International Journal of Molecular Sciences, Volume 23, Issue 12

Erythrocytes are highly specialized cells in human body, and their main function is to ensure the gas exchanges, O₂ and CO₂, within the body. The exposure to microgravity environment leads to several health risks such as those affecting red blood cel...

Breast cancer-associated fibroblasts (BCAFs), the most abundant non-cancer stromal cells of the breast tumor microenvironment (TME), dramatically sustain breast cancer (BC) progression by interacting with BC cells. BCAFs, as well as myofibroblasts, d...

Ischaemic stroke is a complex disease with some degree of heritability. This means that heritability factors, such as genetics, could be risk factors for ischaemic stroke. The era of genome-wide studies has revealed some of these heritable risk facto...

Soybean is an important crop grown worldwide, and drought stress seriously affects the yield and quality of soybean. Therefore, it is necessary to elucidate the molecular mechanisms underlying soybean resistance to drought stress. In this study, RNA-...

Mutations in the EPM2A gene encoding laforin cause Lafora disease (LD), a progressive myoclonic epilepsy characterized by drug-resistant seizures and progressive neurological impairment. To date, rodents are the only available models for studying LD;...

Alterations in mitochondrial function are an important control variable in the progression of metabolic dysfunction-associated fatty liver disease (MAFLD), while also noted by increased de novo lipogenesis (DNL) and hepatic insulin resistance. We hyp...

Certain combinations of common variants in exon 3 of OPN1LW and OPN1MW, the genes encoding the apo-protein of the long- and middle-wavelength sensitive cone photoreceptor visual pigments in humans, induce splicing defects and have been associated wit...

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is the most prevalent neurodegenerative disease in the world. However, there is no effective drug to cure it. Caesalmin C is a cassane-type diterpenoid abundant in Caesalpinia bonduc (Linn.) Roxb. In this study, we inve...

Metabolic syndrome is a significant worldwide public health challenge and is inextricably linked to adverse renal and cardiovascular outcomes. The inhibition of the transient receptor potential cation channel subfamily C member 6 (TRPC6) has been fou...

(1) Background: Curcumin (CUR) and tetrandrine (TET) are natural compounds with various bioactivities, but have problems with low solubility, stability, and absorption rate, resulting in low bioavailability, and limited applications in food, medicine...

γδT cells mature in the human thymus, and mainly produce IL-17A or IFN-γ, but can also produce IL-22 and modulate a variety of immune responses. Here, we aimed to evaluate whether IgG from AD patients (AD IgG) can functionally modul...

Atopic dermatitis (AD) is a common relapsing inflammatory skin disorder characterized by immune-mediated inflammation and epidermal barrier dysfunction. The pathogenesis of AD is multifactorial and has not been fully elucidated to date. This study ai...

Physical exercise is a well-proven neurogenic stimulus, promoting neuronal progenitor proliferation and affecting newborn cell survival. Besides, it has beneficial effects on brain health and cognition. Previously, we found that three days of physica...

The Pneumocystis genus is an opportunistic fungal pathogen that infects patients with AIDS and immunocompromised individuals. The study of this fungus has been hampered due to the inability to grow it in a (defined media/pure) culture. However, the u...

Breast cancer is one of the leading causes of cancer-related death among females worldwide. A major challenge is to develop innovative therapy in order to treat breast cancer subtypes resistant to current treatment. In the present study, we examined...

Arabidopsis AGD2 (Aberrant Growth and Death2) and its close homolog ALD1 (AGD2-like defense response protein 1) have divergent roles in plant defense. We previously reported that modulation of salicylic acid (SA) contents by ALD1 affects numbers of n...

Cytoplasmic male sterility (CMS) is widely exploited in hybrid seed production. Kenaf is an important fiber crop with high heterosis. The molecular mechanism of kenaf CMS remains unclear, particularly in terms of DNA methylation. Here, using the anth...

Complement component 3 (C3) contributes to neurogenesis, neural migration, and synaptic elimination under normal and disease conditions of the brain, even though it has not been studied in the enteric nervous system (ENS). To determine the role of C3...

Members of the CIPK (CBL-interacting protein kinases) gene family play important roles in calcium (Ca²⁺) signaling pathway-regulated plant resistance to abiotic stresses. Salvia miltiorrhiza, which is widely planted and grown in complex and diverse e...

Nurr1 and brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) play major roles in cognition. Nurr1 regulates BDNF in midbrain dopaminergic neurons and cerebellar granule cells. Nurr1 and BDNF are also highly expressed in the cerebral cortex, a brain area import...

Wound healing pathologies are an increasing problem in ageing societies. Chronic, non-healing wounds, which cause high morbidity and severely reduce the quality of life of affected individuals, are frequently observed in aged individuals and people s...

Ovarian cancer is one of the most lethal gynecological malignancies worldwide, and chemoresistance is a critical obstacle in the clinical management of the disease. Recent studies have suggested that exploiting cancer cell metabolism by applying AMP-...

Soybean cyst nematode (SCN, Heterodera glycines Ichinohe) causes an estimated economic loss of about USD 3 billion each year in soybean (Glycine max L.) production worldwide. Overexpression of resistance genes against SCN provides a powerful approach...

Carbon monoxide (CO) oxidation performance heavily depends on the surface-active species and the oxygen vacancies of nanocomposites. Herein, the CuO_x/Cu_1.5Mn_1.5O₄ were fabricated via solid-state strategy. It is manifested that the construction of CuO...

Alzheimer’s disease is the most frequent form of dementia in aging population and is presently the world’s sixth largest cause of mortality. With the advancement of therapies, several solutions have been developed such as passive immunoth...

Uncontrolled proliferative diseases, such as fibrosis or cancer, can be fatal. We previously found that a compound containing the chromone scaffold (CS), ONG41008, had potent antifibrogenic effects associated with EMT or cell-cycle control resembling...

The role of autophagy in lung cancer cells exposed to waterpipe smoke (WPS) is not known. Because of the important role of autophagy in tumor resistance and progression, we investigated its relationship with WP smoking. We first showed that WPS activ...

The regulation of gene expression in bacteria occurs predominantly at the level of transcription, which is controlled by RNA polymerase [...]

The metabolic state of pregnant women and their unborn children changes throughout pregnancy and adapts to the specific needs of each gestational week. These adaptions are accomplished by the actions of enzymes, which regulate the occurrence of their...

Intermittent theta burst (iTBS) powered by direct current stimulation (DCS) can safely be applied transcranially to induce neuroplasticity in the human and animal brain cortex. tDCS-iTBS is a special waveform that is used by very few studies, and its...

Stimulator of Interferon Genes (STING) is a type of endoplasmic reticulum (ER)-membrane receptor. STING is activated by a ligand binding, which leads to an enhancement of the immune-system response. Therefore, a STING ligand can be used to regulate t...

Age and age-dependent inflammation are two main risk factors for cardiovascular diseases. Aging can also affect clock gene-related impairments such as chronodisruption and has been linked to a decline in melatonin synthesis and aggravation of the NF-...

Oxygen-generating materials have been used in several tissue engineering applications; however, their application as in situ oxygen supply within bioprinted constructs has not been deeply studied. In this study, two oxygen-generating materials, sodiu...

This Special Issue collects current knowledge on the molecular mechanisms underlying mitochondrial dysfunction and its related diseases, as well as therapies and perspectives pertaining to their treatment [...]

Teosinte branched 1/cycloidea/proliferating cell factor (TCP) transcription factors play a key role in the regulation of plant biotic and abiotic stresses. In this study, our results show that SmTCP7a positively regulated bacterial wilt that was caus...

The aim of this Special Issue is to highlight the close functional and highly conserved link between innate immunity, homeostasis maintenance, inflammation, tissue remodeling and regeneration [...]

The AP2/ERF transcription factors are widely involved in the regulation of plant growth, development and stress responses. Arabidopsis ERF012 is differentially responsive to various stresses; however, its potential regulatory role remains elusive. He...

TRIM28 is a scaffold protein that interacts with DNA-binding proteins and recruits corepressor complexes to cause gene silencing. TRIM28 contributes to physiological functions such as cell growth and differentiation. In the chronic myeloid leukemia c...

Radiation therapy against cancer cells often causes radiation resistance via accumulation of hypoxia-inducible factor 1 subunit alpha (HIF-1α) under hypoxic conditions and severe side effects. Radiation sensitizers without side effects are requ...

Metformin is a first-line drug for DM2 treatment and prevention, but its complex effect on impaired glucose tolerance (IGT), including its influence on myocardial resistance to ischemia-reperfusion injury, is not completely studied. We aimed to evalu...

Vibrational spectroscopy techniques are widely used in analytical chemistry, physics and biology. The most prominent techniques are Raman and Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR). Combining both techniques delivers complementary information...

Ferritin possesses an immune function to defend against pathogen infection. To elucidate the immunity-protecting roles of ferritin from Ctenopharyngodon idellus (Ciferritin) against virus infection, the cDNA and promoter sequences of Ciferritin were...

MicroRNAs (miRNA) are key regulators of gene expression, controlling different biological processes such as cellular development, differentiation, proliferation, metabolism, and apoptosis. The relationships between miRNA expression and the onset and...

Phenylalanine ammonia-lyase is one of the most widely studied enzymes in the plant kingdom. It is a crucial pathway from primary metabolism to significant secondary phenylpropanoid metabolism in plants, and plays an essential role in plant growth, de...

Patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) develop bone metastasis (BoM) in more than 50% of cases during the course of the disease. This metastatic site can lead to the development of skeletal related events (SREs), such as severe pain, pathol...

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are a class of small non-coding RNAs around 22 nucleotides long that regulate gene expression by binding specific sequences within target messenger RNA (mRNA) [...]

The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic remains a major public health threat, especially due to newly emerging SARS-CoV-2 Variants of Concern (VoCs), which are more efficiently transmitted, more virulent, and more able to escape naturally acquired and vaccine-induce...

Mutations in optineurin, a ubiquitin-binding adaptor protein, cause amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), a fatal neurodegenerative disease of motor neurons linked to chronic inflammation and protein aggregation. The majority of ALS patients, includin...

Neurotrophins, such as brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), are essential for neuronal survival and growth. The signaling cascades initiated by BDNF and its receptor are the key regulators of synaptic plasticity, which plays important role in le...

With aging, sarcopenia and the associated locomotor disorders, have become serious problems. The roots of maca contain active ingredients (triterpenes) that have a preventive effect on sarcopenia. However, the effect of maca on muscle hypertrophy has...