1,721,857 research outputs found

    Type II regulatory subunit of protein kinase restores cAMP-dependent transcription in a cAMP-unresponsive cell line.

    Full text link
    cAMP-dependent protein kinase appears to play a role in cAMP-induced gene expression in mammalian cells. There exist two major types of cAMP-dependent protein kinase, type I and type II, which are distinguished by their regulatory subunits, RI and RII, respectively. We investigated the role of type I and type II protein kinase in the cAMP-induced gene expression by either stable or co-transfection of RI alpha, RII alpha, or RII beta gene in an expression vector together with somatostatin-chloramphenicol acetyltransferase (SS-CAT) fusion gene using a cAMP-unresponsive mutant pheochromocytoma cell line (A126-1B2). Introduction of the RII beta gene restored the capability of these cells to induce the SS-CAT gene expression in response to forskolin stimulus and induced a changed morphology which resembled that of wild type. The RII alpha gene also induced SS-CAT gene expression but to a lesser degree than that achieved by the RII beta gene, whereas the RI alpha gene had no effect. The induction of SS-CAT gene expression by the RII beta gene was specifically blocked by the 21-mer RII beta antisense oligodeoxynucleotide. These results show for the first time that type II but not type I regulatory subunit of cAMP-dependent protein kinase is essential for a cAMP-induced gene transcription

    Interactions between the epidermal growth factor receptor and type I protein kinase A: biological significance and therapeutic implications

    Full text link
    Peptide growth factors regulate normal cellular proliferation and differentiation through autocrine and paracrine pathways and are involved in cancer development and progression. Among the endogenous growth factors, the epidermal growth factor (EGF)-related proteins play an important role in the pathogenesis of human cancer. In fact, overexpression of EGF-related growth factors such as transforming growth factor alpha and amphiregulin and/or their specific receptor, the EGF receptor (EGFR), has been detected in several types of human cancers, including breast, lung, and colorectal cancers. Therefore, the blockade of EGFR activation by using anti-EGFR monoclonal antibodies (MAbs) has been proposed as a potential anticancer therapy. The cAMP-dependent protein kinase (PKA) is an intracellular enzyme with serine-threonine kinase activity that plays a key role in cell growth and differentiation. Two PKA isoforms with identical catalytic (C) subunits but different cAMP-binding regulatory (R) subunits (defined as RI in PKAI and RII in PKAII) have been identified. Predominant expression of PKAII is found in normal nonproliferating tissues and in growth-arrested cells, whereas enhanced levels of PKAI are detected steadily in tumor cells and transiently in normal cells exposed to mitogenic stimuli. Overexpression of PKAI has been correlated recently with poor prognosis in breast cancer patients. Inhibition of PKAI expression and function by specific pharmacological agents such as the selective cAMP analogue 8-chloro-cAMP (8-Cl-cAMP) induces growth inhibition in various human cancer cell lines in vitro and in vivo. We have provided experimental evidence of a functional cross-talk between ligand-induced EGFR activation and PKAI expression and function. In fact, PKAI is overexpressed and activated following transforming growth factor alpha-induced transformation in several rodent and human cell line models. Furthermore, PKAI is involved in the intracellular mitogenic signaling following ligand-induced EGFR activation. We have shown that an interaction between EGFR and PKAI occurs through direct binding of the RI subunit to the Grb2 adaptor protein. In this respect, PKAI seems to function downstream of the EGFR, and experimental evidence suggests that PKAI is acting upstream of the mitogen-activated protein kinase pathway. We have also demonstrated that the functional interaction between the EGFR and the PKAI pathways could have potential therapeutic implications. In fact, the combined interference with both EGFR and PKAI with specific pharmacological agents, such as anti-EGFR blocking MAbs and cAMP analogues, has a cooperative antiproliferative effect on human cancer cell lines in vitro and in vivo. The antitumor activity of this combination could be explored in a clinical setting because both the 8-Cl-cAMP analogue and the anti-EGFR blocking MAb C225 have entered human clinical trial evaluation. Finally, both MAb C225 and 8-Cl-cAMP are specific inhibitors of intracellular mitogenic signaling that have different mechanisms of action compared with conventional cytotoxic drugs. In this respect, a cooperative growth-inhibitory effect in combination with several chemotherapeutic agents in a large series of human cancer cell lines in vitro and in vivo has been demonstrated for anti-EGFR blocking MAbs or for 8-Cl-cAMP. Therefore, the combination of MAb C225 and 8-Cl-cAMP following chemotherapy could be investigated in cancer patients

    8-Chloro-cAMP inhibits transforming growth factor alpha transformation of mammary epithelial cells by restoration of the normal mRNA patterns for cAMP-dependent protein kinase regulatory subunit isoforms which show disruption upon transformation

    Full text link
    Differential regulation of the regulatory subunits of cAMP-dependent protein kinase isozymes correlates with the growth inhibitory effect of site-selective 8-Cl-cAMP demonstrated in cancer cell lines (Ally, S., Tortora, G., Clair, T., Grieco, D., Merlo, G., Katsaros, D., Ogreid, D., Døskeland, S.O., Jahnsen, T., and Cho-Chung, Y.S. (1988) Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U. S. A. 85, 6319-6322). Such selective modulation of protein kinase isozyme regulatory subunits was also found in the 8-Cl-cAMP-induced inhibition of both transformation and transforming growth factor alpha (TGF alpha) production in Ki-ras-transformed rat kidney fibroblasts (Tortora, G., Ciardiello, F., Ally, S., Clair, T., Salomon, D. S., and Cho-Chung, Y. S. (1989) FEBS Lett. 242, 363-367). In this work, we have demonstrated that 8-Cl-cAMP antagonizes the TGF alpha effect in TGF alpha-transformed mouse mammary epithelial cells (NOG-8TFC17) at the level of gene expression for cAMP receptor protein isoforms, RI and RII (the regulatory subunits of protein kinase isozymes). Northern blot analysis demonstrated that in the transformed NOG-8TFC17 cells, compared with the nontransformed counterpart NOG-8 cells, the mRNA levels for the RI alpha cAMP receptor protein markedly increased, whereas the mRNA levels for the RII alpha and RII beta cAMP receptor proteins decreased. 8-Cl-cAMP, which induced growth inhibition and phenotypic reversion in NOG-8TFC17 cells, caused an inverse change in the mRNA patterns of the cAMP receptor proteins; RI alpha cAMP receptor mRNA sharply decreased to levels comparable with that of the nontransformed NOG-8 cells, whereas RII beta mRNA increased to a level even greater than that in the NOG-8 cells. In addition, one mRNA species of RII alpha increased, whereas the other RII alpha mRNA species decreased during the treatment. The mRNA level for the catalytic subunit of protein kinase, however, did not change during 8-Cl-cAMP treatment. In addition, 8-Cl-cAMP brought about a reduction in both TGF alpha mRNA and protein levels. These coordinated changes in the expression of the cAMP receptor proteins and TGF alpha were not observed during cis-hydroxyprolineor TGF beta-induced growth inhibition of the NOG-8TFC17 cells. Thus, the antagonistic effect of 8-Cl-cAMP toward TGF alpha-induced transformation involves modulation of the expression of a specific set of cellular genes

    A methodology for GDPR compliant data processing

    No full text
    Nowadays new laws and regulations to prevent the privacy of users have been proposed. For instance, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is taking effect in Europe, requiring organizations to define privacy policies complying with the preferences of their users. One way to abide by GDPR is to obscure sensitive data. However, in order not to limit the usage of data, it is vital to limit the amount of data to be obscured. To this end, we propose a methodology exploiting relaxed functional dependencies (rfds) to automatically identify attributes from which sensitive values can be derived. The methodology prescribes to partially encrypt database values causing data privacy threats, identified through the automatically discovered rfds

    Pyramidal algorithms for iconic indexing

    No full text
    The paper defines the pyramid architecture, gives the formal definition of symbolic picture and introduces algorithms for symbolic picture matching on a pyramidal architecture. The algorithms are written in a Pascal-like language extended with high level pyramidal control structures. -from Author

    Antisense strategies targeting protein kinase C: preclinical and clinical development

    No full text
    Altered protein kinase C-alpha (PKC-alpha) expression has been implicated in tumor promotion and carcinogenesis. One potentially attractive therapeutic intervention may be the use of selective antisense oligonucleotides to inhibit production of PKC-alpha. In preclinical studies, the antisense oligonucleotide LY900003 (ISIS 3521;Affinitak; Isis Pharmaceuticals, Carlsbad, CA) has shown selective inhibition of PKC-alpha mRNA and protein expression and has shown antitumor activity. In clinical studies, LY900003 has shown activity as a single agent, but the most promising data have been obtained in combination with chemotherapy, particularly in patients with non-small cell lung cancer. Data from phase I and II studies have led to ongoing randomized phase III trials in combination with either cisplatin and gemcitabine or carboplatin and paclitaxel. Studies in other tumor types will also investigate the benefit of combining LY900003 with conventional chemotherapy
    corecore