These studies suggest that curcumin and to a lesser extent quercetin may offer therapeutic potential for the treatment of crystal-induced arthritis or rheumatoid arthritis.

These studies support the explorative use of topoisomerase I (particularly camptothecin) and II inhibitors as potential agents for use against RA.

The onset of foraging, proportion of pollen collectors, and weight of pollen loads were compared in individual honey bees (Apis mellifera) infested by zero, one (Acarapis woodi, the honey bee tracheal mite, or Varroa jacobsoni,varroa), or both species of parasitic mites. Phoretic varroa host choice also was compared between bees with and without tracheal mites, and tracheal mite infestation of hosts was compared between bees parasitized or not by varroa during development. The proportion of pollen collectors was not significantly different between treatments, but bees parasitized by both mites had significantly smaller pollen loads than uninfested bees. Mean onset of foraging was earliest for bees parasitized by varroa during development, 15.9 days. Bees with tracheal mites began foraging latest, at 20.5 days, and foraging ages were intermediate in bees with no mites and both, 17.6 and 18.0 days respectively. Phoretic varroa were found equally on bees with and without tracheal mite infestations, but bees parasitized by varroa during development were almost twice as likely to have tracheal mite infestations as bees with no varroa parasitism, 63.9% and 35.5%, respectively. These results indicate that these two parasites can have a biological interaction at the level of individual bees that is detrimental to their host colonies.

These results suggest that although topoisomerase II antagonists are distinctively effective agents at reversing the pro-survival effects of crystals on neutrophils, camptothecin was unique as a topoisomerase I inhibitor in that it was significantly more effective as a pro-apoptosis inducer than the topoisomerase II poisons without affecting normal neutrophil activation responses.

Upon stimulation by CPPD crystals, the expression of both Bim and Bax-alpha decreased after 3 h suggesting a reduced proapoptotic effect of these proteins so that the static expression of the prosurvival proteins Bcl-xl and Mcl-1 might allow for a temporary shift in the balance to a prosurvival state of the cells. Because a sudden (but transient) increase in the phosphorylated form of Bim was observed in CPPD-stimulated neutrophils it is possible that this species might act as a signaling intermediate, resulting in the observed downregulation of Bax-alpha.

No abstract

In vertebrate and invertebrate muscles, the expression of fatty acid binding proteins (FABP) is induced by long chain fatty acids. To identify the fatty acid response elements that mediate this up-regulation, the gene of the FABP expressed in locust flight muscle was cloned, and its upstream sequences analyzed for potential regulatory elements. Comparison with other muscle FABP promoters revealed the presence of a 19-bp imperfect inverted repeat sequence that contains two hexanucleotide half sites (AGTGGT and ATGGGA), interspersed by 3 nucleotides. The promoter activity was studied with reporter gene constructs in L6 myoblasts, in which H-FABP expression is stimulated by long-chain fatty acids in a similar manner as in adult cardiomyocytes. The 19 bp element, located 180 bp upstream of the transcription start site, was found to be essential for the fatty acid induction of gene expression, and gel shift analysis confirmed that this fatty acid response element is capable of binding nuclear proteins both from rat myoblasts and locust muscle in the presence of fatty acids. A similar, but reverse sequence that is present upstream of all mammalian H-FABP promoters may modulate the expression of the rat H-FABP gene.

No abstract