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Query: UNIPROT:P17931 (galectin-3)
 2,860 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

Lines of thymic stromal cells have been established. One of these, designated TS-9, has been cloned and studied extensively. This line expresses both acid and alkaline phosphatases. Despite repeated cloning, TS-9 cells remain morphologically heterogeneous. The origin of these cells is not clear. They express low levels of immunologically identifiable cytokeratins, produce laminin, a basement membrane protein, but express antigens typically found on bone marrow stromal cells. The TS-9 cells are MHC Class I+ but Class II-. They express the Thy-1, Pgp-1, and Mac-2 antigens but not other lineage markers of T cells or macrophages. Coculturing TSC with normal thymocytes or with the CTLL-1 cell line leads to a profound inhibition of lectin-induced and/or IL-2 induced T cell proliferation. This requires direct cell-cell contact and ultimately results in the death of the bound lymphocytes. It cannot be reproduced by culturing the thymocytes with TSC culture supernatants. These supernatants do contain hematopoietic growth factor(s) which augment the growth of some T lineage cells and support the growth of monocytic colonies in semi-solid culture medium. Both normal thymocytes and a variety of T cell tumors bind to TSC but only the normal cells are killed as a consequence of this interaction. Neither the binding nor the killing appear to be MHC restricted. We suggest that this killing may provide a model for the effector mechanism of the negative selection imposed by the thymus on developing T cells.
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PMID:Thymic stromal cells in culture. I. Establishment and characterization of a line which is cytotoxic for normal thymocytes and produces hematopoietic growth factor(s). 170 4

Galectin-3 is a member of the galectin family and belongs to a group of soluble beta-galactoside-binding animal lectins. The molecule is expressed by neural and nonneural cells intra- (cytoplasm and nucleus) as well as extra-cellularly (plasma membrane and extracellular space). By using an in vitro cell-substratum adhesion assay, we have addressed the question whether galectin-3 present in the extracellular milieu may support the adhesion and/or neurite outgrowth of neural cells in a manner analogous to cell adhesion molecules. Galectin-3 was immobilized as a substratum and various cell types, N2A (neuroblastoma), PC12 (pheochromocytoma), and TSC (transformed Schwann cells) cell lines, neural cells from early postnatal mouse cerebellum, and dorsal root ganglion neurons from newborn mice were allowed to adhere to the lectin. Here we show that all cell types studied specifically adhered to galectin-3 by the following criteria: 1) the number of adherent cells was dependent on the galectin-3 concentration used for coating; 2) adhesion of cells to galectin-3, but not to collagen type I or laminin was inhibited by polyclonal antibodies to galectin-3; 3) upon addition of asialofetuin (a polyvalent carrier of terminal beta-galactosides) to the cell suspension prior to the adhesion assay, cell adhesion to galectin-3 was inhibited in a dose-dependent manner; and 4) cell adhesion to galectin-3 was abolished by treatment of cells with endo-beta-galactosidase. In addition, the adhesion of dorsal root ganglion neurons to galectin-3 could be inhibited by lactose. Notably, substratum-bound galectin-3 promoted the outgrowth of neurites from dorsal root ganglia explants and this neurite outgrowth promoting activity could be inhibited by polyclonal antibodies to galectin-3.
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PMID:Galectin-3 promotes neural cell adhesion and neurite growth. 984 55