Fruit fly Drosophila

also carries a single necdin-like MAGE gene, which is highly expressed in neural stem cells (neuroblasts) during nervous system development. In the present study, we investigated the function of MAGE in Drosophila neurogenesis in vivo using an RNA interference (RNAi) -mediated gene knockdown system. Ubiquitous knockdown of Drosophila MAGE by double-stranded RNA injection into embryos was lethal at early stages of organogenesis. MAGE was then knocked down in developing mushroom bodies by RNAi-mediated gene silencing using the OK107-GAL4 driver. MAGE RNAi increased the population of proliferative neural precursors in larval mushroom bodies. At the pupal stage, RNAi-mediated MAGE knockdown led to a significant enlargement of the mushroom AZD1080 manufacturer bodies as a result selleck chemicals llc of increased neuronal population, presumably by accelerating the asymmetric division of neural stem cells.

MAGE RNAi mushroom bodies of adult flies showed neurodegenerative changes such as vacuolation and nuclear DNA breaks, implying that supernumerary neurons undergo apoptosis during postpupal development. These results suggest that evolutionally conserved necdin-like MAGE is involved in both neural stem cell proliferation and neuronal survival during nervous system development. (C) 2008 IBRO. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.”
“Adult T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (T-ALL) continues to represent an unfavorable disease. Molecularly based Myosin treatment stratifications could help improve

outcome. The prognostic impact of HOX11 and HOX11L2 expression has been an area of controversy. We have investigated 286 adult T-ALL patients enrolled into the German Multicenter ALL (GMALL) therapy protocols by comparative real-time RT-PCR. High HOX11 expression and HOX11L2 expression were predominantly seen in thymic T-ALL (P=0.031). In a multivariate analysis HOX11L2 expression proved to be an independent adverse risk factor for relapse-free survival (RFS) with a hazard ratio (HR) of 2.02 (P=0.023) and an HR for overall survival (OS) of 1.81 (P=0.021), both adjusted for the immunophenotype. HOX11 expression was found to have a favorable impact on RFS (HR 0.51; P=0.048) but did not exhibit a significant impact on OS. A subgroup analysis for thymic T-ALL revealed a more pronounced negative correlation of HOX11L2 expression with RFS ( HR 3.26; P=0.002) and OS (HR 2.38; P=0.009). Although the prognostic impact of HOX11 in T-ALL is less clear, HOX11L2 expression identifies a small subset of high-risk patients, who are so far classified as standard-risk group. Thus, patients with aberrant HOX11L2 expression should be considered early as candidates for intensified treatment regimes.”
“In skeletal muscle, alpha-dystrobrevin (alpha DB) is expressed throughout the sarcolemma with high concentrations at the neuromuscular junction.