Transient receptor potential vanilloid 2 function regulates cardiac hypertrophy via stretch-induced activation.

Objective: Hypertension (increased afterload) results in cardiomyocyte hypertrophy leading to left ventricular hypertrophy and subsequently, heart failure with preserved ejection fraction. This study was performed to test the hypothesis that transient receptor potential vanilloid 2 subtype (TRPV2) function regulates hypertrophy under increased afterload conditions.

Methods: We used functional (pore specific) TRPV2 knockout mice to evaluate the effects of increased afterload-induced stretch on cardiac size and function via transverse aortic constriction (TAC) as well as hypertrophic stimuli including adrenergic and angiotensin stimulation via subcutaneous pumps.

The role of transient receptor potential vanilloid 2 channel in cardiac aging.

Background: The aging heart is characterized by cellular and molecular changes leading to a decline in physiologic function and cardiac remodeling, specifically the development of myocyte hypertrophy and fibrosis. Transient receptor potential vanilloid 2 (TRPV2), a stretch-mediated channel and regulator of calcium homeostasis, plays a key role in the function and structure of the heart. TRPV2 also plays an important role in the adaptive and maladaptive compensatory mechanisms of the heart in response to pathologic and exercise-induced stress.

The transcription factor FOXF1 promotes prostate cancer by stimulating the mitogen-activated protein kinase ERK5.

Forkhead box F1 (FOXF1) is a stromal transcription factor that is not expressed in epithelial cells of normal prostate tissue. The role of FOXF1 in cancer is conflicting; its loss in some cancers suggests a tumor suppressive function, but its abundance in others is associated with protumorigenic and metastatic traits. Extracellular signal-regulated kinase 5 (ERK5) is associated with advanced-stage prostate adenocarcinoma (PCa) in patients.

Transient Receptor Potential Vanilloid 2 Regulates Myocardial Response to Exercise.

The myocardial response to exercise is an adaptive mechanism that permits the heart to maintain cardiac output via improved cardiac function and development of hypertrophy. There are many overlapping mechanisms via which this occurs with calcium handling being a crucial component of this process. Our laboratory has previously found that the stretch sensitive TRPV2 channels are active regulators of calcium handling and cardiac function under baseline conditions based on our observations that TRPV2-KO mice have impaired cardiac function at baseline.

SPDEF inhibits prostate carcinogenesis by disrupting a positive feedback loop in regulation of the Foxm1 oncogene.

SAM-pointed domain-containing ETS transcription factor (SPDEF) is expressed in normal prostate epithelium. While its expression changes during prostate carcinogenesis (PCa), the role of SPDEF in prostate cancer remains controversial due to the lack of genetic mouse models. In present study, we generated transgenic mice with the loss- or gain-of-function of SPDEF in prostate epithelium to demonstrate that SPDEF functions as tumor suppressor in prostate cancer.

Lumican reduces tumor growth via induction of fas-mediated endothelial cell apoptosis.

Matrikines are important components of tumor microenvironments that integrate communication between extracellular matricies and membrane-bound receptors thereby regulating cellular behaviors. One such matrikine that is differentially expressed in cancer microenvironments is the extracellular matrix protein lumican; however its precise role in cancer remains ambiguous. To study the effects of lumican on cancer cells, we created lumican-overexpressing cell lines from murine fibrosarcoma (MCA102) and pancreatic adenocarcinoma (Pan02) cells.