Three-dimensional (3D) in vitro models of cell culture aim to fill the gap between the standard 2D cell studies and the in vivo environment. Especially for neural tissue regeneration approaches where there is little regenerative capacity, such models must rely on scaffolds that mimic the ext ...

Stem cells isolated from the Wharton’s jelly of the human umbilical cord (hWJSCs) are unique compared to other stem cell types as they lie in between embryonic stem cells (ESCs) and adult mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) on the developmental map and share stemness markers of ESCs and MSCs. Yet, they do not in ...

Human mesenchymal stem cells (hMSC) currently represent a major cell resource in the research laboratory, to study differentiated-cell behavior in 3D scaffolds during the regeneration processes. Adhesion and differentiation of stem cells to a specific phenotype are achieved by cu ...

Due to the increasing use of engineered nanoparticles in many consumer products, rapid and economic tests for evaluating possible adverse effects on human health are urgently needed. In the present chapter the use of mouse embryonic stem cells as a valuable tool to in vitro screen nanoparticle ...

The implementation of micro- and nanotechnologies to biomaterials constitutes a unique platform to improve our understanding on microenvironmental regulation of stem cell functions. In the recent years, various methods have been developed for the fabrication of micro- and nanop ...

Myc and N-Myc have widespread impacts on the chromatin state within cells, both in a gene-specific and genome-wide manner. Our laboratory uses functional genomic methods including chromatin immunoprecipitation (ChIP), ChIP-chip, and, more recently, ChIP-seq to analyze the binding a ...

Studies in primary and tumor cells suggest that MYC plays an important role in regulating cellular senescence, thereby impacting on tumor development. Here we describe different common methods to measure senescence in cell cultures and in tissues. These include measurement of senesc ...

Although many oncoproteins promote cell growth and proliferation, some also possess the potential to induce cell death by apoptosis. Deregulated expression of the myc oncogene promotes apoptosis in both cultured cells and in some tissues in vivo. Here we describe techniques to detect Myc ...

Protein–protein interaction is an essential biochemical event that mediates various cellular processes including gene expression, intracellular signaling, and intercellular interaction. Understanding such interaction is key to the elucidation of mechanisms of cell ...

Co-immunoprecipitation is an invaluable technique in evaluating native protein–protein interactions in vitro and in vivo. However, it can be difficult to detect interactions of a very transient nature, particularly interactions with phosphatases and kinases. The evaluation of ...

In this chapter, we discuss in detail two essential methods used to evaluate the interaction of Myc with another protein of interest: co-immunoprecipitation (Co-IP) and in vitro pull-down assays. Co-IP is a method that, by immunoaffinity, allows the identification of protein–protein int ...

The myc oncogene was originally identified as a transduced allele (v-myc) in the genome of a highly oncogenic avian retrovirus. The protein product (Myc) of the cellular c-myc proto-oncogene represents the key component of a transcription factor network controlling the expression of a lar ...

Specific heterodimerization and DNA binding by the b-HLH-LZ transcription factors c-Myc and Max is central to the activation and repression activities of c-Myc that lead to cell growth, proliferation, and tumorigenesis (Adhikary and Eilers, Nat Rev Mol Cell Biol 6:635–645, 2005; Eilers and ...

Myc is a transcriptional coordinator of a wide range of intracellular and extracellular processes required for cell proliferation. These processes are tightly regulated in physiological conditions but hijacked when Myc is oncogenically activated. In fact, aberrantly elevat ...

Oncoproteins encoded by dominant oncogenes have long been considered as targets for chemotherapeutic intervention. However, oncogenic transcription factors have often been dismissed as “undruggable.” Members of Myc family of transcription factors have been identified as p ...

In situ hybridization (ISH) allows evaluation of genetic abnormalities, such as changes in chromosome number, chromosome translocations or gene amplifications, by hybridization of tagged DNA (or RNA) probes with complementary DNA (or RNA) sequences in interphase nuclei of target t ...

Within the intestinal epithelium, c-Myc has been characterized as a target of β-catenin-TCF signalling (He et al., Science 281:1509–1512, 1998). Given the most commonly mutated tumor suppressor gene within colorectal cancer (CRC) is the APC (Adenomatous Polyposis Coli) gene, a negative re ...

The tetracycline regulatory system provides a tractable strategy to interrogate the role of oncogenes in the initiation and maintenance of tumorigenesis through both spatial and temporal control of expression. This approach has several potential advantages over convention ...

The MYC oncogene encodes a master transcription factor, Myc, which regulates genes involved in ribosome biogenesis, lipid synthesis, nucleic acid synthesis, intermediary metabolism, and cell growth and proliferation. The genomics of Myc target genes has been well-established th ...

There is an increasing realization that a primary role for Myc in driving cellular growth and cell cycle progression relies on Myc’s ability to increase the rate of protein synthesis. Myc induces myriad changes in both global and specific mRNA translation. Herein, we present three assays that al ...