ZO-3

Allergic rhinitis (AR) is a common disease affecting 400 million of the population worldwide. Nasal epithelial cells form a barrier against the invasion of environmental pathogens. These nasal epithelial cells are connected together by tight junction (TJ) proteins including zonula occludens-1 (ZO-1), ZO-2 and ZO-3. Impairment of ZO proteins are observed in AR patients whereby dysfunction of ZOs allows allergens to pass the nasal passage into the subepithelium causing AR development. In this review, we discuss ZO proteins and their impairment leading to AR, regulation of their expression by Th1 cytokines (i...

Purpose: Patients with diabetes mellitus are reported to have ocular surface defects, impaired ocular surface barrier function, and a higher incidence of corneal and conjunctival infections. Tight junctions are critical for ocular surface barrier function. The present study was designed to investigate the effect of high glucose exposure on human corneal and conjunctival epithelial cell barrier function and tight junction proteins. Methods: Human corneal and conjunctival epithelial cells were exposed to 15 mM and 30 mM glucose for 24 and 72 hours...

This study aimed to evaluate the effect of dietary supplementation with pyrroloquinoline quinone (PQQ) on gut inflammation and microbiota dysbiosis induced by enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli (ETEC). Twenty Duroc × Landrace × Yorkshire crossbred barrows were assigned to four groups: two E. coli K88 challenge groups and two non-challenge groups, each provided a basal diet supplemented with 0 or 3 mg/kg PQQ. On day 14, piglets were challenged with 10 mL 1 × 109 CFU/mL of E. coli K88 or PBS for 48 h. The villus height (VH) and villus height/crypt depth (VCR) ratio of the E...

Impairment of the intestinal barrier often occurs in inflammatory bowel diseases, and pro-inflammatory factors play a vital role in the pathogenesis of intestinal diseases. In our study, the potential protective effects of Lycium barbarum polysaccharides (LBP) against intestinal barrier dysfunction evoked by pro-inflammatory factors and its anti-inflammatory effects were investigated. Caco-2 cells were stimulated with or without tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-α in the presence or absence of LBP. Our findings showed that LBP assuaged the increase of paracellular permeability and the decrease of transepithelial electrical resistance (TER) in Caco-2 cells...

Burn injuries represent a major life-threatening event that impacts the quality of life of patients, and places enormous demands on the global healthcare systems. This study introduces the fabrication and characterization of a novel wound dressing made of core-shell hyaluronic acid-silk fibroin/zinc oxide (ZO) nanofibers for treatment of burn injuries. The core-shell configuration enables loading ZO-an antibacterial agent-in the core of nanofibers, which in return improves the sustained release of the drug and maintains its bioactivity...

A study was conducted to investigate the effects of oregano essential oil (EO) on growth performance, nutrients utilization, intestinal morphology, intestinal barrier-related gene expression and antioxidant capability in meat ducks. A total of 360 1-day-old ducks were divided into three groups (12 replicates pens per diet of 10 ducks in each pen): negative control (no essential oil or antibiotic), positive control (antibiotic: 500 mg/kg aureomycin of diet) and oregano EO (100 mg/kg of diet). The experiment was carried out for 35 days...

Background and Objectives: Although zinc oxide (ZO)-calcium hydroxide (CaOH) mixtures have been successful regarding their absorption rate compatibility with dissolving primary teeth, no study has been conducted on the appropriate mixture ratio to obtain effective antibacterial properties. In this study, we compared antibacterial activity of CaOH-ZO pastes using different mixture ratios sagainst Enterococcus faecalis as an important bacterium in root canal treatment failure. Materials and Methods: Seven types of pastes were prepared in our laboratory...

Dysfunction of the intestinal epithelial barrier plays an important role in the pathogenesis of several intestinal diseases, including celiac disease, inflammatory bowel disease, and irritable bowel syndrome. The present research was carried out to investigate the protective effect of total polysaccharides of adlay bran (TPA) on TNF-α-evoked epithelial barrier dysfunction in Caco-2 cells. Caco-2 cells were treated with or without TPA in the absence or presence of TNF-α, and transepithelial electrical resistance (TEER) and Phenol Red flux were assayed to evaluate the intestinal epithelial barrier function...

O-GlcNAcylation, like phosphorylation, is a dynamic and rapid posttranslational modification which regulates many cellular processes. Phosphorylation on tyrosine and O-GlcNAcylation on nearby serine or threonine residues may modulate each other. Indeed, by using a microarray with a peptide model system based on the ZO-3 protein, extensive cross talk between O-GlcNAcylation by OGT and phosphorylation by kinases was observed. However, studying the effects of kinases and OGT without the reverse processes catalyzed by phosphatases and O-GlcNAcase (OGA) does not provide a complete picture of the cross talk...

l-Tryptophan (Trp) is known to play an important role in the health of the large intestine. However, a role of dietary Trp in the small-intestinal mucosal barrier and microbiota remains poorly understood. The present study was conducted with weaned piglets to address this issue. Postweaning piglets were fed for 4 weeks a corn- and soybean meal-based diet supplemented with 0 (Control), 0.1, 0.2, or 0.4% Trp. The small-intestinal microbiota and serum amino acids were analyzed by bacterial 16S rRNA gene-based high-throughput sequencing methods and high-performance liquid chromatography, respectively...

This paper aimed to observe the protective effect of catalpol on the high glucose induced destruction of tight junctions of rat primary brain microvascular endothelial cells (BMECs). Catalpol co-administrated with high glucose increased BMECs survival, decreased its ET-1 secretion, and improved transmembrane electrical resistance in a time-dependent manner. Furthermore, transmission electron microscopy was used to observe catalpol's protective effect on tight junction. Fluorescence staining displayed that catalpol reversed the rearrangement of the cytoskeleton protein F-actin and up-regulated the tight junction proteins claudin-5 and ZO-1, which were further demonstrated by the mRNA expression levels of claudin-5, occludin, ZO-1, ZO-2, ZO-3, α -actintin, vinculin and cateinins...

This study was conducted to test the hypothesis that preweaning  glycine supplementation to breast-fed piglets alleviated the post-weaning  apoptosis of jejunal epithelium through CHOP signaling. Seven-day-old sow-reared piglets were orally administrated with 0, 50, 100, or 200% of glycine intake from sow's milk twice daily for 14 days and then were weaned at 21 days of age. Tissue samples were collected at 28 days of age for determining intestinal morphology, serum diamine oxidase (DAO) activity, abundances of proteins involved in ER stress and apoptosis...

Background : The tight junction is an intercellular adhesion complex composed of claudins (CLDs), occludin, and the scaffolding proteins zonula occludens 1 (ZO-1) and its two paralogs ZO-2 and ZO-3. ZO-1 is a multifunctional protein that contains three PSD95/Discs large/ZO-1(PDZ) domains. A key functional domain of ZO-1 is the first PDZ domain (ZO-1(PDZ1)) that recognizes the conserved C-termini of CLDs. Methods : In this study, we confirmed that phosphoinositides bound directly to ZO-1(PDZ1) by biochemical and solution NMR experiments...

Lipopolysaccaride (LPS) directly or indirectly injures brain microvascular endothelial cells (BMECs) and damages the intercellular tight junction that gives rise to altered blood-brain barrier (BBB) permeability. Catalpol plays a protective role in LPS-induced injury, but whether catalpol protects against LPS-caused damage of BBB permeability and the underlying mechanism remain to be delineated. Prophylactic protection with catalpol (5 mg/kg, i.v.) consecutively for three days reversed the LPS-induced damage of BBB by decreased Evans Blue (EB) leakage and restored tight junctions in C57 mice...

Appropriate protein concentration is essential for animal at certain stage. This study evaluated the effects of different percentages of dietary protein restriction on intestinal health of growing pigs. Eighteen barrows were randomly assigned to a normal (18%), low (15%), and extremely low (12%) dietary protein concentration group for 30 days. Intestinal morphology and permeability, bacterial communities, expressions, and distributions of intestinal tight junction proteins, expressions of biomarkers of intestinal stem cells (ISCs) and chymous bacterial metabolites in ileum and colon were detected...

Resistance to anoikis and growth in anchorage-independent conditions are hallmarks of highly metastatic cancer cells. Anoikis is a type of apoptosis induced by inadequate cell/extracellular matrix (ECM) attachment and an attractive anti-cancer therapeutic strategy in cancer chemotherapeutic field. Therefore, the development of anoikis-inducing agents is useful and promising to overcome cancer. When FPDHP, a novel anoikis-inducing agent, was treated within 3 h, FPDHP induced massive cell detachment in various human cancer cells, irrespective of apoptosis...

Brain microvascular endothelial cells (BMECs) are the primary component of the blood-brain barrier (BBB). Tight junction (TJ) proteins, including claudin, occludin and zonula occludens (ZO)-1, ZO-2 and ZO-3, maintain the structural integrity of BMECs. Ethanol activates the assembly and disassembly of TJs, which is a process that is regulated by protein kinase C (PKC). In addition, ethanol treatment leads to the loss of structural integrity, which damages the permeability of the BBB and subsequently affects central nervous system homeostasis, thus allowing additional substances to enter the brain...

The proximal tubule is the primary site for renal solute reabsorption and secretion and thus a main target for drug-induced toxicity. Current nonclinical methods using 2D cell cultures are unable to fully recapitulate clinical drug responses mainly due to limited in vitro functional lifespan. Since extracellular matrices are known to be key regulators of cell development, culturing cells on classic 2D plastic surfaces inevitably results in loss of differentiation. Hence, 3D models of the human proximal tubule that recapitulate the in vivo morphology would allow for improved drug screening and disease modeling...

The current study was conducted to investigate the effect of zinc supplementation on the growth performance, intestinal morphology, and the transcription of the barrier function related genes in Pekin ducks. Seven-hundred and sixty-eight 1-day-old Pekin ducks were randomly assigned into six dietary treatments. Each treatment had eight replicates with 16 ducks per replicates. The ducks were fed either a corn-soybean meal basal diet or basal diets supplemented with 15, 30, 60, 120, and 240 mg zinc/kg from zinc sulfate...

Tight and adherens junctions play critical roles in the barrier, adhesion, and signaling functions of epithelial and endothelial cells. How the molecular organization of these junctions is tuned to the widely diverse physiological requirements of each tissue type is not well understood. Here, we address this question by examining the expression, localization, and interactions of major cytoplasmic plaque proteins of tight and adherens junctions in different cultured epithelial and endothelial cell lines. Immunoblotting and immunofluorescence analyses show that the expression profiles of cingulin, paracingulin, ZO-1, ZO-2, ZO-3, PLEKHA7, afadin, PDZD11, p120-catenin, and α-catenin, as well as the transmembrane junctional proteins occludin, E-cadherin, and VE-cadherin, are significantly diverse when comparing kidney cells (MDCK, mCCD), keratinocytes (HaCaT), lung carcinoma (A427, A549), and endothelium-derived cells (bEnd...