A novel cellular protein, VPEF, facilitates vaccinia virus penetration into HeLa cells through fluid phase endocytosis.

Vaccinia virus is a large DNA virus that infects many cell cultures in vitro and animal species in vivo. Although it has been used widely as a vaccine, its cell entry pathway remains unclear. In this study, we showed that vaccinia virus intracellular mature virions bound to the filopodia of HeLa cells and moved toward the cell body and entered the cell through an endocytic route that required a dynamin-mediated pathway but not a clathrin- or caveola-mediated pathway.

Genetic characterization of fas-associated phosphatase-1 as a putative tumor suppressor gene on chromosome 4q21.3 in hepatocellular carcinoma.

Purpose: Allelic loss at chromosome 4q21-23 occurs frequently in human hepatocellular carcinoma, and the putative tumor suppressor gene (TSG) has not yet been identified. We studied the Fas-associated phosphatase-1 (FAP-1) gene as a potential candidate TSG in this region.

Experimental Design: The expression level of FAP-1 RNA in hepatocellular carcinomas was evaluated by RNase protection and quantitative PCR.