Dynamic altruistic cooperation within breast tumors.

Background: Social behaviors such as altruism, where one self-sacrifices for collective benefits, critically influence an organism's survival and responses to the environment. Such behaviors are widely exemplified in nature but have been underexplored in cancer cells which are conventionally seen as selfish competitive players. This multidisciplinary study explores altruism and its mechanism in breast cancer cells and its contribution to chemoresistance.

Silencing of the PP2A catalytic subunit causes HER-2/neu positive breast cancer cells to undergo apoptosis.

Protein phosphatase 2A (PP2A), in its activated form as a phosphatase, is a tumour suppressor. However, when PP2A is phosphorylated at the tyrosine residue (pY307), it loses its phosphatase activity and becomes inactivated. In our previous study, we found a higher expression of pY307-PP2A in HER-2/neu positive breast tumour samples and significantly correlated to tumour progression, and in this context, it could function as a proto-oncogene.

Tyrosine phosphorylation of PP2A is regulated by HER-2 signalling and correlates with breast cancer progression.

Activation of HER-2/neu leads to multiple signalling cascades and plays a vital role in cell survival and growth. We used a signal transduction antibody array to characterize the tyrosine phosphorylation profiles in heregulin (HRG alpha1)-treated BT474 breast cancer cells, and identified a group of 80 molecules in which tyrosine phosphorylation was highly regulated by HRG-enhanced HER-2/neu signalling. These phosphoproteins included many known HER-2/neu-regulated molecules (e.

Altered CD38 expression in thioacetamide-induced rat model of liver cirrhosis.

Background: Cirrhosis is a gradually developing, chronic disease which involves the whole liver. Here, we have shown that CD38 undergoes altered expression upon thioacetamide-induced cirrhosis in rats. CD38 is a type II transmembrane glycoprotein that exhibits ADP-ribosyl cyclase and cADPR hydrolase activities.

Expression and purification of the recombinant His-tagged GST-CD38 fusion protein using the baculovirus/insect cell expression system.

CD38 is a type II transmembrane glycoprotein found in myriad mammalian tissues and cell types. It is known for its involvement in the metabolism of cyclic ADP-ribose and nicotinic acid adenine dinucleotide phosphate, two nucleotides with calcium mobilizing activity independent of inositol trisphosphate. CD38 itself has been shown to have clinical significance in certain diseases with possible utilization in diagnostic and prognostic applications.

CD157 undergoes ligand-independent dimerization and colocalizes with caveolin in CHO and MCA102 fibroblasts.

CD157, a glycosylphosphatidylinositol (GPI)-anchored glycoprotein, has recently been shown to induce protein tyrosine phosphorylation in monocytes differentiated from HL-60 cells (mHL-60) in a ligand-dependent manner, but in a ligand-independent manner in stable CD157-transfected CHO (CHO/CD157) and MCA102 (MCA/CD157) fibroblasts [Cell Signal. 11 (1999) 891-897.].

Identification and characterization of nuclear CD38 in the rat spleen.

CD38 is an ectoenzyme, which can produce metabolites with intracellular Ca(2+) mobilizing properties and has multiple immunological functions. However, we have recently shown that CD38 is also localized to the nucleus of rat hepatocyte whereby its metabolite cADPR, is able to mobilize nuclear Ca(2+) stores. In this study, we further characterize the localization of nuclear CD38 in the spleen, an important immune organ.