International Journal of Molecular Sciences, Volume 17, Issue 2

Toll-like receptor (TLR) 9 is an endosomal receptor recognizing bacterial DNA/CpG-containing oligodeoxynucleotides (CpG ODN). Blocking CpG ODN/TLR9 activity represents a strategy for therapeutic prevention of immune system overactivation. Herein, we...

Protein therapy exhibits several advantages over small molecule drugs and is increasingly being developed for the treatment of disorders ranging from single enzyme deficiencies to cancer. Cell-penetrating peptides (CPPs), a group of small peptides ca...

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is one of the most commonly diagnosed cancers worldwide. Chemoprevention of HCC can be achieved through the use of natural or synthetic compounds that reverse, suppress or prevent the development of cancer progression....

Myrosinases are β-thioglucoside glucohydrolases and serve as defense mechanisms against insect pests and pathogens by producing toxic compounds. AtTGG6 in Arabidopsis thaliana was previously reported to be a myrosinase pseudogene but specifically exp...

Tea leaves contain abundant flavan-3-ols, which include dihydroxylated and trihydroxylated catechins. Flavonoid 3′-hydroxylase (F3′H: EC 1.14.13.21) is one of the enzymes in the establishment of the hydroxylation pattern. A gene encoding F3′H, design...

Benzyl isothiocyanate (BITC) is a hydrolysis product of glucotropaeolin, a compound found in cruciferous vegetables, and has been shown to have anti-tumor properties. In the present study, we investigated whether BITC inhibits the development of pros...

In this study, a gas-chromatography mass spectrometry (GC-MS) metabolomics study was applied to examine urine metabolite profiles of different classes of neonates under different nutrition regimens. The study population included 35 neonates, exclusiv...

To obtain detailed information about the effect of the solvent temperatures on protein dynamics, multiple long molecular dynamics (MD) simulations of serine protease proteinase K with the solute and solvent coupled to different temperatures (either 3...

Environmental metal pollution is a growing health risk to flora and fauna. It is therefore important to fully elucidate metal detoxification pathways. Phytochelatin synthase (PCS), an enzyme involved in the biosynthesis of phytochelatins (PCs), plays...

Diabetes mellitus (DM) is a widespread metabolic disease with a progressive incidence of morbidity and mortality worldwide. Despite extensive research, treatment options for diabetic patients remains limited. Although significant challenges remain, i...

In Korea and China, Cudrania tricuspidata Bureau (Moraceae) is an important traditional medicinal plant used to treat lumbago, hemoptysis, and contusions. The C. tricuspidata methanol extract suppressed both production of NO and PGE₂ in BV2 microglia...

Synthetic lethality describes situations in which defects in two different genes or pathways together result in cell death. This concept has been applied to drug development for cancer treatment, as represented by Poly (ADP-ribose) polymerase (PARPs)...

Toxicity induced by radiation therapy is a curse for cancer patients undergoing treatment. It is imperative to understand and define an ideal condition where the positive effects notably outweigh the negative. We used a microarray meta-analysis appro...

Xanthomonas oryzae pv. oryzae (Xoo) causes bacterial blight (BB) in rice (Oryza sativa L.). In this study, we investigated the genome-wide transcription patterns of two Xoo strains (KACC10331 and HB1009), which showed different virulence patterns aga...

Phenolic compounds constitute a group of secondary metabolites which have important functions in plants. Besides the beneficial effects on the plant host, phenolic metabolites (polyphenols) exhibit a series of biological properties that influence the...

Drug discovery is a risky, costly and time-consuming process depending on multidisciplinary methods to create safe and effective medicines. Although considerable progress has been made by high-throughput screening methods in drug design, the cost of...

The fresh rhizome of Zingiber zerumbet Smith (Zingiberaceae) is used as a food flavoring and also serves as a folk medicine as an antipyretic and for analgesics in Taiwan. Zerumbone, a monocyclic sesquiterpene was isolated from the rhizome of Z. zeru...

H inokitiol purified from the heartwood of cupressaceous plants has had various biological functions of cell differentiation and growth. Hinokitiol has been demonstrated as having an important role in anti-inflammation and anti-bacteria effect, sugge...

Various stem cells gradually turned to be critical players in tissue engineering and regenerative medicine therapies. Current evidence has demonstrated that in addition to growth factors and the extracellular matrix, multiple metabolic pathways defin...

We used Drosophila melanogaster as a model system to study the absorption, metabolism and potential health benefits of plant bioactives derived from radish sprouts (Raphanus sativus cv. Rambo), a Brassicaceae species rich in glucosinolates and other...

Cereal-based products can be used as vehicles for the delivery of relevant bioactive compounds since they are staple foods for most cultures throughout the world. The health promoting benefits of flavonoids and saponins contained in black bean seed c...

Psoriasis is a common skin disease accompanied by chronic inflammation. In previous studies, erythroid differentiation regulator 1 (ERDR1) was shown to have a negative correlation with proinflammatory cytokine IL-18. However, the role of ERDR1 in the...

Plants and plant extracts play a crucial role in the research into novel antineoplastic agents. Four sesquiterpene lactones, artecanin (1), 3β-chloro-4α,10α-dihydroxy-1α,2α-epoxy-5α,7αH-guaia-11(13)-en-12,6α-olide (2), iso-seco-tanapartholide 3-O-met...

Growth traits represent a main goal in aquaculture breeding programs and may be related to adaptive variation in wild fisheries. Integrating quantitative trait loci (QTL) mapping and next generation sequencing can greatly help to identify variation i...

Milk fat is a key factor affecting milk quality and is also a major trait targeted in dairy cow breeding. To determine how the synthesis and the metabolism of lipids in bovine milk is regulated at the miRNA level, primary mammary epithelial cells (pM...

The accomplishment of the Human Genome Project, followed by the availability of high-throughput technologies, has led to an impressive change in biomedical research.[...]

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are small non-coding RNAs that play a mostly post-transcriptional regulatory role in gene expression. Using RAW264.7 pre-osteoclast cells and genome-wide expression analysis, we identified a set of miRNAs that are involved in osteo...

Evidence supporting the use of second generation antipsychotics (SGAs) in the treatment of acute depression with mixed features (MFs) associated with bipolar disorder (BD) is scarce and equivocal. Therefore, we conducted a systematic review and preli...

This study was designed to evaluate the effects of strontium on the expression levels of microRNAs (miRNAs) and to explore their effects on skeletal cell proliferation, differentiation, adhesion, and apoptosis. The targets of these miRNAs were also s...

In Mexico, herbal products are commonly used as therapeutic tools. The analysis of several publications reveals that there are dozens of different herbs and herbal products used for different reasons, some of which have been implicated in causing tox...

Non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) represents about 85% of the reported cases of lung cancer. Acquired resistance to targeted therapy with epidermal growth factor receptor-tyrosine kinase inhibitors (EGFR-TKIs), such as gefitinib, is not uncommon. It...

Pulmonary fibrosis (PF) is a serious progressive lung disease and it originates from inflammation-induced parenchymal injury with excessive extracellular matrix deposition to result in the destruction of the normal lung architecture. Modified Kushen...

In chronic inflammatory diseases the anti-inflammatory effect of glucocorticoids (GCs) is often decreased, leading to GC resistance. Inflammation is related with increased levels of reactive oxygen species (ROS), leading to oxidative stress which is...

The mammalian hyaluronidase degrades hyaluronic acid by the cleavage of the β-1,4-glycosidic bond furnishing a tetrasaccharide molecule as the main product which is a highly angiogenic and potent inducer of inflammatory cytokines. Ursolic acid 1, iso...

The rapid development of nanotechnology allowed the fabrication of a wide range of different nanomaterials, raising many questions about their safety and potential risks for the human health and environment. Most of the current nanotoxicology researc...

Objectives: data on pregnancy long-term effects on multiple sclerosis (MS) course are still controversial; whether experiencing more than one pregnancy exposes one to risk of the disability‘s accrual is still unknown. We investigated differences exis...

Unlike the glucocorticoid receptor α (GRα), GR β (GRβ) has a truncated ligand-binding domain that prevents glucocorticoid binding, implicating GRα as the mediator of glucocorticoid-induced skeletal muscle loss. Because GRβ causes glucocorticoid resis...

Endocannabinoids including anandamide and 2-arachidonoylglycerol are involved in cancer pathophysiology in several ways, including tumor growth and progression, peritumoral inflammation, nausea and cancer pain. Recently we showed that the endocannabi...

Selenium is an essential micronutrient for humans. Much of selenium’s beneficial influence on health is attributed to its presence within 25 selenoproteins. Selenoprotein R (SelR), known as methionine sulfoxide reductase B1 (MsrB1), is a selenium-dep...

Plant lectins have been investigated to elucidate their complicated mechanisms due to their remarkable anticancer activities. Although plant lectins seems promising as a potential anticancer agent for further preclinical and clinical uses, further re...

Three sets of polymerase chain reaction (PCR) primers were designed for heminested PCR amplification of the target DNA fragments in the human genome which include the site of BRCA1 c.68_69del, BRCA1 c.5266dup and BRCA2 c.5946del respectively, to prep...

TGF-β1 is known to inhibit muscle regeneration after muscle injury. However, it is unknown if high systemic levels of TGF-β can affect the muscle regeneration process. In the present study, we demonstrated the effect of a CCl₄ intra-peritoneal inject...

Intercellular communication was long thought to be regulated exclusively through direct contact between cells or via release of soluble molecules that transmit the signal by binding to a suitable receptor on the target cell, and/or via uptake into th...

Extracellular vesicles (EVs) are a heterogeneous population of secreted membrane vesicles, with distinct biogenesis routes, biophysical properties and different functions both in physiological conditions and in disease. The release of EVs is a widesp...

Many types of cells release phospholipid membrane vesicles thought to play key roles in cell-cell communication, antigen presentation, and the spread of infectious agents. Extracellular vesicles (EVs) carry various proteins, messenger RNAs (mRNAs), a...

Growing evidence indicates that small extracellular vesicles, called exosomes, are prominent mediators of neurodegenerative diseases such as prion, Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease. Exosomes contain neurodegenerative disease associated proteins su...

The intense research focus on stem and progenitor cells could be attributed to their differentiation potential to generate new cells to replace diseased or lost cells in many highly intractable degenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer disease, multip...

Extracellular Vesicles (EVs) have received considerable attention in recent years, both as mediators of intercellular communication pathways that lead to tumor progression, and as potential sources for discovery of novel cancer biomarkers. For many y...

Marine macroalgae (green, red and brown macroalgae) have attracted attention as an alternative source of renewable biomass for producing both fuels and chemicals due to their high content of suitable carbohydrates and to their advantages over terrest...

The Golgi Apparatus (GA) is a major collection and dispatch station for numerous proteins destined for secretion, plasma membranes and lysosomes. The dysfunction of GA proteins can result in neurodegenerative diseases. Therefore, accurate identificat...