Mucor fragilis as a novel source of the key pharmaceutical agents podophyllotoxin and kaempferol.

Context: Podophyllotoxin, a pharmaceutically important bioactive compound of Podophyllum sps. (Berberidaceae), is in great demand worldwide as an anticancer and antivirus drug precursor. However, the source of podophyllotoxin is very limited due to the endangered status of the Podophyllum plant.

CHIP, a cochaperone/ubiquitin ligase that regulates protein quality control, is required for maximal cardioprotection after myocardial infarction in mice.

Limitation of damage after ischemia and reperfusion injury to the myocardium remains an elusive clinical goal. Previous studies have suggested that molecular chaperones, which include members of the heat shock protein (Hsp) family, may have cardioprotective effects, although the protective role of endogenous chaperones has not been well documented. CHIP (carboxyl terminus of Hsp70-interacting protein) is a cochaperone/ubiquitin ligase that integrates the response to stress at multiple levels.

Universal mouse reference RNA derived from neonatal mice.

A reproducible, transcriptionally diverse common reference RNA is required for accurate comparisons of data generated from most spotted microarray experiments in different experiments. Several methods have been proposed to make such a reference RNA, such as pooling RNAs isolated from multiple cell lines or tissues, amplifying pooled RNAs, or synthesizing RNAs or DNAs complementary to microarray features. We report an approach to prepare a large amount of mouse reference RNA from whole neonatal mice.

Multiple comparisons model-based clustering and ternary pattern tree numerical display of gene response to treatment: procedure and application to the preclinical evaluation of chemopreventive agents.

Microarray technology has greatly aided the identification of genes that are expressed differentially. Statistical analysis of such data by multiple comparisons procedures has been slow to develop, in part, because methods to cluster the results of such comparisons in biologically meaningful ways have not been available. We isolated and analyzed, by Northern blot and GeneChip, replicate liver RNA samples (n = 4/group) from rats fed with control diet or diet containing one of three chemopreventive compounds, selected because their pharmacological activities, including RNA expression response, are relatively well understood.