DIAGNOSTIC OF PANCREATIC INJURY USING INFRARED THERMOMETRY.

Aim: the study of the dynamics of changes in the temperature indicators of the injured pancreatic tissues in various types of mechanical trauma, depending on the time elapsed since the injury and the time of death.

Material And Methods: The material of the study was the pancreatic tissue of 256 individuals, both male and female, aged 20 to 60, who died with a known time of injury and time of death, with or without the presence of alcohol in the blood.

Results: The article analyzes the issue of diagnostics, determining the time of injury and time of death.

A diminished hydrophobic effect inside the GroEL/ES cavity contributes to protein substrate destabilization.

Confining compartments are ubiquitous in biology, but there have been few experimental studies on the thermodynamics of protein folding in such environments. Recently, we reported that the stability of a model protein substrate in the GroEL/ES chaperonin cage is reduced dramatically by more than 5 kcal mol compared to that in bulk solution, but the origin of this effect remained unclear. Here, we show that this destabilization is caused, at least in part, by a diminished hydrophobic effect in the GroEL/ES cavity.

[Combination of ARE and HRE cis- Regulatory Elements Elevates the Activity of Tumor-Specific hTERT Promoter].

Tumor-specific promoters and cis-regulatory genetic elements are used for transcriptional control of therapeutic transgene expression in cancer gene therapy. HRE (hypoxia response element) and ARE (anti-oxidant response elements) cis-regulatory elements are targets for HIF1 and Nrf2 transcriptional factors, respectively, and mediate activation of gene transcription in a response to hypoxia and oxidative stress, characteristic of most solid tumors. Due to these features HREs and AREs are used in genetic constructs for cancer gene therapy to provide tumor-specific therapeutic transgene expression or replication of oncolytic adenovi-ruses.

Measuring protein stability in the GroEL chaperonin cage reveals massive destabilization.

The thermodynamics of protein folding in bulk solution have been thoroughly investigated for decades. By contrast, measurements of protein substrate stability inside the GroEL/ES chaperonin cage have not been reported. Such measurements require stable encapsulation, that is no escape of the substrate into bulk solution during experiments, and a way to perturb protein stability without affecting the chaperonin system itself.

Xenobiotic Response Elements (XREs) from Human CYP1A1 Gene Enhance the hTERT Promoter Activity.

A hybrid 6XRE-hTERT promoter consisting of the hTERT tumor-specific promoter and six copies of the XRE element from the CYP1A1 human gene promoter was created. Using a human lung cancer cells as a model, we showed that XRE elements in the hybrid promoter greatly increase the activity of the hTERT promoter and ensure the reporter gene transcriptional activation in response to the treatment of the cells with the AhR ligand benzo(a)pyrene. However, similar effects were also observed in normal human bronchial epithelial cells HBEpC, which indicates the loss of the tumor-specific activity by the 6XRE-hTERT hybrid promoter.