, Shamima Islam, Daniel P. Heruth, Xuanan Li, Li Qin Zhang, Ding-You Li, Zhaohui Hu and Shui Qing Ye

Control of gene expression through the nonsense-mediated RNA decay pathway

Nonsense-mediated RNA decay (NMD) was originally discovered as a cellular surveillance pathway that safeguards the quality of mRNA transcripts in eukaryotic cells. In its canonical function, NMD prevents trans...

Authors: Andrew Nickless, Julie M. Bailis and Zhongsheng You