Gene/Protein Disease Symptom Drug Enzyme Compound
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Query: UMLS:C0220723 (PCA)
 4,687 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

3,4-Dihydroxybenzoic acid (protocatechuic acid, PCA) is discussed to represent antioxidative food components in a human diet rich in fruits and vegetables, and has been shown to prevent carcinogenesis or antitumor growth in vivo. However, the molecular mechanisms involved in chemopreventive activity of PCA are poorly understood. In this study, investigations were conducted to examine the detailed signaling pathway involved in PCA-induced apoptosis in human gastric adenocarcinoma (AGS) cells. The data from cell viability assay showed that PCA exhibited the antiproliferation effect on AGS cells in a time- and dose-dependent manner. The occurrence of apoptosis induced by PCA was confirmed by morphological and biochemical features, including apoptotic bodies formation and an increase in the distribution of hypodiploid phase. Molecular data showed the effect of PCA in AGS cells might be mediated via sustained phosphorylation and activation of JNK and p38 mitogen-activating protein kinases (MAPK), but not ERK. Treatment with pharmacological inhibitors or transfection with the mutant p38 or/and JNK expression vector reduced PCA-mediated apoptosis and the JNK/p38 MAPK-related proteins phosphorylation and expression, including ATF-2, c-Jun, FasL, Fas, p53 and Bax. Preincubation with Nok-1 monoclonal antibody, which is inhibitory to Fas signaling, interfered with PCA-induced cleavage of procaspase and sensitization to anti-APO-induced apoptosis. These results suggest the possible involvement of multiple signaling pathways from the MAPK to the subsequent mitochondria- and/or Fas-mediated caspase activation are potential requirements for PCA-induced AGS apoptosis. Further, PCA effectively induced JNK/p38 activation in PCA-response cell lines. Taken together, our data present the first evidence of PCA as an apoptosis inducer in AGS cells, even in tumor cells of digestive organs, and provide a new mechanism for its anticancer activity.
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PMID:Apoptotic effect of 3,4-dihydroxybenzoic acid on human gastric carcinoma cells involving JNK/p38 MAPK signaling activation. 1730 8

Human serum albumin is a remarkable protein found in high concentrations in the body. It contains at least seven distinct fatty acid binding sites and two principle sites for drugs. Its primary function is to act as a fatty acid transport system, but it also shows the capacity to bind a diverse range of acidic, neutral and zwitterionic drug molecules. In this paper we investigate the ligand binding selectivity of HSA using cheminformatics analyses and molecular dynamics simulations. We compare and contrast the known ligand binding specificities as obtained from X-ray structural data using PCA, with additional direct analyses of the seven key binding pockets using analyses derived from molecular simulations. We assess both the fatted and defatted states of HSA using 100 ns simulations of the APO and HOLO forms, as well as structures containing one, three and seven myristic acid molecules. We find that differences in fatty acid binding can have a dramatic effect on the flexibility of the protein and also the pocket characteristics. We discuss how the remarkable selectivity of the HSA pockets towards both endogenous fatty acids and exogenous drug molecules is not simply controlled by bulk property effects such as ionization state and lipophilicity.
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PMID:Probing the binding site characteristics of HSA: a combined molecular dynamics and cheminformatics investigation. 2545 68