Background: Multi-drug resistance of poly(morpho)nuclear giant cells (PGCs) determines their cytoprotective and generative potential in cancer ecosystems. However, mechanisms underlying the involvement of PGCs in glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) adaptation to chemotherapeutic regimes remain largely obscure. In particular, metabolic reprogramming of PGCs has not yet been considered in terms of GBM recovery from doxorubicin (DOX)-induced stress.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFEndogenous electric fields (EFs) serve as a crucial signal to guide cell movement in processes such as wound healing, embryonic development, and cancer metastasis. However, the mechanism underlying cell electrotaxis remains poorly understood. A plausible hypothesis suggests that electrophoretic or electroosmotic forces may rearrange charged components of the cell membrane, including receptors for chemoattractants which induce asymmetric signaling and directional motility.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBiochim Biophys Acta Mol Cell Res
February 2024
The molecular mechanisms behind electrotaxis remain largely unknown, with no identified primary direct current electric field (dcEF) sensor. Two leading hypotheses propose mechanisms involving the redistribution of charged components in the cell membrane (driven by electrophoresis or electroosmosis) and the asymmetric activation of ion channels. To investigate these mechanisms, we studied the dynamics of electrotactic behaviour of mouse 3T3 fibroblasts.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFDeep neural networks (DNNs) have achieved outstanding results in domains such as image processing, computer vision, natural language processing and bioinformatics. In recent years, many methods have been proposed that can provide a visual explanation of decision made by such classifiers. Saliency maps are probably the most popular.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFCellular heterogeneity is a phenomenon in which cell populations are composed of subpopulations that vary in their behavior. Heterogeneity is particularly pronounced in cancer cells and can affect the efficacy of oncological therapies. Previous studies have considered heterogeneity dynamics to be indicative of evolutionary changes within subpopulations; however, these studies do not consider the short-time morphological plasticity of cells.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAccumulating evidence suggests that an important role is played by electric signals in modifying cell behaviour during developmental, regenerative and pathological processes. However, their role in asthma has not yet been addressed. Bronchial fibroblasts have recently been identified having important roles in asthma development.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe basic hallmarks of bronchial asthma, one of the most common chronic diseases occurring in the world, are chronic inflammation, remodelling of the bronchial wall and its hyperresponsiveness to environmental stimuli. It was found out that the fibroblast to myofibroblast transition (FMT), a key phenomenon in subepithelial fibrosis of the bronchial wall, was crucial for the development of asthma. Our previous studies showed that HBFs derived from asthmatic patients cultured in vitro display some inherent features which facilitate their TGF-b-induced FMT.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe activation of human bronchial fibroblasts by transforming growth factor-β₁ (TGF-β₁) leads to the formation of highly contractile myofibroblasts in the process of the fibroblast⁻myofibroblast transition (FMT). This process is crucial for subepithelial fibrosis and bronchial wall remodeling in asthma. However, this process evades current therapeutic asthma treatment strategies.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFElectrotaxis plays an important role during embryogenesis, inflammation, wound healing, and tumour metastasis. However, the mechanisms at play during electrotaxis are still poorly understood. Therefore intensive studies on signaling pathways involved in this phenomenon should be carried out.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFRationale: Extracellular vesicles (EVs) are tiny membrane-enclosed droplets released by cells through membrane budding or exocytosis. The myocardial reparative abilities of EVs derived from induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) have not been directly compared with the source iPSCs.
Objective: To examine whether iPSC-derived EVs can influence the biological functions of cardiac cells in vitro and to compare the safety and efficacy of iPSC-derived EVs (iPSC-EVs) and iPSCs for cardiac repair in vivo.
Colloids Surf B Biointerfaces
October 2017
Polymer vesicles formed by a pair of oppositely charged diblock copolyelectrolytes (PICsomes) are considered as a good alternative to polymersomes formed by amphiphilic copolymers. Here, we report on inherent stability and in vitro biocompatibility of PICsomes prepared from a pair of oppositely charged zwitterionic-ionic copolymers, in which the ionic block is a strong polyelectrolyte. Our results demonstrated that the PICsomes are highly stable over a wide range of pH and temperatures.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFCell migration is a complicated process, which is crucial for functioning of multicellular organisms. Multiple signalling pathways are deeply involved in the precise control of consecutive cell migration stages based on remodelling of the actin cytoskeleton. Small Rho GTPases (RhoA, Rac1 and Cdc42) as well as multiple protein and lipid kinases, calcium ions and mechanosensors are crucial components in this process.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBone marrow-derived cells are thought to participate and enhance the healing process contributing to skin cells or releasing regulatory cytokines. Directional cell migration in a weak direct current electric field (DC-EF), known as electrotaxis, may be a way of cell recruitment to the wound site. Here we examined the influence of electric field on bone marrow adherent cells (BMACs) and its potential role as a factor attracting mesenchymal stem cells to cutaneous wounds.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe endogenous electric field (EF) may provide an important signal for directional cell migration during wound healing, embryonic development and cancer metastasis but the mechanism of cell electrotaxis is poorly understood. Additionally, there is no research addressing the question on the difference in electrotactic motility of cells representing various strategies of cell movement-specifically blebbing vs. lamellipodial migration.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe endogenous electric field may provide an important signal for directional cell migration during cancer metastasis but the mechanism of cell electrotaxis is poorly understood. It was postulated that microtubules play a central role in the polarization and directional migration of several types of cells. In this paper we investigated the role of microtubules in electrotaxis of rat Walker carcinosarcoma WC256 cells.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMultimodal oncological strategies which combine chemotherapy or radiotherapy with hyperthermia, have a potential of improving the efficacy of the non-surgical methods of cancer treatment. Hyperthermia engages the heat-shock response (HSR) mechanism, the main component of which are heat-shock proteins. Cancer cells have already partially activated HSR, thereby hyperthermia may be more toxic to them relative to normal cells.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFNeither androgen ablation nor chemotherapeutic agents are effective in reducing the risk of prostate cancer progression. On the other hand, multifaceted effects of phytochemicals, such as triterpene saponins, on cancer cells have been suggested. A promising safety and tolerability profile indicate their possible application in the treatment of advanced prostate cancers.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFChronic inflammation of the airways and structural changes in the bronchial wall are basic hallmarks of asthma. Human bronchial fibroblasts derived from patients with diagnosed asthma display in vitro predestination towards TGF-β-induced fibroblast-to-myofibroblast transition (FMT), a key event in the bronchial wall remodelling. Statins inhibit 3-hydroxymethyl-3-glutaryl coenzyme A reductase, a key enzyme in the cholesterol synthesis pathway and are widely used as antilipidemic drugs.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Progress in the modeling of biological systems strongly relies on the availability of specialized computer-aided tools. To that end, the Taverna Workbench eases integration of software tools for life science research and provides a common workflow-based framework for computational experiments in Biology.
Results: The Taverna services for Systems Biology (Tav4SB) project provides a set of new Web service operations, which extend the functionality of the Taverna Workbench in a domain of systems biology.
Stud Health Technol Inform
April 2016
We introduce and formally define the notion of a stationary state for Petri nets. We also propose a fully automatic method for finding such states. The procedure makes use of the Presburger arithmetic to describe all the stationary states.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFWe apply the concept of subset seeds to similarity search in protein sequences. The main question studied is the design of efficient seed alphabets to construct seeds with optimal sensitivity/selectivity trade-offs. We propose several different design methods and use them to construct several alphabets.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Transposable elements constitute a significant fraction of plant genomes. The PIF/Harbinger superfamily includes DNA transposons (class II elements) carrying terminal inverted repeats and producing a 3 bp target site duplication upon insertion. The presence of an ORF coding for the DDE/DDD transposase, required for transposition, is characteristic for the autonomous PIF/Harbinger-like elements.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIn Silico Biol
November 2006
We introduce and formally define the notion of a stationary state for Petri nets. We also propose a fully automatic method for finding such states. The procedure makes use of the Presburger arithmetic to describe all the stationary states.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFWe present a model of contextual alignment of biological sequences. It is an extension of the classical alignment, in which we assume that the cost of a substitution depends on the surrounding symbols. In this model the cost of transforming one sequence into another depends on the order of editing operations.
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