前沿科技及其它

Despite the current availability of an impressive in vitro assay battery developed to quantitatively analyze the broad panel of small compounds and macromolecules that possess the inflammatory potential, little methodology exists nowadays that affords a researcher or clinic ...

Peptide YY (PYY) orchestrates the functions of the gut and the pancreas by regulating growth, digestion and absorption. In addition to its physiological role, PYY exhibits immune and antitrophic properties in the pancreas by decreasing cytokine and amylase release. Although the exact m ...

Differential gene expression represents the entry point for comprehending complex biological processes. In this context, identification and cloning of differentially expressed genes represent critical elements in this process. Many techniques have been developed to fac ...

Cancer has a genomic and proteomic basis. Genomic information provides information about the somatic genetic changes existing in the tumor that provides a survival advantage driving neoplastic progression. On the other hand, proteomics aids in the identification of dysregulated ...

A balance between proliferation and apoptosis is crucial for cellular homeostasis, and its disruption leading to enhanced cellular proliferation and uncontrolled growth are hallmarks of cancer. Genetic manipulation in the mouse offers a powerful approach to delineate the roles of ...

Identification of differentially expressed genes is an essential step in comprehending the molecular basis of complex physiological and pathological processes. Subtraction hybridization and differential RNA display (DDRT-PCR) are two methods that are widely and success ...

An important step in cellular transformation and tumorigenesis is immortalization, in which cells gain the ability to grow indefinitely by bypassing cellular senescence that imposes a finite number of divisions in culture. Primary mouse embryonic fibroblast (MEF) cells have a limi ...

The mammalian innate immune system provides a first line of defense against microbial pathogens and also serves to activate an antigen specific acquired immune program. Key components of innate immunity are the interferons (IFNs), a family of related cytokines with potent antimicrob ...

This chapter will describe methods to assess the activities of protein kinases. Initial studies in the 1950s and 1960s in the field of glucose metabolism examined the activities of several highly specific protein and carbohydrate kinases in cell lysates or isolated cell fractions. As more p ...

An immunological subtraction approach, surface-epitope masking (SEM), is described that permits the efficient and selective production of monoclonal antibodies (MAbs) reacting with both known and unknown molecules expressed on the cell surface. The tenet underlying SEM invol ...

In this chapter, we present an approach using genomic and ribonomic profiling to investigate functional gene programs in a tumor growth model. To reach this goal, ribonomic profiling was combined with RNA interference in a tumor dormancy model. Strategies merging functional genomic tec ...

An important step in the analysis of protein function is identification of the interaction partners of each protein. The two-hybrid system has been widely used to identify and explore protein-protein interactions. By using various two-hybrid systems, numerous protein interactions ...

Phage display is a molecular technique, whereby genes are displayed in a functional form on the outer surfaces of bacteriophages by fusion to viral coat proteins. The gene product is encoded by a plasmid contained within the virus, which can be recovered and sequenced, linking the genetic inform ...

Identification of patterns of DNA methylation in higher order eukaryotes has become necessary through recognition that disease processes such as cancer can result from abnormal methylation patterns. Abnormal DNA methylation affecting the promoter region of genes can halt their ...

Cancer cells exhibit nonrandom and complex chromosome abnormalities. The role of genomic changes in cancer is well established. However, the identification of complex and cryptic chromosomal changes is beyond the resolution of conventional banding methods. The fluorescence mi ...

Bacterial artificial chromosomes (BACs) provide a well-characterized resource for studying the organization and activity of entire genes, replicons, and other large genomic loci. Protocols and parameters that influence the efficient transfection of these large DNA molecul ...

Differential display is an effective expression profiling tool which was first introduced in 1992. The original technique is discussed along with modifications that have been described over the last several years. A highly reproducible, semihigh-throughput differential disp ...

In 1995, serial analysis of gene expression (SAGE) was developed as a versatile tool for gene expression studies. SAGE technology does not require pre-existing knowledge of the genome that is being examined and therefore SAGE can be applied to many different model systems. In this chapter, the SA ...

Gene expression profiling is a powerful tool to analyze the complexity of cancer biology. Recent methods allow the generation of gene expression profiles for all known genes in the human genome. The genome-wide analysis of the gene expression patterns of neoplastic and normal cells provid ...

Squamous cell carcinomas and several other cancers have been found to exhibit microarray expression profiles that include genes related to nuclear factor (NF)-κB, a signal activated transcription factor that is evolutionarily important in regulating early response gene progr ...