15038 studies
BACKGROUND: As endovascular treatment of asymptomatic infrarenal abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA) increasingly competes with surgical repair, it is necessary to optimize the surgical technique. The aim of this study was therefore to evaluate the super…
Thymosin beta 4(T beta 4), a 4.9-kDa polypeptide primarily known as a main G-actin-sequestering peptide, is present in high concentrations in various cells and in the circulation. We have found that T beta 4 upregulates the expression of plasminogen…
Actin is implicated in membrane fusion, but the precise mechanisms remain unclear. We showed earlier that membrane organelles catalyze the de novo assembly of F-actin that then facilitates the fusion between latex bead phagosomes and a mixture of ear…
Cellular ATP depletion in diverse cell types results in the net conversion of monomeric G-actin to polymeric F-actin and is an important aspect of cellular injury in tissue ischemia. We propose that this conversion results from altering the ratio of…
Thymosin beta4, a 43-amino acid polypeptide that is an important mediator of cell migration and differentiation, also promotes angiogenesis and wound healing. Here, we report that thymosin beta4 stimulates hair growth in normal rats and mice. A speci…
Thymosin beta 4 (Tbeta(4)) stimulates epithelial cell migration and promotes laminin-5 (LM-5) expression. Using gene expression analysis with human corneal epithelial cells treated with Tbeta(4), we find that both LM-5 gamma2 chain and transforming g…
We cloned the chick homologue of Homo sapiens thymosin beta4, encoding a G-actin sequestering factor which plays an important role in angiogenesis, cell motility and tumorigenesis. The thymosin beta4 gene is highly conserved between chick and human.…
The Ecdysozoa hypothesis proposes a clade of animals including arthropods and nematodes that share the characteristic of periodic molting or ecdysis. The original evidence supporting this hypothesis came from molecular phylogenies based on ribosomal…
New blood vessel formation is important in many physiological process, including development, wound repair, and tumor growth. In aged animals, angiogenesis is reduced resulting in poor wound healing. We have identified a novel small molecule, thymosi…
N-acetyl-seryl-aspartyl-lysyl-proline (Ac-SDKP) is a ubiquitous tetrapeptide hydrolyzed almost exclusively by angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE). Chronic treatment with Ac-SDKP decreases cardiac and renal fibrosis and inflammatory cell infiltration…
PURPOSE: The purpose of this study was to determine the effect of thymosin beta 4 (Tbeta(4)) treatment on human corneal epithelial cells exposed to ethanol in vitro. The efficacy of Tbeta(4) in preventing mitochondrial disruption and in inhibiting ca…
Thymosin beta4 is a major actin-sequestering protein, yet the structural basis for its biological function is still unknown. This study provides insight regarding the way this 43-amino acid peptide, mostly unstructured in solution, binds to monomeric…
OBJECTIVE: To systemically analyze the differentially expressed genes from normal mucosa and carcinoma of colon obtained by SSH method. METHODS: An automatic platform for the analysis of nucleotides based on Linux was constructed, and one of the thre…
The widespread beta-thymosin/WH2 actin binding domain has versatile regulatory properties in actin dynamics and motility. beta-thymosins (isolated WH2 domain) maintain monomeric actin in a "sequestered" nonpolymerizable form. In contrast, when repeat…
The free actin concentration at steady state, Ac, is a variable that determines how actin regulatory proteins influence the extent of actin polymerization. We describe a novel method employing fluorescence anisotropy to directly measure Ac in any sam…
Cell-matrix and cell-cell adhesive interactions play important roles in the normal organization and stabilization of the cell layer in epithelial tissue. Alterations in the expression and function of these adhesion systems that cause a switch to a mi…
The creatine/phosphocreatine shuttle system, as catalysed reversibly by creatine kinases, is thought to be essential for the storing and buffering of high phosphate-bound energy in tissues with high energy demand. In the present study, we aimed to cl…
Nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) are widely used for their anti-inflammatory effects and have been shown to have chemopreventive effects as well. NSAIDs inhibit cyclooxygenase (COX) activity to exert their anti-inflammatory effects, but…
It was shown recently that tissue transglutaminase and presumably plasma transglutaminase, factor XIIIa, can covalently incorporate into fibrin(ogen) a physiologically active peptide, thymosin beta(4) [(Huff et al. (2002) FASEB J. 16, 691-696]. To cl…
The WH2 (Wiscott-Aldridge syndrome protein homology domain 2) repeat is an actin interacting motif found in monomer sequestering and filament assembly proteins. We have stabilized the prototypical WH2 family member, thymosin-beta4 (Tbeta4), with resp…