Locked Nucleic Acid In Situ Hybridization Analysis of MicroRNA-21 Predicts Clinical Outcome in Patients After Resection for Pancreatic Cancer Treated with Adjuvant Gemcitabine Monotherapy.

Background: The overexpression of microRNA-21 (miR-21) in pancreatic cancer has been implicated in drug resistance to gemcitabine. Thus far, miR-21 has gained wide attention as a potential biomarker to predict the clinical response in patients with pancreatic cancer receiving gemcitabine. The aim of this study was to evaluate the predictive value of miR-21 expression, determined by locked nucleic acid in situ hybridization (LNA-ISH), in patients with pancreatic cancer who underwent adjuvant gemcitabine after curative surgery.

A negative regulator of delayed prostaglandin D2 production in mouse mast cells.

We have previously shown that maturation of mouse bone marrow-derived mast cells (BMMCs) into connective tissue mast cells (CTMCs) upon coculture with fibroblasts in the presence of stem cell factor (kit ligand) is accompanied by marked induction of a panel of genes, one of which was identified as NLRP3. Here we report that NLRP3 acts as a novel negative regulator of delayed prostaglandin (PG) D(2) production in BMMCs. We found that, apart from its cell maturation-associated induction, NLRP3 expression was markedly induced in BMMCs several hours after FcepsilonRI crosslinking or cytokine stimulation.

Induction of PYPAF1 during in vitro maturation of mouse mast cells.

Coculture of mouse bone marrow-derived immature mast cells (BMMC) with Swiss 3T3 fibroblasts in the presence of stem cell factor (SCF) promotes morphological and functional maturation toward a connective tissue mast cell (CTMC)-like phenotype, which is accompanied by increased expression of several unique genes. Here we report the molecular identification of one of them, mast cell maturation-associated inducible gene (MMIG)-1. The MMIG-1 cDNA encodes a 117-kDa cytosolic protein that comprises an N-terminal PYRIN domain, a central nucleotide-binding domain, and nine C-terminal leucine-rich repeats.