Acta biochimica et biophysica Sinica
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Acta Biochim. Biophys. Sin. (Shanghai) · Nov 2014
Circulating microRNA expression profile: a novel potential predictor for chronic nervous lesions.
The mechanisms of chronic neuropathic pain are not clear. Serum microRNAs (miRNAs) might show a special feature for chronic nervous lesions. However, little is known about the changes in circulating miRNAs for the neuropathic pain. ⋯ TargetScan was used to predict mRNA targets for these miRNAs, and the results showed that the transcripts with multiple predicted target sites belonged to neurologically important pathways. Bioinformatics analysis revealed that several target genes are related to the activation of cell signaling associated with nervous lesions. In this study, the changes to miRNA profiles in serum under neuropathic pain conditions were shown for the first time, suggesting that circulating miRNAs profile in serum is a potential predictor for neuropathic pain.
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Acta Biochim. Biophys. Sin. (Shanghai) · Nov 2014
Recombinant Clostridium difficile toxin B induces endoplasmic reticulum stress in mouse colonal carcinoma cells.
Clostridium difficile is the main cause of antibiotic-associated diarrhea and pseudomembranous colitis in humans and animals. Its pathogenicity is primarily linked to the secretion of two exotoxins (TcdA and TcdB). Although great progress in the toxic mechanism of TcdA and TcdB has been achieved, there are many conflicting reports about the apoptotic mechanism. ⋯ Besides, glucosyltransferase activity-deficient mutant recombinant TcdB induced ER stress, though it has no cytotoxic or cytopathic effect on CT26 cells. Altogether, these data demonstrated that ER stress induced by rTcdB is glucosyltransferase-independent, indicating that ER stress induced by rTcdB is non-apoptotic. This work also offers us a new insight into the molecular mechanism of CHOP protein expression regulation and the role of CHOP expression in ER stress.