👤 Carmen Festa

The individual chemical components of commercial extract of Gymnema sylvestre, a medicinal plant used in the traditional systems of the Indian medicine for its antidiabetic and hypolipidemic properties, were isolated and evaluated for their capability to act as modulators of nuclear and membrane receptors involved in glucose and lipid homeostasis. The study disclosed for the first time that individual gymnemic acids are potent and selective antagonists for the β isoform of LXR. Indeed the above activity was shared by the most abundant aglycone gymnemagenin (10) whereas gymnestrogenin (11) was endowed with a dual LXRα/β antagonistic profile. Deep pharmacological investigation demonstrated that gymnestrogenin, reducing the expression of SREBP1c and ABCA1 in vitro, is able to decrease lipid accumulation in HepG2 cells. The results of this study substantiate the use of G. sylvestre extract in LXR mediated dislypidemic diseases. Show less

BAG3 is a co-chaperone of the heat shock protein (Hsp) 70, is expressed in many cell types upon cell stress, however, its expression is constitutive in many tumours. We and others have previously shown that in neoplastic cells BAG3 exerts an anti-apoptotic function thus favoring tumour progression. As a consequence we have proposed BAG3 as a target of antineoplastic therapies. Here we identify a novel role for BAG3 in regulation of neo-angiogenesis and show that its downregulation results in reduced angiogenesis therefore expanding the role of BAG3 as a therapeutical target. In brief we show that BAG3 is expressed in endothelial cells and is essential for the interaction between ERK and its phosphatase DUSP6, as a consequence its removal results in reduced binding of DUSP6 to ERK and sustained ERK phosphorylation that in turn determines increased levels of p21 and p15 and cell-cycle arrest in the G1 phase. Show less