Loss of macroautophagy promotes or prevents fibroblast apoptosis depending on the death stimulus

Sue Wu submitted, created time 11 months 2 weeks (www.jbc.org)

Macroautophagy has been implicated as a mechanism of cell death. However, the relationship between this degradative pathway and cell death is unclear as macroautophagy has been shown recently to protect against apoptosis. To better define the interplay between these two critical cellular processes, we determined whether inhibition of macroautophagy could have both pro- and anti-apoptotic effects in the same cell.

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Blood vessels grown from patient's own tissues used successfully in human patients

Darkfrog submitted, created time 1 year 1 month (www.nytimes.com)

Thirteen months and so far so good. Unlike earlier techniques used in Japan, which involved growing cells on a scaffold that slowly dissolved after implantation, scientists in Argentina grew whole stretches of blood vessel from the patients' own cells. The patients in question have damaged veins and arteries in their arms from regular dialysis.

This does not involve stem cells of any kind. A strip of skin is removed from the patient, but the fibroblast and endothelial cells are taken from the inside of the veins in that strip of skin

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Tissue factor trafficking in fibroblasts: involvement of protease activated receptor-mediated cell signaling

channel submitted, created time 1 year 8 months (bloodjournal.hematologylibrary.org)

Tissue factor (TF) is the cellular receptor for clotting factor VIIa (FVIIa) and the formation of TF-FVIIa complexes on cell surfaces triggers the activation of the coagulation cascade and the cell signaling. Our recent studies (Blood 2006; 107:4746-4753) show that a majority of TF resides in various intracellular compartments, predominantly in the Golgi, and that FVIIa binding to cell surface TF induces TF endocytosis and mobilizes the Golgi TF pool to translocate it to the cell surface

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