The fold of the covalent dimer is almost identical to the wild-type dimer with differences located in loops and in the covalent linker region. The main differences in the subunit packing between the octahedral and icosahedral arrangements

are located close to the fourfold and fivefold symmetry axes where different sets of loops mediate the contacts. The volume of the wild-type virions is 7 times bigger than that of the octahedral particles.”
“Persistent viral infections reflect a failure of the host’s immune system to control infection, and in many cases, they are associated with the development of malignancies. So far, vaccines designed to boost viral immunity during chronic infection have not been successful. Infections with high-risk

human papilloma viruses (e.g. HPV16) are acquired by a large segment of the population Dactolisib purchase and persist in 5-10% of infected individuals, which causes the development of high-grade pre-malignant EPZ5676 lesions. Recently we succeeded in causing regression of HPV16-induced disease in similar to 50% of chronically infected patients by a novel therapeutic vaccine. Here, we summarize the parallels in immunity against HPV and other chronic viruses and discuss the general implications of our findings for the immunotherapy of chronic infections.”
“The development of drugs that attenuate neurodegeneration is important for the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease (AD). We previously found that smilagenin (SMI), a steroidal sapogenin from traditional Chinese medicinal herbs improves memory in animal models, is neither a cholinesterase inhibitor nor a glutamate receptor antagonist, but can significantly elevate the declined muscarinic receptor (M receptor) density. In this article, to clarify whether SMI represents

a new approach for treating neurodegeneration disease, we first demonstrate that SMI pretreatment significantly attenuates the neurodegenerative changes induced by beta amyloid 25-35 (A beta(25-35)) in cultured rat cortical neurons, including decreased cholinergic neuron number, shortened neurite outgrowth length, and declined M receptor density. Brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) protein levels in the culture medium were also GW4869 cost decreased by A beta(25-35) and significantly elevated by SMI. Parallel experiments revealed that when the trk receptors were inhibited by K252a or the action of BDNF was inhibited by a neutralizing anti-BDNF antibody, the effects of SMI on the A beta(25-35)-induced neurodegeneration in rat cortical neurons were almost completely abolished. In the all-trans retinoic acid (RA)-differentiated SH-SY5Y neuroblastoma cells, the BDNF transcription rate measured by a nuclear run-on assay was significantly suppressed by A beta(25-35) and elevated by SMI, but the BDNF degradation rate measured by half-life determination was unchanged by A beta(25-35) and SMI.