Gene/Protein Disease Symptom Drug Enzyme Compound
Pivot Concepts:   Target Concepts:
Query: EC:3.4.21.73 (urokinase-type plasminogen activator)
 10,685 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

A body of evidence has suggested that hormones which modulate plasminogen activator production by cultured tumor explants in vitro may have a qualitatively comparable effect on the growth of the same tumors in vivo. As a test of this correlation and to explore its potential for predicting the in vivo response of tumors to hormones, we have studied here the effect of hydrocortisone on the growth of primary and first generation transplants of mouse mammary tumor virus-determined mammary tumors in BALB/c X DBA/8 F1 (hereafter called CD8F1) mice; hydrocortisone had been found previously to inhibit plasminogen activator production by explants of these tumors. The results were: (a) hydrocortisone reversibly blocked the growth of palpable primary tumors; growth resumed at control rates following withdrawal of exogenous hormone; (b) hydrocortisone inhibited the growth of first-generation tumor transplants when administered either before or after the appearance of palpable tumors; (c) pretreatment with hydrocortisone both delayed the appearance of primary tumors and greatly reduced tumor incidence in susceptible mice; a substantial part of the decrease in tumor incidence was apparently irreversible; (d) hydrocortisone reduction of tumor growth was accompanied by inhibition of tumor plasminogen activator content, and these effects displayed a similar dose dependence (enzyme content of tumor lysates was measured by the 125I-fibrin plate assay); the enzyme present in control and hormone-treated tumors was predominantly of the urokinase type. These findings suggest that plasminogen activator production and mammary tumor growth in CD8F1 mice are coordinately regulated and thus encourage the view that plasminogen activator might be useful as an in vitro marker for predicting the in vivo response of tumors to hormones.
 ...
PMID:Coordinate inhibition of plasminogen activator and tumor growth by hydrocortisone in mouse mammary carcinoma. 298 48

We have used delayed-type hypersensitivity (DTH) responses to probe the mechanisms of drug-induced cardiac allograft acceptance in mice. DBA/2-->C57BL/6 cardiac allograft recipients treated transiently with gallium nitrate accept their grafts for >90 days and fail to display DBA/2-reactive DTH responses. These DTH responses are restored when anti-TGF-beta Abs are included at the challenge site, and cell depletion studies showed that this DTH inhibition is mediated by CD4+ cells. Real-time PCR analysis revealed that allograft acceptor mice produce no more than background levels of TGF-beta mRNA at DTH challenge sites. This suggests that DTH regulation in allograft acceptor mice may involve TGF-beta activation, rather than TGF-beta production. The protease, plasmin, can activate TGF-beta, and activated T cells can express a receptor for the plasmin-producing enzyme urokinase-type plasminogen activator (uPA), and can also produce both uPA and tissue-type plasminogen activator (tPA). We observed that Abs to tPA or uPA can replace anti-TGF-beta mAb for the restoration of donor-reactive DTH responses in allograft acceptor mice. Histologic analysis revealed that accepted cardiac allografts express uPA, tPA, and active TGF-beta, whereas accepted cardiac isografts express only tPA, but not uPA or activated TGF-beta. These data demonstrate that local tPA and uPA contribute to DTH regulation in allograft acceptor mice and suggest that these elements of the fibrinolytic pathway are used to control donor-reactive cell-mediated immunity in allograft acceptor mice.
 ...
PMID:Mechanisms of graft acceptance: evidence that plasminogen activator controls donor-reactive delayed-type hypersensitivity responses in cardiac allograft acceptor mice. 1079 71

The plasminogen activation (PA) system has been implicated in driving inflammatory arthritis, but the precise contribution of PA system components to arthritis pathogenesis remains poorly defined. Here, the role of urokinase plasminogen activator (uPA) and its cognate receptor (uPAR) in the development and severity of inflammatory joint disease was determined using uPA- and uPAR-deficient mice inbred to the strain DBA/1J, a genetic background highly susceptible to collagen-induced arthritis (CIA). Mice deficient in uPA displayed a near-complete amelioration of macroscopic and histological inflammatory joint disease following CIA challenge. Similarly, CIA-challenged uPAR-deficient mice exhibited significant amelioration of arthritis incidence and severity. Reduced disease development in uPA-deficient and uPAR-deficient mice was not due to an altered adaptive immune response to the CIA challenge. Reciprocal bone marrow transplant studies indicated that uPAR-driven CIA was due to expression by hematopoietic-derived cells, as mice with uPAR-deficient bone marrow challenged with CIA developed significantly reduced macroscopic and histological joint disease as compared with mice with uPAR expression limited to non-hematopoietic-derived cells. These findings indicate a fundamental role for uPAR-expressing hematopoietic cells in driving arthritis incidence and progression. Thus, uPA/uPAR-mediated cell surface proteolysis and/or uPAR-mediated signaling events promote inflammatory joint disease, indicating that disruption of this key proteolytic/signaling system may provide a novel therapeutic strategy to limit clinical arthritis.
 ...
PMID:Urokinase plasminogen activator and receptor promote collagen-induced arthritis through expression in hematopoietic cells. 2929 74