The Na+/I− symporter (NIS) is an integral plasma membrane glycoprotein that mediates active I− transport into the thyroid follicular cells, the first step in thyroid hormone biosynthesis. NIS-mediated thyroidal I− transport from the bloodstream to the colloid is a vectorial process made possible by the selective targeting of NIS to the basolateral membrane. NIS also mediates active I− transport in other tissues, including salivary glands, gastric mucosa, and lactating mammary gland, in which it translocates I− into the milk for thyroid hormone biosynthesis by the nursing newborn. NIS provides the basis for the effective diagnostic and therapeutic management of thyroid cancer and its metastases with radioiodide. NIS research has proceeded at an astounding pace after the 1996 isolation of the rat NIS cDNA, comprising the elucidation of NIS secondary structure and topology, biogenesis and posttranslational modifications, transcriptional and posttranscriptional regulation, electrophysiological analysis, isolation of the human NIS cDNA, and determination of the human NIS genomic organization. Clinically related topics include the analysis of congenital I− transport defect-causing NIS mutations and the role of NIS in thyroid cancer. NIS has been transduced into various kinds of cancer cells to render them susceptible to destruction with radioiodide. Most dramatically, the discovery of endogenous NIS expression in more than 80% of human breast cancer samples has raised the possibility that radioiodide may be a valuable novel tool in breast cancer diagnosis and treatment.

The Bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG) is a live attenuated tuberculosis vaccine that has the ability to induce non-specific cross-protection against pathogens that might be unrelated to the target disease. Vaccination with BCG reduces mortality in newborns and induces an improved innate immune response against microorganisms other than Mycobacterium tuberculosis, such as Candida albicans and Staphylococcus aureus. Innate immune cells, including monocytes and natural killer (NK) cells, contribute to this non-specific immune protection in a way that is independent of memory T or B cells. This phenomenon associated with a memory-like response in innate immune cells is known as “trained immunity.” Epigenetic reprogramming through histone modification in the regulatory elements of particular genes has been reported as one of the mechanisms associated with the induction of trained immunity in both, humans and mice. Indeed, it has been shown that BCG vaccination induces changes in the methylation pattern of histones associated with specific genes in circulating monocytes leading to a “trained” state. Importantly, these modifications can lead to the expression and/or repression of genes that are related to increased protection against secondary infections after vaccination, with improved pathogen recognition and faster inflammatory responses. In this review, we discuss BCG-induced cross-protection and acquisition of trained immunity and potential heterologous effects of recombinant BCG vaccines.

The Na⁺/I⁻symporter (NIS) is a key plasma membrane glycoprotein that mediates active I⁻ transport in the thyroid gland (Dai, G., Levy, O., and Carrasco, N. (1996) Nature 379, 458–460), the first step in thyroid hormone biogenesis. Whereas relatively little is known about the mechanisms by which thyrotropin (TSH), the main hormonal regulator of thyroid function, regulates NIS activity, post-transcriptional events have been suggested to play a role (Kaminsky, S. M., Levy, O., Salvador, C., Dai, G., and Carrasco, N. (1994) Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U. S. A. 91, 3789–3793). Here we show that TSH induces de novo NIS biosynthesis and modulates the long NIS half-life (∼5 days). In addition, we demonstrate that TSH is required for NIS targeting to or retention in the plasma membrane. We further show that NIS is a phosphoprotein and that TSH modulates its phosphorylation pattern. These results provide strong evidence of the major role played by post-transcriptional events in the regulation of NIS by TSH. Beyond their inherent interest, it is also of medical significance that these TSH-dependent regulatory mechanisms may be altered in the large proportion of thyroid cancers in which NIS is predominantly expressed in intracellular compartments, instead of being properly targeted to the plasma membrane.

Skeletal muscle atrophy is a pathological condition mainly characterized by a loss of muscular mass and the contractile capacity of the skeletal muscle as a consequence of muscular weakness and decreased force generation. Cachexia is defined as a pathological condition secondary to illness characterized by the progressive loss of muscle mass with or without loss of fat mass and with concomitant diminution of muscle strength. The molecular mechanisms involved in cachexia include oxidative stress, protein synthesis/degradation imbalance, autophagy deregulation, increased myonuclear apoptosis, and mitochondrial dysfunction. Oxidative stress is one of the most common mechanisms of cachexia caused by different factors. It results in increased ROS levels, increased oxidation‐dependent protein modification, and decreased antioxidant system functions. In this review, we will describe the importance of oxidative stress in skeletal muscles, its sources, and how it can regulate protein synthesis/degradation imbalance, autophagy deregulation, increased myonuclear apoptosis, and mitochondrial dysfunction involved in cachexia.

The Na ⁺ /I ⁻ symporter (NIS) is the plasma membrane protein that catalyzes active I ⁻ transport in the thyroid, the first step in thyroid hormone biogenesis. The cDNA encoding NIS was recently cloned in our laboratory and a secondary structure model proposed, suggesting that NIS is an intrinsic membrane protein (618 amino acids; ≈65.2 kDa predicted molecular mass) with 12 putative transmembrane domains. Here we report the generation of a site-directed polyclonal anti-COOH terminus NIS antibody (Ab) that immunoreacts with a ≈87 kDa-polypeptide present in membrane fractions from a rat thyroid cell line (FRTL-5). The model-predicted cytosolic-side location of the COOH terminus was confirmed by indirect immunofluorescence experiments using anti-COOH terminus NIS Ab in permeabilized FRTL-5 cells. Immunoreactivity was competitively blocked by the presence of excess synthetic peptide. Treatment of membrane fractions from FRTL-5 cells, Xenopus laevis oocytes, and COS cells expressing NIS with peptidyl N -glycanase F converted the ≈87 kDa-polypeptide into a ≈50 kDa-species, the same relative molecular weight exhibited by NIS expressed in E. coli . Anti-NIS Ab immunoprecipitated both the NIS precursor molecule (≈56 kDa) and the mature ≈87 kDa form. Furthermore, a direct correlation between circulating levels of thyroid-stimulating hormone and NIS expression in vivo was demonstrated.