Periostin Deficiency Causes Severe and Lethal Lung Injury in Mice With Bleomycin Administration.

Pulmonary capillary leakage followed by influx of blood fluid into the air space of lung alveoli is a crucial step in the progression of acute lung injury (ALI). This influx is due to increased permeability of the alveolar-capillary barrier. The extracellular matrix (ECM) between the capillary and the epithelium would be expected to be involved in prevention of the influx; however, the role of the ECM remains to be addressed. Here, we show that the ECM architecture organized by periostin, a matricellular protein, plays a pivotal role in the survival of bleomycin-exposed mice. Periostin was localized in the alveolar walls. Although periostin-null mice displayed no significant difference in lung histology and air-blood permeability, they exhibited early lethality in a model of bleomycin-induced lung injury, compared with their wild-type counterparts. This early lethality may have been due to increased pulmonary leakage of blood fluid into the air space in the bleomycin-exposed periostin-null mice. These results suggest that periostin in the ECM architecture prevents pulmonary leakage of blood fluid, thus increasing the survival rate in mice with ALI. Thus, this study provides an evidence for the protective role of the ECM architecture in the lung alveoli.

Biological evaluation of fluorinated p-boronophenylalanine derivatives as a boron carrier.

Boron neutron capture therapy (BNCT) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) are quite attractive techniques for treatment and diagnosis of cancer, respectively. In order to develop practical materials utilizing both for BNCT and MRI, fluorinated p-boronophenylalanines and their alcohol derivatives had already been designed and synthesized. In the present paper the cytotoxicity, the incorporated amount into cancer cells, and the tumor cell killing effects of these compounds were elucidated to evaluate their usefulness as a boron carrier.

Synthesis and evaluation as MRI probe of the trifluoromethylated p-boronophenylalanine and its alcohol derivative.

Boron-neutron capture therapy (BNCT) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) are quite attractive techniques for treatment and diagnosis of cancer, respectively. In order to develop practical tools for BNCT and MRI, novel compounds containing both the trifluoromethyl group and 10B atom in a single molecule were designed. In the present study, p-boronophenylalanine and p-boronophenylalaninol with the trifluoromethyl group were synthesized, and 19F NMR measurements of these compounds were carried out.

Approaches to identify inhibitors of melanin biosynthesis via the quality control of tyrosinase.

Tyrosinase, a copper-containing glycoprotein, is the rate-limiting enzyme critical for melanin biosynthesis in specialized organelles termed melanosomes that are produced only by melanocytic cells. Inhibitors of tyrosinase activity have long been sought as therapeutic means to treat cutaneous hyperpigmentary disorders. Multiple potential approaches exist that could control pigmentation via the regulation of tyrosinase activity, for example: the transcription of its messenger RNA, its maturation via glycosylation, its trafficking to melanosomes, as well as modulation of its catalytic activity and/or stability. However, relatively little attention has been paid to regulating pigmentation via the stability of tyrosinase, which depends on its processing and maturation in the endoplasmic reticulum and Golgi, its delivery to melanosomes and its degradation via the ubiquitin-proteasome pathway and/or the endosomal/lysosomal system. Recently, it has been shown that carbohydrate modification, molecular chaperone engagement, and ubiquitylation all play pivotal roles in regulating the degradation/stability of tyrosinase. While such processes affect virtually all proteins, such effects on tyrosinase have immediate and dramatic consequences on pigmentation. In this review, we classify melanogenic inhibitory factors in terms of their modulation of tyrosinase function and we summarize current understanding of how the quality control of tyrosinase processing impacts its stability and melanogenic activity.

Study on the compounds containing 19F and 10B atoms in a single molecule for the application to MRI and BNCT.

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and boron-neutron capture therapy (BNCT) are quite attractive techniques for diagnosis and treatment of cancer, respectively. In order to progress the study on both MRI and BNCT, the novel compounds containing 19F and 10B atoms in a single molecule were designed and synthesized. In the present paper, the syntheses and the internalization rates into tumor cells of these compounds are elucidated.

Intracellular composition of fatty acid affects the processing and function of tyrosinase through the ubiquitin-proteasome pathway.

Proteasomes are multicatalytic proteinase complexes within cells that selectively degrade ubiquitinated proteins. We have recently demonstrated that fatty acids, major components of cell membranes, are able to regulate the proteasomal degradation of tyrosinase, a critical enzyme required for melanin biosynthesis, in contrasting manners by relative increases or decreases in the ubiquitinated tyrosinase. In the present study, we show that altering the intracellular composition of fatty acids affects the post-Golgi degradation of tyrosinase. Incubation with linoleic acid (C18:2) dramatically changed the fatty acid composition of cultured B16 melanoma cells, i.e. the remarkable increase in polyunsaturated fatty acids such as linoleic acid and arachidonic acid (C20:4) was compensated by the decrease in monounsaturated fatty acids such as oleic acid (C18:1) and palmitoleic acid (C16:1), with little effect on the proportion of saturated to unsaturated fatty acid. When the composition of intracellular fatty acids was altered, tyrosinase was rapidly processed to the Golgi apparatus from the ER (endoplasmic reticulum) and the degradation of tyrosinase was increased after its maturation in the Golgi. Retention of tyrosinase in the ER was observed when cells were treated with linoleic acid in the presence of proteasome inhibitors, explaining why melanin synthesis was decreased in cells treated with linoleic acid and a proteasome inhibitor despite the abrogation of tyrosinase degradation. These results suggest that the intracellular composition of fatty acid affects the processing and function of tyrosinase in connection with the ubiquitin-proteasome pathway and suggest that this might be a common physiological approach to regulate protein degradation.

Effect of boron neutron capture therapy for melanotic and amelanotic melanoma transplanted into mouse brain.

In order to develop a protocol to treat brain metastatic melanoma using our 10B-p-boronophenylalanine (BPA) boron neutron capture therapy (BNCT), we initiated the following studies (i), Comparative analyses of boron biodistribution between melanoma proliferating in the brain and skin among melanotic and amelanotic types, and (ii) Therapeutic evaluation of BPA-BNCT for brain melanoma models of both types, using survival times. Our present data have revealed that boron concentration in melanoma proliferating in the brain, the major prerequisite for successful BNCT, showed a positive correlation to melanin synthesizing activity in the same way as melanoma proliferating in skin. Further, the boron concentration ratio of melanoma to normal surrounding tissue for brain melanoma models was considerably higher than that for subcutaneous (s.c.) ones because of the existence of the blood-brain barrier (BBB). Additionally, from analyses of median and mean survival times following BNCT using low, middle, and high neutron doses, the therapeutic effect of BNCT for the amelanotic A1059 melanoma appeared at first glance to be higher than that for the highly BPA attracting and highly relative biological effect equivalent dose obtaining B15b melanoma. As the survival time was dependent on both regression and regrowth curves, and because the brain melanoma model in small animals made it difficult to evaluate these curves separately, we further examined the in vivo growth curve of both types of melanomas following implantation in s.c. tissue. The melanotic B15b melanoma was indeed found to possess much higher growth rate as compared with that of the amelanotic A1059 melanoma. The significance of boron biodistribution studies and BNCT survival curve analyses in forming an effective clinical protocol for individual human cases of melanoma brain metastasis is discussed.