Rabbit Anti-Human RAF1 (Phospho-Thr269) polyclonal antibody

RASopathies are autosomal dominant disorders caused by mutations in more than 10 known genes that regulate the RAS/MAPK pathway. Noonan syndrome (NS) is a RASopathy characterized by a distinctive facial appearance, musculoskeletal abnormalities, and congenital heart defects. We have recently identified mutations in RIT1 in patients with NS. To delineate the clinical manifestations in RIT1 mutation-positive patients, we further performed a RIT1 analysis in RASopathy patients and identified 7 RIT1 mutations, including two novel mutations, p.A77S and p.A77T, in 14 of 186 patients. Perinatal abnormalities, including nuchal translucency, fetal hydrops, pleural effusion, or chylothorax and congenital heart defects, are observed in all RIT1 mutation-positive patients. Luciferase assays in NIH 3T3 cells demonstrated that the newly identified RIT1 mutants, including p.A77S and p.A77T, and the previously identified p.F82V, p.T83P, p.Y89H, and p.M90I, enhanced Elk1 transactivation. Genotype-phenotype correlation analyses of previously reported NS patients harboring RIT1, PTPN11, SOS1, RAF1, and KRAS revealed that hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (56 %) was more frequent in patients harboring a RIT1 mutation than in patients harboring PTPN11 (9 %) and SOS1 mutations (10 %). The rates of hypertrophic cardiomyopathy were similar between patients harboring RIT1 mutations and patients harboring RAF1 mutations (75 %). Short stature (52 %) was less prevalent in patients harboring RIT1 mutations than in patients harboring PTPN11 (71 %) and RAF1 (83 %) mutations. These results delineate the clinical manifestations of RIT1 mutation-positive NS patients: high frequencies of hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, atrial septal defects, and pulmonary stenosis; and lower frequencies of ptosis and short stature.

Background: Diet and obesity are recognized in the scientific literature as important risk factors for cancer development and progression. Hypercholesterolemia facilitates lymphoma lymphoblastic cell growth and in time turns in hypocholesterolemia that is a sign of tumour progression. The present study examined how and where the cholesterol acts in cancer cells when you reproduce in vitro an in vivo hypercholesterolemia condition. Methods: We used non-Hodgkin's T cell human lymphoblastic lymphoma (SUP-T1 cell line) and we studied cell morphology, aggressiveness, gene expression for antioxidant proteins, polynucleotide kinase/phosphatase and actin, cholesterol and sphingomyelin content and finally sphingomyelinase activity in whole cells, nuclei and nuclear lipid microdomains. Results: We found that cholesterol changes cancer cell morphology with the appearance of protrusions together to the down expression of beta-actin gene and reduction of beta-actin protein. The lipid influences SUP-T1 cell aggressiveness since stimulates DNA and RNA synthesis for cell proliferation and increases raf1 and E-cadherin, molecules involved in invasion and migration of cancer cells. Cholesterol does not change GRX2 expression but it overexpresses SOD1, SOD2, CCS, PRDX1, GSR, GSS, CAT and PNKP. We suggest that cholesterol reaches the nucleus and increases the nuclear lipid microdomains known to act as platform for chromatin anchoring and gene expression. Conclusion: The results imply that, in hypercholesterolemia conditions, cholesterol reaches the nuclear lipid microdomains where activates gene expression coding for antioxidant proteins. We propose the cholesterolemia as useful parameter to monitor in patients with cancer.