Experiments examining thalidomide's enantiomers reveal-that the S(-)-enantiomer has the strongest antiangiogenic activity in VEGF-induced and bFGF-induced corneal neovascularization.
Only one bFGF isoform (17.8 kd) was found in idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis and chronic beryllium disease lung tissues and interacted with heparin-like molecules in the lung.
The second series of experiments was designed to study the effects of FGF2 neutralizing antibody (40 micrograms for 5 days after PAN injection, in MoAb group) on severely damaged podocytes caused by repeated (two courses) injections in the PAN nephropathy rats.
Treatment of MM cells with egr-1 short interfering RNA suppressed proliferation, which was overridden by exogenously added recombinant FGF-1 and, in particular, FGF-2.
FGF2, the most widely characterized family member, is down-regulated in the depressed brain and plays a protective role in rodent models of affective disorders.
In this series of studies, we first ask whether endogenous FGF2 expression correlates with spontaneous anxiety, a trait associated with vulnerability to severe mood disorders in humans.
Individuals with mood disorders exhibit alterations in the fibroblast growth factor system, including reduced hippocampal fibroblast growth factor-2 (FGF2).
We determined the distribution of hippocampal FGF-2 and its receptor (FGFR1) mRNA in post-mortem brains of people who suffered from major depression, bipolar disorder and schizophrenia and those of controls.
The results of immunohistochemistry, Western blotting and semiquantitative RT-PCR indicated that mRNA and protein levels of leptin, leptin receptors, androgen receptor and FGF2 were significantly higher in the GDM placentae than non-GDM placentae; while NRIH3, NRIH2, StARD3, CYP11A1, HSD3B, HSD11B, HSD17B, ERalpha, ERbeta, progesterone receptor, FGF receptor-2, insulin receptor-alpha and -beta showed no differences.
Given the neuroprotective activity of FGF-2, the data presented here might be relevant to the deficit in cognition and other symptoms that appear in schizophrenia.
At 4 h following pilocarpine-induced seizures, expression of NGF, BDNF, HB-EGF, and FGF-2 increased only in the mice manifesting tonic-clonic convulsions and not in mice without seizures.