Chapter 4 Ovum Factor and Early Pregnancy Factor

Identification of Candidate Biomarker Proteins Released by Human Endometrial and Cervical Cancer Cells Using Two-Dimensional Liquid Chromatography/Tandem Mass Spectrometry

“…38,39 This extracellular protein was first discovered as "early pregnancy factor" and was found to be released from the placenta into the blood stream within 6 h of conception. 40,41 Our analyses show that extracellular chaperonin 10 carries two post-translational modifications at the N-terminus. 35,42 Extracellular chaperonin 10 probably functions as an immunosuppressant 41 and a growth factor 43 in neoplastic cell proliferation.…”

“…40,41 Our analyses show that extracellular chaperonin 10 carries two post-translational modifications at the N-terminus. 35,42 Extracellular chaperonin 10 probably functions as an immunosuppressant 41 and a growth factor 43 in neoplastic cell proliferation. PK-M2 is expressed selectively in metastatic cells, [44][45][46][47] primarily in its dimeric form.…”

Active immunization with EPF suppresses the formation of immune ascites in BALB/c mice

“…with an immunosuppressive anti-lymphocyte serum (ALS) than do lymphocytes from the same donor without EPF (1,4). The assay described in this study was performed with spleen cells from outbred, male Quackenbush mice (Central Animal Breeding House, University of Queensland, Australia; CABH), rabbit anti-mouse ALS and human red blood cells (hRBC); one batch of ALS was used throughout the experiments (2,5).…”

“…The RIT was recorded as the highest dilution of ALS in which the number of rosettes formed between mouse lymphocytes and hRBC is less than 75% of the number formed in the absence of ALS. This dilution is expressed as Iog2 (reciprocal dilution of ALS X 10" 3); an RIT > 16 was positive for EPF and an RIT < 16 was negative for EPF (2). In this study, samples (serum or ascites) were diluted in HBSS/BSA prior to assay and the results were recorded as EPF titre; that is, the reciprocal of the highest dilution of a sample to give a positive RIT.…”

“…Early pregnancy factor (EPF) was first discovered as an immunosuppressive substance in the serum of pregnant mice (1) and, subsequently, detection of EPF has been used to diagnose pregnancy in a variety of species (2). Studies by Quinn et al (3) have shown that the production of EPF is not confined to pregnancy but that a wide variety of tumour and transformed cell lines produce EPF (or an EPF-like substance) both in vivo and in vitro.…”