Recently, apoptosis is a heated spot in biological and medical research fields, because it plays key roles in embryogenesis, morphogenesis, tissue homeostasis, body defense and immune response, cellular damage caused by diseases or toxicosis, aging, development of tumors and so on. Abnormal apoptosis is related to many diseases, such as Alzheimer's disease, stroke and cancer, etc. In general, apoptosis means a series of processes of programmed cell death (PCD), it is precisely controlled by the regulation of certain intracellular molecules (including apoptosis-related genes and their metabolites), and these processes will promote adaptation to the environment and maintain homeosta......2014-11-08

Diabetes (diabetes mellitus) is a metabolic disease that is characterized by hyperglycemia. Due to long-term high blood sugar in diabetic patients, this syndrome is prone to cause a variety of complications. Then leading to chronic damage and dysfunction in multiple organizations, especially in the eye, kidney, heart, blood vessel, nerve and other tissues. Therefore, treatment and control of diabetes has become one of the hot spots of medical field. As increasing studies on the mechanism of diabetes in the pathogenesis, an amazing molecule that can control blood sugar slowly opened its mysterious veil until 1987. Researchers have found that gastrointestinal endocrine cells will produc......2014-11-08

My name is B-type natriuretic peptide, also called Brain Natriuretic Peptide (abbreviated BNP). Everyone calls me that since I was found in pig brain. I am mainly derived from the ventricle. In order to make everyone to know more about me, first of all, let me talk about my experience. Human cardiac cells secrete B-type natriuretic peptide (His27-His134), when ventricular volume overloads or pressure load increases, some endonucleases cleave B-type natriuretic peptide to form N-terminal B-type natriuretic peptide (NT-proBNP, His27-Arg102) and me (BNP, Ser103-His134). I have biological activities and play multiple roles in natriuretic, diuretic, antihypertensive and smooth muscle relaxa......2014-10-23

Cell cycle is a series of ordered events that take place in a cell from the first division to the next one. Cell cycle can be divided in two phases: interphase and mitotic (M) phase. During mitotic phase (M phase) , a series of changes take place in cellular modality and structure, including division of nucleus, condensation of chromosomes, appearance of spindle and equal distribution of chromosomes to two daughter cells, genetically identical to each other. It is well known that there is a common mechanism to regulate the mitotic phase of the cell cycle in all the eukaryote cells from yeast to human. MPF, a protein kinase, can phosphorylate multiple proteins to change their structure ......2014-10-23

1. Introduction Thyroid hormones are tyrosine monoiodide produced by thyroid follicular epithelial cells, this kind of hormone includes tetraiodothyronine( Thyroxine, T4), Triiodothyronine (T3), and reverse T3（rT3）. Both T3 and T4 have physiological activity, but with different action time and intensity. T4 has low physiological activity, slow reaction, and long functioning time, while T3 is totally on the contrary. The in vivo study shows, it’s T3 that works in physiological action and most of T4 functions when they turn to T3. That is to say, T4 is more likely a Prehormone, and rT3 does not have obvious physiological activity. T4 get deiodination by deiodinase, which is......2014-10-23

N-Terminal Pro-Brain Natriuretic Peptide (NT-proBNP) is synthesized by heart muscle cells, after secreted into the blood, it will be decomposed into BNP (the concrete introduction of the BNP, please pay attention to BNP - important markers of heart failure) and NT-BNP by endoproteinases (figure 1). As NT-BNP is characterized by non-biological activity, long half-life in the body, and easy to track for a long time, so it can be used as a clinical marker for cardiovascular disease surveillance, and cardiovascular researchers at home and abroad show great interest in it. In 2004 and 2008, the international experts systematically elaborated characteristics and clinical applications of BNP ......2014-10-23