Nat Clin Pract Rheumatol. 2008 Jul;4(7):371-80 Authors: Nöth U, Steinert AF, Tuan RS Despite the high prevalence and morbidity of osteoarthritis (OA), an effective treatment for this disease is currently lacking. Restoration of the diseased articular cartilage in patients with OA is, therefore, a challenge of considerable appeal to researchers and clinicians. Techniques that cause…

IUBMB Life. 2008 Jun;60(6):355-61 Authors: Okamoto H Vitamin K2 [menaquinone-4 (MK-4)] has been reported to induce apoptosis in hepatocellular carcinoma, leukemia, and MDS cell lines. The effects of MK-4 on the development of arthritis have never been addressed so far. In this study, we investigated the effect of MK-4 upon the proliferation of rheumatoid synovial…

Arthritis Rheum. 2008 Jun;58(6):1650-6 Authors: Wang CR, Shiau AL, Chen SY, Lin LL, Tai MH, Shieh GS, Lin PR, Yo YT, Lee CH, Kuo SM, Liu MF, Jou IM, Yang CY, Shen PC, Lee HL, Wu CL OBJECTIVE: The phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase (PI 3-kinase)/Akt pathway is known to be activated in rheumatoid arthritis (RA) synovial tissue,…

Inflamm Res. 2008 Jun;57(6):260-5 Authors: Lu Y, Wang WJ, Leng JH, Cheng LF, Feng L, Yao HP OBJECTIVE: To determine the effects of triptolide (TP) on the expression of interleukin-18 (IL-18) and its receptor in phorbol 12-myristate 13-acetate (PMA)-stimulated rheumatoid arthritis synovial fibroblasts (RASF). MATERIALS AND METHODS: RASF were obtained from the synovial tissue of…

Curr Pharm Des. 2008;14(13):1270-3 Authors: Ozgocmen S, Gur A Sjögren’s syndrome (SS) is a chronic autoimmune disease that mainly affects the exocrine glands and usually presents with sicca symptoms of the main mucosal surfaces. The prevalence and the type of central nervous system (CNS) tissue damage caused by SS are debatable. The wide spectrum of…

Joint Bone Spine. 2008 Oct;75(5):563-6 Authors: Hromadnikova I, Zlacka D, Hien Nguyen TT, Sedlackova L, Zejskova L, Sosna A The transplacental cell transfer naturally takes place during pregnancy and occurs bi-directionally between the mother and fetus. Using real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR) assay and sex determining region Y (SRY) gene as a marker, we examined…

Biochem Biophys Res Commun. 2008 Aug 22;373(2):181-5 Authors: Imada K, Lin N, Liu C, Lu A, Chen W, Yano M, Sato T, Ito A Aggrecanase-1/a disintegrin and metalloproteinase with thrombospondin-like motifs (ADAMTS)-4 and aggrecanase-2/ADAMTS-5 have been shown to play crucial roles in cartilage destruction in arthritic diseases, including rheumatoid arthritis and osteoarthritis. In this study,…

Joint Bone Spine. 2008 Jul;75(4):379-82 Authors: Swart J, Martens A, Wulffraat N PMID: 18558507 [PubMed – indexed for MEDLINE]

Cells Tissues Organs. 2009;189(5):307-16 Authors: Dudics V, Kunstár A, Kovács J, Lakatos T, Géher P, Gömör B, Monostori E, Uher F BACKGROUND: Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) have the potential to differentiate into distinct mesenchymal tissues; including cartilage and bone, they can be an attractive cell source for cartilage tissue engineering approaches. Our objective here was…

Inflammation. 2008 Aug;31(4):281-5 Authors: Parada-Turska J, Mitura A, Brzana W, JabÅ‚oÅ„ski M, Majdan M, Rzeski W Parthenolide is a bioactive constituent of an aromatic herb Feverfew (Tanacetum parthenium). It has been found that both parthenolide and extract of feverfew have anti-inflammatory and antinociceptive properties. Moreover, they demonstrate antiproliferative activities on different human tumour cells. The…