Human or animals lacking either JAK3 or the common gamma chain expression display severe combined immunodeficiency disease, indicating the crucial role of JAK3 in T−cell development and the homeostasis of the immune system. JAK3 has also been suggested to contribute to the pathogenesis of tumorigenesis. Recent studies identified activating JAK3 mutations in patients with various hematopoietic malignancies, including acute megakaryoblastic leukemia. »
02/11/10

Neuroblastoma is a pediatric malignancy characterized by tremendous clinical heterogeneity, in which some tumors are extremely aggressive while others spontaneously differentiate into benign forms. Because the degree of differentiation correlates with prognosis, and because differentiating agents such as retinoic acid (RA) have proven to decrease mortality, much effort has been devoted to identifying critical regulators of neuroblastoma differentiation in the cellular microenvironment, including cues encoded in the extracellular matrix (ECM). »
02/10/10

Aurora B kinase is an important mitotic kinase involved in chromosome segregation and cytokinesis. It is overexpressed in many cancers and thus is an important molecular target for chemotherapy. AZD1152 is the prodrug for AZD1152−HQPA, which is a selective inhibitor of Aurora B kinase activity. »
02/22/10

Expression levels of the cell surface glycoprotein, CD7, and the serine protease, elastase 2 (ELA2), in the leukemic cells of patients with chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) have been associated with clinical outcome. However, little is known about the mechanisms that underlie the variable expression of these genes in the leukemic cells. »
02/22/10

Genetic as well as epigenetic alterations are a hallmark of both epithelial and haematological malignancies. High throughput screens are required to identify epigenetic markers that can be useful for diagnostic and prognostic purposes across malignancies. »
02/25/10

Metal chelators have gained much attention as potential anti−cancer agents. However, the effects of chelators are often linked solely to their capacity to bind iron while the potential complexation of other trace metals has not been fully investigated. In present study, we evaluated the effects of various lipophilic aroylhydrazone chelators (AHC), including novel compound HNTMB, on various ovarian cancer cell lines (SKOV−3, OVCAR−3, NUTU−19). »
02/25/10

The aim of the study was to obtain stable radioresistant sub−lines from the human cervical cancer cell line HeLa by prolonged exposure to 252Cf neutron and X−rays. Radioresistance mechanisms were investigated in the resulting cells using microarray analysis of DNA damage repair genes. »
02/25/10

The release of proteins from tumors can trigger an immune response in cancer patients involving T lymphocytes and B lymphocytes, which results in the generation of antibodies to tumor−derived proteins. Many studies aim to use humoral immune responses, namely autoantibody profiles, directly, as clinical biomarkers. Alternatively, the antibody immune response as an amplification system for tumor associated alterations may be used to indicate putative protein biomarkers with high sensitivity. Aiming at the latter approach we here have implemented an autoantibody profiling strategy which particularly focusses on proteins released by tumor cells in vitro: the so−called secretome. »
02/25/10

Chronic inflammation is considered to be implicated in the development of prostate cancer. In this study we are the first to investigate a potential association between variants in an autoimmune related region on chromosome 4q27 and prostate cancer risk. This region harbors two cytokine genes IL−2 and the recently described IL−21. »
02/25/10

Instable and painful vertebral metastases in patients with progressive visceral metastases present a common therapeutic dilemma. We developed a novel approach to deliver intraoperative radiotherapy (IORT) during kyphoplasty and report the first treated case. »
02/26/10