L-arginine administration reverses anemia associated with renal disease.

Recombinant human erythropoietin (rhEpo) has proved to be remarkably safe and effective for the treatment of anemia. Despite the use of rhEpo, concerns about its cost, the need for frequent parenteral administration, and the development of anti-Epo antibodies have prompted the development of improved agents to rescue anemia. Patients with anemia associated with renal disease are usually treated by intravenous or subcutaneous rhEpo administration; however, some patients do not respond well to rhEpo, because of the presence of Epo antibody or other unknown reasons.

Annexin 2 and hemorrhagic disorder in vascular intimal carcinomatosis.

Vascular intimal carcinomatosis refers to a characteristic tumor proliferation on vascular intima that replaces normal endothelium. This pathological event of unknown cause is quite different from tumor thrombotic microangiopathy due to the absence of thrombi on the tumor cell surfaces. We analyzed renal transitional cell carcinoma cases with metastasis to the main pulmonary arteries and marked hyperfibrino(geno)lysis.

Ascorbic acid restores sensitivity to imatinib via suppression of Nrf2-dependent gene expression in the imatinib-resistant cell line.

Objective: Imatinib, a BCR/ABL tyrosine kinase inhibitor, has shown remarkable clinical effects in chronic myelogenous leukemia. However, the leukemia cells become resistant to this drug in most blast crisis cases. The transcription factor Nrf2 regulates the gene expression of a number of detoxifying enzymes such as gamma-glutamylcysteine synthetase (gamma-GCS), the rate-limiting enzyme in glutathione (GSH) synthesis, via the antioxidant response element (ARE).

Oxidative stress is involved in hydroxyurea-induced erythroid differentiation.

Hydroxyurea (HU), an inhibitor of DNA synthesis, can also induce haemoglobinization in certain erythroid cell lines. In this study, we report that intracellular peroxides levels were increased in HU-treated murine erythroleukaemia (MEL) cells and that l-acetyl-N-cysteine (LNAC), a potent reducing reagent, had a significant inhibitory effect on the HU-mediated induction of beta-globin, delta-aminolaevulinate synthase mRNA expression and haemoglobinization of MEL cells. In contrast, the addition of LNAC to dimethyl sulphoxide (DMSO)-treated MEL cells had a much smaller effect on the number of haemoglobinized cells.

Analysis of gene expression profiles in an imatinib-resistant cell line, KCL22/SR.

The BCR/ABL tyrosine kinase inhibitor, imatinib, has shown substantial effects in blast crises of chronic myelogenous leukemia. However, most patients relapse after an initial clinical response, indicating that drug resistance is a major problem for patients being treated with imatinib. In this study, we generated a new imatinib-resistant BCR/ABL-positive cell line, KCL22/SR.

L-arginine rescues decreased erythropoietin gene expression by stimulating GATA-2 with L-NMMA.

Background: NG-monomethyl-L-arginine (L-NMMA) decreases the expression of nitric oxide (NO) and cyclic guanosine monophosphate (cGMP) and increases the expression of GATA-2 mRNA and levels of GATA-2 binding activity, thereby inhibiting erythropoietin (Epo) promoter activity and causing a decrease in the expression of Epo protein. In the present study, we examined the effect of L-arginine on Epo gene expression in Hep3B cells and BDF1 mice.

Methods: Hep3B cells were incubated with and without different concentrations of L-NMMA and/or l-arginine.