International Journal of Molecular Sciences, Volume 22, Issue 17

Natural chalcones possess antitumor properties and play a role as inducers of apoptosis, antioxidants and cytotoxic compounds. We recently reported that novel nitrogen chalcone-based compounds, which were generated in our lab, have specific effects o...

Fruit acidity is one of the main determinants of fruit flavor and a target trait in fruit breeding. However, the genomic mechanisms governing acidity variation among different pear varieties remain poorly understood. In this study, two pear varieties...

Interactions between proteins are essential to any cellular process and constitute the basis for molecular networks that determine the functional state of a cell. With the technical advances in recent years, an astonishingly high number of protein–pr...

Brown adipose tissue (BAT) expresses uncoupling protein-1 (UCP1), which enables energy to be exerted towards needed thermogenesis. Beige adipocytes are precursor cells interspersed among white adipose tissue (WAT) that possess similar UCP1 activity a...

Various intrinsic and extrinsic factors can interfere with the process of protein folding, resulting in protein aggregates. Usually, cells prevent the formation of aggregates or degrade them to prevent the cytotoxic effects they may cause. However, d...

Rare pediatric non-compaction and restrictive cardiomyopathy are usually associated with a rapid and severe disease progression. While the non-compaction phenotype is characterized by structural defects and is correlated with systolic dysfunction, th...

Gut microbiota are reported to be associated with many diseases, including cancers. Several bacterial taxa have been shown to be associated with cancer development or response to treatment. However, longitudinal microbiota alterations during the deve...

The advancement of nanotechnology in the last decade has developed an abundance of novel and intriguing TiO₂-based nanomaterials that are widely used in many sectors, including industry (as a food additive and colorant in cosmetics, paints, plastics,...

Macrophages emerge in the milieu around innervated neurons after nerve injuries. Following nerve injury, autophagy is induced in macrophages and affects the regulation of inflammatory responses. It is closely linked to neuroinflammation, while the im...

The ubiquitin system, present in all eukaryotes, contributes to regulating multiple types of cellular protein processes such as cell signaling, cell cycle, and receptor trafficking, and it affects the immune response. In most types of cancer, unusual...

Muscular dystrophies are a heterogeneous group of inherited diseases characterized by the progressive degeneration and weakness of skeletal muscles, leading to disability and, often, premature death. To date, no effective therapies are available to h...

The functionalization of microcrystalline cellulose (MCC) is an important strategy for broadening its application fields. In the present work, MCC was functionalized by phosphorylation reaction with phytic acid (PA) for enhanced flame retardancy. The...

Inhibitor of DNA binding (Id) genes comprise a family of four helix–loop–helix (HLH) transcriptional inhibitors. Our earlier studies revealed a role for ID2 within the circadian system, contributing to input, output, and core clock function through i...

Supramolecular hydrogels formed by the self-assembly of amino-acid based gelators are receiving increasing attention from the fields of biomedicine and material science. Self-assembled systems exhibit well-ordered functional architectures and unique...

To elucidate why naftopidil increases the frequency of spontaneous synaptic currents in only some substantia gelatinosa (SG) neurons, post-hoc analyses were performed. Blind patch-clamp recording was performed using slice preparations of SG neurons f...

Recently, composite scaffolding has found many applications in hard tissue engineering due to a number of desirable features. In this present study, hydroxyapatite/bioglass (HAp/BG) nanocomposite scaffolds were prepared in different ratios using a hy...

Prion diseases are associated with conformational conversion of cellular prion protein into a misfolded pathogenic form, which resembles many properties of amyloid fibrils. The same prion protein sequence can misfold into different conformations, whi...

Background: Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is characterized by an accumulation of amyloid β (Aβ) peptides in the brain and mitochondrial dysfunction. Platelet activation is enhanced in AD and platelets contribute to AD pathology by their ability to facilit...

Cancer stem cells (CSCs) can be induced from differentiated cancer cells in the tumor microenvironment or in response to treatments and exhibit chemo- and radioresistance, leading to tumor recurrence and metastasis. We previously reported that triple...

Toxins from Bothrops venoms targeting hemostasis are responsible for a broad range of clinical and biological syndromes including local and systemic bleeding, incoagulability, thrombotic microangiopathy and macrothrombosis. Beyond hemostais disorders...

Breast cancer has an extremely high incidence in women, and its morbidity and mortality rank first among female tumors. With the increasing development of medicine today, the clinical application of neoadjuvant chemotherapy has brought new hope to th...

The ionotropic GABA_A receptor (GABA_AR) has been proven to be an important target of atypical antipsychotics. A novel series of imidazo [1,2-a]-pyridine derivatives, as selective positive allosteric modulators (PAMs) of α1-containing GABA_ARs with pote...

The evolutionarily conserved c-Jun N-terminal kinase (JNK) signaling pathway is a critical genetic determinant in the control of longevity. In response to extrinsic and intrinsic stresses, JNK signaling is activated to protect cells from stress damag...

Immune response control is critical as excessive cytokine production can be detrimental and damage the host. Interleukin-10 (Il-10), an anti-inflammatory cytokine produced primarily by macrophages, is a key regulator that counteracts and controls exc...

Herein, we report on the reaction of nitro-substituted azidobenzofuroxans with 1,3-dicarbonyl compounds in basic media. The known reactions of benzofuroxans and azidofuroxans with 1,3-dicarbonyl compounds in the presence of bases are the 1,3-dipolar...

Metallothionein (MT) proteins are low molecular mass, cysteine-rich, and metal-binding proteins that play an important role in maintaining metal homeostasis and stress response. However, the evolutionary relationships and functional differentiation o...

The current study aims at the functional and kinetic characterization of protocatechuate (PCA) 4,5-dioxygenase (PcaA) from Pseudarthrobacter phenanthrenivorans Sphe3. This is the first single subunit Type II dioxygenase characterized in Actinobacteri...

c-Jun N-terminal kinases (JNKs) are among the most crucial mitogen-activated protein kinases (MAPKs) and regulate various cellular processes, including cell proliferation, apoptosis, autophagy, and inflammation. Microbes heavily rely on cellular sign...

Analysis of differential abundance in proteomics data sets requires careful application of missing value imputation. Missing abundance values widely vary when performing comparisons across different sample treatments. For example, one would expect a...

Cereal grain germination provides the basis for crop production and requires a tissue-specific interplay between the embryo and endosperm during heterotrophic germination involving signalling, protein secretion, and nutrient uptake until autotrophic...

Exploring the protein-folding problem has been a longstanding challenge in molecular biology and biophysics. Intramolecular hydrogen (H)-bonds play an extremely important role in stabilizing protein structures. To form these intramolecular H-bonds, n...

Nanoparticles (NPs) have an outstanding position in pharmaceutical, biological, and medical disciplines. Polymeric NPs based on chitosan (CS) can act as excellent drug carriers because of some intrinsic beneficial properties including biocompatibilit...

Immunoprofiling has an established impact on the prognosis of several cancers; however, its role and definition in high-grade serous ovarian cancer (HGSOC) are mostly unknown. This study is to investigate immunoprofiling which could be a prognostic f...

Diabetic kidney disease (DKD) is a progressive disorder, which is increasing globally in prevalence due to the increased incidence of obesity and diabetes mellitus. Despite optimal clinical management, a significant number of patients with diabetes d...

In plants, rapid and reversible biological responses to environmental cues may require complex cellular reprograming. This is enabled by signaling molecules such as the cyclic nucleotide monophosphates (cNMPs) cAMP and cGMP, as well as Ca²⁺. While th...

Papillomaviruses (PVs) are a heterogeneous group of DNA viruses that can infect fish, birds, reptiles, and mammals. PVs infecting humans (HPVs) phylogenetically cluster into five genera (Alpha-, Beta-, Gamma-, Mu- and Nu-PV), with differences in tiss...

Abiotic stressors, such as drought, heavy metals, and high salinity, are causing huge crop losses worldwide. These abiotic stressors are expected to become more extreme, less predictable, and more widespread in the near future. With the rapidly growi...

The renal secretory clearance for organic cations (neurotransmitters, metabolism products and drugs) is mediated by transporters specifically expressed in the basolateral and apical plasma membrane domains of proximal tubule cells. Here, human organi...

Most mitochondrial proteins are synthesized in the cytosol and targeted to the mitochondrial surface in a post-translational manner. The surface of the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) plays an active role in this targeting reaction. ER-associated chaperon...

Acute myeloid leukemia (AML), the most common type of acute leukemia in adults, is mainly asymptomatic at early stages and progresses/recurs rapidly and frequently. These attributes necessitate the identification of biomarkers for timely diagnosis an...

The growth of the polypeptide chain occurs due to the fast and coordinated work of the ribosome and protein elongation factors, EF-Tu and EF-G. However, the exact contribution of each of these components in the overall balance of translation kinetics...

Platelets play a critical role in hemostasis and thrombus formation. Platelets are small, anucleate, and short-lived blood cells that are produced by the large, polyploid, and hematopoietic stem cell (HSC)-derived megakaryocytes in bone marrow. Appro...

The AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK), a central regulator of cellular energy balance and metabolism, binds glycogen via its β subunit. However, the physiological effects of disrupting AMPK-glycogen interactions remain incompletely understood. To c...

Methylated flavonoids are promising pharmaceutical agents due to their improved metabolic stability and increased activity compared to unmethylated forms. The biotransformation in cultures of entomopathogenic filamentous fungi is a valuable method to...

Glucocorticoids are amongst the most used drugs to treat retinal diseases of various origins. Yet, the transcriptional regulations induced by glucocorticoid receptor (GR) and mineralocorticoid receptor (MR) activation in retinal pigment epithelium ce...

Flavonoids, including chalcones, are more stable and bioavailable in the form of glycosylated and methylated derivatives. The combined chemical and biotechnological methods can be applied to obtain such compounds. In the present study, 2′-hydroxy-2-m...

Vitamin D showed a protective effect on intervertebral disc degeneration (IDD) although conflicting evidence is reported. An explanation could be due to the presence of the FokI functional variant in the vitamin D receptor (VDR), observed as associat...

Drought stress has an extensive impact on regulating various physiological, metabolic, and molecular responses. In the present study, the Pinus tabuliformis transcriptome was studied to evaluate the drought-responsive genes using RNA- Sequencing appr...

Primary cilia are non-motile, cell cycle-associated organelles that can be found on most vertebrate cell types. Comprised of microtubule bundles organised into an axoneme and anchored by a mature centriole or basal body, primary cilia are dynamic sig...

Gene therapy is an attractive therapeutic method for the treatment of genetic disorders for which the efficient delivery of nucleic acids into a target cell is critical. The present study is aimed at evaluating the potential of copolymers based on li...