Monthly Archives: January 2013

Immunofluorescence assay (IFA)

PHFAs were cultured on poly-L-lysine-coated 2-chamber glass slides, and the infection was performed as described above. The procedure of immunofluorescence assay has previously been described. Briefly, PHFAs infected with or without HHV-6A were fixed in 4% paraformaldehyde (in PBS), permeabilized in 0.5% Triton X-100 (in PBS), and stained with the anti-gp60/110 monoclonal antibodies (Chemicon international) […]

HHV-6A activates PARP cleavage and up-regulates bax/bcl-2 ratio. Part 3

In addition, NF-κB reportedly induces the expression of c-IAP1, c-IAP2 and XIAP, thereby promoting NF-κB activation in a positive feed-back system. NF-κB up-regulation exerts an anti-apoptotic effect leading to cells survival, transformation, and resistance to radiation and drug therapies. In contrast, NF-κB down-regulation will break this feed-back loop and reduce the expression of c-IAP1, c-IAP2 […]

HHV-6A activates PARP cleavage and up-regulates bax/bcl-2 ratio. Part 2

HHV-6 was first isolated from peripheral blood mononuclear cells of patients with lymphoproliferative disorders and AIDS. There are two variants of HHV-6 (A and B) according to distinct genetic, immunological and virological characteristics. As with other virus, HHV-6 is able to induce apoptosis of host cells. Subsequent studies have demonstrated that HHV-6 has been shown […]

HHV-6A activates PARP cleavage and up-regulates bax/bcl-2 ratio

PARP is an established substrate for caspase-3 in the apoptotic events. Cleavage of PARP facilitates cellular disassembly and serves as a marker of cells undergoing apoptosis. Western blotting was used to detect endogenous full-length PARP (116 KD), as well as the large fragment (89 KD) of PARP resulting from caspase cleavage. As shown in Figure […]

HHV-6A causes productive infection in PHFAs

HHV-6A was used to infect PHFAs at comparable levels of virus DNA (1 × 108 copies/106 cells) as determined by quantitative PCR. HHV-6A-infected PHFAs showed typical cytopathic effects (CPE) such as cellular swelling and cell fusion at 72 h post-infection (hpi). To further determine HHV-6A infection in PHFAs, the expression of a late protein gp60/110 […]

Human herpesvirus 6A induces apoptosis of primary human fetal astrocytes via both caspase-dependent and -independent pathways

Background Human herpesvirus 6 (HHV-6) is a T-lymphtropic and neurotropic virus that can infect various types of cells. Sequential studies reported that apoptosis of glia and neurons induced by HHV-6 might act a potential trigger for some central nervous system (CNS) diseases. HHV-6 is involved in the pathogenesis of encephalitis, multiple sclerosis (MS) and fatigue […]