AIM:To examine the role of nucleostemin in the growth regulation of gastric cancer, liver cancer and other cancers.

Osteopontin (OPN) is a secreted, non-collagenous, sialic acid-rich protein which functions by mediating cell-matrix interactions and cellular signaling via binding with integrins and CD44 receptors. An increasing number of studies have shown that OPN plays an important role in controlling cancer progression and metastasis. OPN was found to be expressed in many human cancer types, and in some cases, its over-expression was shown to be directly associated with poor patient prognosis. In vitro cancer cell line and animal model studies have clearly indicated that OPN can function in regulating the cell signaling that ultimately controls the oncogenic potential of various cancers. Previous studies in our laboratory demonstrated that OPN is highly expressed in human osteosarcoma (OS) cell line OS-732. In this study, we successfully reduced the tumorigenecity of OS-732 cells xenotransplanted into nude mice, using the antisense human OPN (hOPN) RNA expression vector.

No abstract

Five female transgenic mice were produced by microinjection using a construct made up of a 7.3-kb-5′ flanking region and a 2.0-kb coding region of human α-lactalbumin, as well as a 227-bp 3′ -flanking region from bovine growth hormone gene. A founder female expressed human α-lactalbumin as much as 0.3 g per liter of its milk, approximately a 3-fold increase in the total α-lactalbumin concentration of the transgenic mouse milk. Compared with the normal mice, the expression profile of the hα-Lac transgene in the transgenics is different during the lactation, showing low level in the first 3 days and becoming increased from day 4, then gradually reaching and stabilizing at the highest level from day 13. In addition, the milk yielding volume in the transgenics tended to be higher than in normal mice, suggesting higher concentrations of α-lactalbumin might boost more milk output.