Clusterin/Apolipoprotein J up-regulation after zinc exposure, replicative senescence or differentiation of human haematopoietic cells.

Clusterin/Apolipoprotein J (CLU) is a cellular senescence biomarker implicated in several physiological processes. In this work we have investigated CLU expression and function in human haematopoietic cells. We found that early passage human T cell clones (TCC) express minimal endogenous amounts of CLU, which are significantly elevated in late passage cells.

Overexpression of proteasome beta5 assembled subunit increases the amount of proteasome and confers ameliorated response to oxidative stress and higher survival rates.

The proteasome is the major cellular proteolytic machinery responsible for the degradation of both normal and damaged proteins. Proteasomes play a fundamental role in retaining cellular homeostasis. Alterations of proteasome function have been recorded in various biological phenomena including aging.

Production of stably transfected cell lines using immunoporation.

Previous work from this laboratory has shown that immunoporation has the potential for the selective transfection of a range of different animal cells based on their immunological identity. The unique ability of immunoporation to target cells for transfection combined with the high efficiency of transfection and the high viability of cells make this method extremely promising for scientific and medical research. The experiments reported here show that not only can immunoporation produce transient transfection but also stably transfected cells are produced and such types of cells will be essential for the use of this method for gene therapy.