International Journal of Molecular Sciences, Volume 21, Issue 8

Background: Foodborne outbreaks caused by Campylobacter jejuni have become a significant public health problem worldwide. Applying genomic sequencing as a routine part of foodborne outbreak investigation remains in its infancy in China. We applied bo...

NF-κB signalling is crucial for cellular responses to inflammation but is also associated with the hypoxia response. NF-κB and hypoxia inducible factor (HIF) transcription factors possess an intense molecular crosstalk. Although it is kno...

The renin-angiotensin system (RAS) plays a main role in regulating blood pressure and electrolyte and liquid balance. Previous evidence suggests that RAS may represent an important target for the treatment of lung pathologies, especially for acute re...

Hypersexuality is a well-known adverse side effect of dopamine replacement therapy (DRT), and anti-craving drugs could be an effective therapeutic option. Our aim was to update the knowledge on this issue, particularly on the influence of an Opioid R...

This review aims to summarize the knowledge about the relationship between circadian rhythms and their influence on the development of type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) and metabolic syndrome. Circadian rhythms are controlled by internal molecular feed...

Parkinson’s disease (PD) is the second most common neurodegenerative disease and although many studies have been done on this disease, the underlying mechanisms are still poorly understood and further studies are warranted. Therefore, this stud...

Testing for the presence of coronavirus is an essential diagnostic tool for monitoring and managing the current COVID-19 pandemic. The only reliable test in current use for testing acute infection targets the genome of SARS-CoV-2, and the most widely...

Spinal sarcopenia is a complex and multifactorial disorder associated with a loss of strength, increased frailty, and increased risks of fractures and falls. In addition, spinal sarcopenia has been associated with lumbar spine disorders and osteoporo...

While two mouse NANOS paralogues, NANOS2 and NANOS3, are crucial for maintenance of germ cells by suppression of apoptosis, the mouse NANOS1 paralogue does not seem to regulate these processes. Previously, we described a human NANOS1 p.[(Pro34Thr);(S...

Genetically encoded calcium indicators (GECIs) have become a widespread tool for the visualization of neuronal activity. As compared to popular GCaMP GECIs, the FGCaMP indicator benefits from calmodulin and M13-peptide from the fungi Aspergillus nige...

Adolescence is characterized by increased susceptibility to the development of fear- and anxiety-related disorders. Adolescents also show elevated fear responding and aversive learning that is resistant to behavioral interventions, which may be relat...

Phytochrome-interacting factors (PIFs), a subfamily of basic helix-loop-helix (bHLH) transcription factors (TFs), play critical roles in regulating plant growth and development. The resurrection plant Myrothamnus flabellifolia possesses a noteworthy...

Circadian oscillations are regulated at both central and peripheral levels to maintain physiological homeostasis. The central circadian clock consists of a central pacemaker in the suprachiasmatic nucleus that is entrained by light dark cycles and th...

MYSM1 has emerged as an important regulator of hematopoietic stem cell function, blood cell production, immune response, and other aspects of mammalian physiology. It is a metalloprotease family protein with deubiquitinase catalytic activity, as well...

Background: Recent studies have underlined HMGA protein’s key role in the onset of testicular germ cell tumors, where HMGA1 is differently expressed with respect to the state of differentiation, suggesting its fine regulation as master regulato...

Eucalypts are the most planted trees worldwide, but most of them are frost sensitive. Overexpressing transcription factors for CRT-repeat binding factors (CBFs) in transgenic Eucalyptus confer cold resistance both in leaves and stems. While wood play...

Thermogenesis is the production of heat that occurs in all warm-blooded animals. During cold exposure, there is obligatory thermogenesis derived from body metabolism as well as adaptive thermogenesis through shivering and non-shivering mechanisms. Th...

Uterine fibroids (UFs) are the most common benign tumors of the female genital tract. Their prevalence usually is estimated at 30–40%, but may reach up to 70–80% in predisposed groups of women. UFs may cause various clinical issues which...

Endocrine disruptors (EDs) are defined as chemicals that mimic, block, or interfere with hormones in the body’s endocrine systems and have been associated with a diverse array of health issues. The concept of endocrine disruption has recently b...

The involvement of aquaporins in rain-induced sweet cherry (Prunus avium L.) fruit cracking is an important research topic with potential agricultural applications. In the present study, we performed the functional characterization of PaPIP1;4, the m...

Sarcomas represent one of the most challenging tumor types to treat due to their diverse nature and our incomplete understanding of their underlying biology. Recent work suggests cyclin-dependent kinase (CDK) pathway activation is a powerful driver o...

Determining the distribution and correspondence of genome-scale homologous genes in wheat are effective ways to uncover chromosome rearrangement that has occurred during crop evolution and domestication, which can contribute to improvements in crop b...

Breast cancer (BC) is the most common malignancy in women worldwide and leads, in more than 70% of patients with advanced disease, to skeleton colonization and formation of bone metastases (BM). This condition implies a severe disability and deterior...

Macrophage migration inhibitory factor (MIF) is a pleiotropic cytokine expressed by different cell types and exerting multiple biological functions. It has been shown that MIF may be involved in several disorders, including neurodegenerative disorder...

Extracellular vesicles (EVs)-carrying biomolecules derived from parental cells have achieved substantial scientific interest for their potential use as drug nanocarriers. Ultrasound (US) in combination with microbubbles (MB) have been shown to trigge...

Although the RAS-pathway has been implicated as an important driver in the pathogenesis of chronic myelomonocytic leukemia (CMML) a comprehensive study including molecular and functional analyses in patients with progression and transformation has no...

The major end-products of dietary fiber fermentation by gut microbiota are the short-chain fatty acids (SCFAs) acetate, propionate, and butyrate, which have been shown to modulate host metabolism via effects on metabolic pathways at different tissue...

Leber’s hereditary optic neuropathy (LHON, MIM#535000) is the most common form of inherited optic neuropathies and mitochondrial DNA-related diseases. The pathogenicity of mutations in genes encoding components of mitochondrial Complex I is wel...

Alterations in autophagy and the ubiquitin proteasome system (UPS) are commonly implicated in protein aggregation and toxicity which manifest in a number of neurological disorders. In fact, both UPS and autophagy alterations are bound to the aggregat...

Some viroids—single-stranded, non-coding, circular RNA parasites of plants—are not transmissible through pollen to seeds and to next generation. We analyzed the cause for the elimination of apple fruit crinkle viroid (AFCVd) and citrus ba...

The aims of this study were to assess whether ischemic preconditioning (PC) induces bradykinin (Bk) synthesis in bovine aortic endothelial cells (bAECs) and, if so, to explore the molecular mechanisms by which this peptide provides cytoprotection aga...

Bicellular tight junctions are multiprotein complexes that are required for maintenance of barrier function and fence function in epithelial tissues. Wound healing in the oral cavity leads to minimal scar formation compared to the skin, and the preci...

The majority of the genome is transcribed into pieces of non-(protein) coding RNA, among which long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) constitute a large group of particularly versatile molecules that govern basic cellular processes including transcription, s...

(1) Background: Colorectal cancer (CRC) is among the best examples of the relationship between inflammation and increased cancer risk. (2) Methods: To examine the effects of spontaneous low-grade chronic inflammation on the pathogenesis of CRC, we de...

The mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK)-interacting kinases (MNKs) are involved in oncogenic transformation and can promote metastasis and tumor progression. In human cells, there are four MNKs isoforms (MNK1a/b and MNK2a/b), derived from two gen...

The noradrenergic system is paramount for controlling pain and emotions. We aimed at understanding the descending noradrenergic modulatory mechanisms in joint inflammatory pain and its correlation with the diffuse noxious inhibitory controls (DNICs)...

Regardless of recent progress, melanoma is very difficult to treat, mainly due to the drug resistance modulated by tumor cells as well as by the tumor microenvironment (TME). Among the immune cells recruited at the tumor site, tumor associated macrop...

The demonstration that carbon monoxide releasing molecules (CORMs) affect experimental systems by the release of carbon monoxide, and not via the interaction of the inactivated CORM, has been an accepted paradigm for decades. However, it has recently...

Our previous study showed that glycyrrhizin (GLY) inhibited porcine epidemic diarrhea virus (PEDV) infection, but the mechanisms of GLY anti-PEDV action remain unclear. In this study, we focused on the anti-PEDV and anti-proinflammatory cytokine secr...

The aim of this review is to summarize the evidence on efficacy, effectiveness and safety of intravenous enzyme replacement therapy (ERT) available for mucopolysaccharidoses (MPSs) I, II, IVA, VI and VII, gained in phase III clinical trials and in ob...

Recent studies have shown various metabolic and transcriptomic interactions between sulfur (S) and phosphorus (P) in plants. However, most studies have focused on the effects of phosphate (Pi) availability and P signaling pathways on S homeostasis, w...

CYP3A5 gene polymorphism in recipients plays an important role in tacrolimus blood pharmacokinetics after renal transplantation. Even though CYP3A5 protein is expressed in renal tubular cells, little is known about the influence on the tacrolimus int...

Cyclin-dependent kinase (CDK)-7 inhibitors are emerging as promising drugs for the treatment of different types of cancer that show chemotherapy resistance. Evaluation of the effects of CDK7 inhibitor, THZ1, alone and combined with tamoxifen is of pa...

In the last years, there has been a significant growth in the literature exploring the pathophysiology of vascular cognitive impairment (VCI). As an “umbrella term” encompassing any degree of vascular-related cognitive decline, VCI is dee...

Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy is commonly used to characterize molecular complexity because it produces informative atomic-resolution data on the chemical structure and molecular mobility of samples non-invasively by means of various...

Resisting cell death is a hallmark of cancer. Disturbances in the execution of cell death programs promote carcinogenesis and survival of cancer cells under unfavorable conditions, including exposition to anti-cancer therapies. Specific modalities of...

Recent data have indicated the emerging role of glomerular autophagy in diabetic kidney disease. We aimed to assess the effect of the SGLT2 inhibitor empagliflozin, the DPP4 inhibitor linagliptin, and their combination, on glomerular autophagy in a m...

Exposure to chemical substances that can produce endocrine disrupting effects represents one of the most critical public health threats nowadays. In line with the regulatory framework implemented within the European Union (EU) to reduce the levels of...

Rhizoctonia cerealis is the causal pathogen of the devastating disease, sharp eyespot, of the important crop wheat (Triticum aestivum L.). In phytopathogenic fungi, several M36 metalloproteases have been implicated in virulence, but pathogenesis role...

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is a serious health concern, affecting millions of people globally, which leads to cognitive impairment, dementia, and inevitable death. There is still no medically accepted treatment for AD. Developing therapeutic trea...