The occurrence of acylated sugar derivatives in the lipids of bacteria.
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Biomedical subjects
Publications and source records attributed to K Welsh.
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Survivin, a member of the inhibitor of apoptosis protein (IAP) family, is detected in most common human cancers but not in adjacent normal cells. Previous studies suggest that survivin associates with the mitotic spindle and directly inhibits caspase activity. To further investigate the function of survivin, we used a survivin antisense (AS) oligonucleotide to downregulate survivin expression in normal and cancer cells. We found that inhibition of survivin expression increased apoptosis and polyploidy while decreasing colony formation in soft agar. Immunohistochemistry showed that cells without survivin can initiate the cleavage furrow and contractile ring, but cannot complete cytokinesis, thus resulting in multinucleated cells. These findings indicate that survivin plays important roles in a late stage of cytokinesis, as well as in apoptosis.
Several studies suggested that part of the genetic susceptibility for Type 1 diabetes (T1DM) is encoded by some polymorphisms of CTLA-4 gene (2q33) and of Vitamin D Receptor gene (VDR; 12q12-14). Our aim was to assess their contribution to T1DM genetic susceptibility in the Romanian population. We typed CTLA-4 49 A/G and VDR FokI (F/f), ApaI (A/a) and TaqI (T/t) polymorphisms by Sequence Specific Primer PCR (SSP-PCR) in 204 Romanian diabetic families (756 individuals: 212 T1DM probands and 544 unaffected parents and siblings). We studied alleles transmission using the Transmission Disequilibrium Test (TDT). We found an increased transmission of CTLA-4 49G allele to diabetics (54.8%, p=0.11). The transmission of F (56.1%, p=0.063), a (55.7%, p=0.061) and T (51.8%, p=0.37) alleles of VDR gene to diabetics was increased but did not reach statistical significance. In conclusion we found the same increased transmission of CTLA-4 49 G allele to diabetics as previously reported. VDR FoqI F allele seems to be predisposing while TaqI T allele seems to be protective.