Particularly interesting Cys-His-rich protein is highly expressed in human intracranial aneurysms and resists aneurysmal rupture

Abstract

Particularly interesting Cys-His-rich protein (PINCH) has several biological functions in cancer development, invasion and metastasis in malignant cells, and the expression of PINCH is upregulated in several cancer types, including breast cancer, gastric adenocarcinoma and rectal cancer. However, the contribution of PINCH to human cerebral aneurysms remains largely unknown. Therefore, the significance of PINCH expression in cerebral aneurysm growth and rupture was examined in the present study. The protein expression levels of alpha-smooth muscle actin, osteopontin (OPN), matrix metalloproteinase (MMP) 9 and PINCH were evaluated using immunohistochemistry and western blot analyses. The results demonstrate that the protein expression levels of OPN, MMP9 and PINCH in the unruptured intracranial aneurysm (UA) and ruptured intracranial aneurysm (RA) groups were markedly higher than those of the control group, whereas OPN and PINCH expression levels were decreased in the RA group compared to those of the UA group. In addition, there was a strong correlation between PINCH and tumor size (r=0.650 and P=0.0026), as well as between PINCH and OPN (r=0.639 and P=0.0033) in the unruptured cerebral aneurysms. However, the correlation between PINCH and tumor size (r=0.450 and P=0.1393) and between PINCH and OPN (r=0.366 and P=0.2426) revealed no obvious difference in the ruptured cerebral aneurysms. In conclusion, PINCH was highly expressed in the UAs, which may be a critical factor for preventing aneurysmal rupture. Moreover, PINCH may facilitate intracranial aneurysm progression, at least partially, through the activation of extracellular signal-regulated kinase signaling and the suppression of c-Jun N-terminal kinase signaling.

Levels of MMP-9 in patients with intracranial aneurysm: Relation with risk factors, size and clinical presentation

“…This was a limiting factor that we could not control, since most of the patients seen in a public service like ours, already arrive with ruptured aneurysms. Even though the study found no association between the MMP-9 levels and the rupture risk of aneurysms in these samples, the results have corroborated with those described by Peng et al [15], who showed high levels of MMP-9 in the ruptured and unruptured aneurysms when they compared them with control [15]. Other studies have also found differing MMP-9 plasma levels, but only between the ruptured aneurysms and control, with all of them having a smaller sample than the current one [7,10,11,16].…”

Silencing of perilipin by short hairpin RNA inhibits proliferation and induces apoptosis in liposarcoma cells

“…no. ab61682, dilution, 1:100; Abcam, Cambridge, UK), as previously described (17). Image visualization was performed under a microscope (Leica DM 2500; Leica Microsystems GmbH, Wetzlar, Germany) and the integrated optical density (IOD) was measured by Image Pro-Plus 6 software (Media Cybernetics, Inc., Rockville, MD, USA).…”