ATF-2 immunoreactivity in post-mitotic and terminally differentiated human odontoblasts.

Activating transcription factor 2 (ATF-2/CRE-BP1; cAMP-responsive element binding protein 1) is a member of nuclear transcription factor activator protein-1 (AP-1) family. AP-1 regulates cellular processes including growth, proliferation, differentiation and apoptosis. However, biological relationship of cellular process to each member of the AP-1 family is not clear yet.

Comparison of three different techniques for histological tooth preparation.

The histological processing of teeth is highly complicated because of containing both mineralized hard tissues and soft tissues. Depending on the type of decalcification agents used in processing, mild-to-severe deterioration in the tissue structure and inadequacies on clear staining of details by the histological stain may be observed. This study aims to compare the histological staining differences in the preparations from decalcified and undecalcified tooth roots by three different embedding materials and techniques.

iNOS expression in oral and gastrointestinal tract mucosa.

It is known that the overproduction of nitric oxide (NO) by nitric oxide synthase (NOS) occurs during the progression of various inflammatory diseases in intestinal tract. NOS inhibitors or inducible nitric oxide synthase (iNOS) gene expression inhibitors should be considered as potential anti-inflammatory agents, as NO synthesized by iNOS is related to various pathophysiological processes including inflammation. In order to understand the relationship between iNOS and pathological reactions such as the inflammatory process and malign transformation clearly, the existence and amount of constitutive expression should be determined.