Bioscience reports
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Chimaeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapies, as one of the cancer immunotherapies, have heralded a new era of treating cancer. The accumulating data, especially about CAR-modified T cells against CD19 support that CAR T-cell therapy is a highly effective immune therapy for B-cell malignancies. ⋯ Experiments in vivo or in vitro, ongoing clinical trials and the outlook for CAR T-cell therapies also be included. Our future efforts will focus on identification of more viable cancer targets and more strategies to make CAR T-cell therapy safer.
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Pseudokinases are classified by the lack of one or several of the highly conserved motifs involved in nucleotide (nt) binding or catalytic activity of protein kinases (PKs). Pseudokinases represent ∼10% of the human kinome and they are found in all evolutionary classes of kinases. It has become evident that pseudokinases, which were initially considered somewhat peculiar dead kinases, are important components in several signalling cascades. ⋯ Pseudokinases employ diverse mechanisms to bind nts, which usually occurs at low, but physiological, affinity. ATP binding serves often a structural role but in most cases the functional roles are not precisely known. In the present review, we discuss the various mechanisms that pseudokinases employ for nt binding and how this often low-affinity binding can be accurately analysed.
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Sphingolipids are amphiphatic molecules ubiquitously expressed in all eukaryotic cell membranes. Initially characterized as structural components of cell membranes, sphingolipids have emerged as sources of important signalling molecules over the past decade. Sphingolipid metabolites, such as ceramide and S1P (sphingosine 1-phosphate), have been demonstrated to have roles as potent bioactive messengers involved in cell differentiation, proliferation, apoptosis, migration and angiogenesis. ⋯ Consequently, there is an urgent need for the development of new agents for the treatment of asthma, especially for patients who respond poorly to conventional therapy. Recent studies have demonstrated the important role of SphK and S1P in the development of asthma by regulating pro-inflammatory responses. These novel pathways represent exciting potential therapeutic targets in the treatment of asthma and are described in the present review.
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Avian influenza (AI) is a listed disease of the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) that has become a disease of great importance both for animal and human health. Until recent times, AI was considered a disease of birds with zoonotic implications of limited significance. ⋯ The implications of such a panzootic reflect themselves in animal health issues, notably in the reduction of a protein source for developing countries and in the management of the pandemic potential. Retrospective studies have shown that avian progenitors play an important role in the generation of pandemic viruses for humans, and therefore these infections in the avian reservoir should be subjected to control measures aiming at eradication of the Asian H5N1 virus from all sectors rather than just eliminating or reducing the impact of the disease in poultry.
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The small, maternally inherited mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) has turned out to be a hotbed of pathogenic mutations: 15 years into the era of 'mitochondrial medicine', over 150 pathogenic point mutations and countless rearrangements have been associated with a variety of multisystemic or tissue-specific human diseases. MtDNA-related disorders can be divided into two major groups: those due to mutations in genes affecting mitochondrial protein synthesis in toto and those due to mutations in specific protein-coding genes. Here we review the mitochondrial genetics and the clinical features of the mtDNA-related diseases.