Engineering Stem Cell Factor Ligands with Different c-Kit Agonistic Potencies.

Receptor tyrosine kinases (RTKs) are major players in signal transduction, regulating cellular activities in both normal regeneration and malignancy. Thus, many RTKs, c-Kit among them, play key roles in the function of both normal and neoplastic cells, and as such constitute attractive targets for therapeutic intervention. We thus sought to manipulate the self-association of stem cell factor (SCF), the cognate ligand of c-Kit, and hence its suboptimal affinity and activation potency for c-Kit.

Laquinimod arrests experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis by activating the aryl hydrocarbon receptor.

Laquinimod is an oral drug currently being evaluated for the treatment of relapsing, remitting, and primary progressive multiple sclerosis and Huntington's disease. Laquinimod exerts beneficial activities on both the peripheral immune system and the CNS with distinctive changes in CNS resident cell populations, especially astrocytes and microglia. Analysis of genome-wide expression data revealed activation of the aryl hydrocarbon receptor (AhR) pathway in laquinimod-treated mice.