Leukemia is one of the most life-threatening cancers today, and acute promyelogenous leukemia (APL) is a common type of leukemia. Many natural compounds have already been found to exhibit significant anti-tumor effects. Lycorine, a natural alkaloid extracted from Amaryllidaceae, exhibited anti-leukemia effects in vitro and in vivo. The survival rate of HL-60 cells exposed to lycorine was decreased, cell growth was slowed down, and cell regeneration potential was inhibited. HL-60 cells exhibited typical apoptotic characteristic. Lycorine can suppress leukemia growth and reduce cell survival and inducing apoptosis of tumor cells. The purpose of this work is to elucidate the mechanism by which lycorine induces APL cells. »
08/04/10

HER2 and estrogen receptor (ER) are important in breast cancer and are therapeutic targets of trastuzumab (Herceptin) and tamoxifen, respectively. Retinoids inhibit breast cancer growth, and modulate signaling by HER2 and ER. We hypothesized that treatment with retinoids and simultaneous targeting of HER2 and/or ER may have enhanced anti-tumor effects. »
08/09/10

Genetically, colorectal cancers (CRCs) can be subdivided into tumors with chromosomal instability (CIN) or microsatellite instability (MSI). In both types of CRCs genes that are involved in the degradation of beta-CATENIN are frequently mutated. Whereas in CIN CRCs APC (Adenomatous Polyposis Coli) is affected in most cases, high grade MSI (MSI-H) CRCs frequently display mutations in various genes, like the APC-, AXIN2- or CTNNBI (beta-CATENIN) gene itself. Recently in Wilms tumors, WTX (Wilms tumor gene on the X-chromosome) was discovered as another gene involved in the destruction of beta-CATENIN. As the WTX-gene harbors a short T6 microsatellite in its N-terminal coding region, we hypothesized that frameshift-mutations might occur in MSI-H CRCs in the WTX gene, thus additionally contributing to the stabilization of beta-CATENIN in human CRCs. »
08/09/10

Breast cancer treatment is based on a combination of adjuvant chemotherapy followed by radiotherapy effecting intracellular signal transduction. With the tyrosine kinase inhibitors new targeted drugs are available. Imatinib mesylate is a selective inhibitor of bcr-abl, PRGFR alpha, beta and c-kit. The purpose of this study was to determine whether Imatinib has an influence on the effectiveness of radiotherapy in breast cancer cell lines and if a combination of imatinib with standard chemotherapy could lead to increased cytoreduction. »
08/09/10

Several studies have examined the association between diabetes mellitus (DM) and prostate cancer (PCa) risk and progression, however nearly all of these studies have compared diabetic versus non-diabetic men. We sought to investigate the role of glycemic control, as measured by HbA1c, on PCa aggressiveness and prognosis in men with DM and PCa from the Shared Equal Access Regional Cancer Hospital (SEARCH) database. »
05/20/10

Dietary lycopene combined with other constituents from whole tomatoes was previously found to have greater chemopreventive effects against prostate cancer as compared to pure lycopene provided in a beadlet formulation. We hypothesized that tomato paste would have greater chemopreventive effects in transgenic adenocarcinoma of the mouse prostate (TRAMP) mice relative to equivalent lycopene doses provided from lycopene beadlets. »
05/26/10

Observational studies linking vitamin D deficiency with increased prostate cancer (PCa) mortality and the pleiotropic anticancer effects of vitamin D in malignant prostate cell lines have initiated trials examining potential therapeutic benefits of vitamin D metabolites. There have been some successes but efforts have been hindered by risk of inducing hypercalcemia. A limited number of studies have investigated associations between variants in vitamin D pathway genes with aggressive forms of PCa. Increased understanding of relevant germline genetic variation with disease outcome could aid in the development of vitamin-D-based therapies. »
05/20/10

Prostate cancer progression is accompanied by increased levels of extracellular proteases that are capable of remodeling the extracellular matrix as well as cleaving and activating growth factors and their receptors that are critically involved in pro-cancerous signaling pathways. The membrane anchored serine protease matriptase (also known as MT-SP1, epithin, and TADG15) has been implicated in prostate cancer. Several studies have demonstrated that the expression of this protease, both on the RNA and protein level is significantly increased during prostate cancer progression. Hepatocyte activator growth factor inhibitor-2 (HAI-2) has recently been identified as a physiological inhibitor of matriptase. It has been proposed that the increase of matriptase with a concomitant loss of its inhibitors may play a critical role in cancer progression. »
04/19/10

Several studies have demonstrated the usefulness of monitoring an RNA transcript in urine, such as PCA3, for prostate cancer (PCa) diagnosis. PCa screening would benefit from additional biomarkers of higher specificity and could be used in conjunction with prostate-specific antigen (PSA) testing, in order to better determine biopsy candidates. »
07/29/10

Many alterations are involved in mammary oncogenesis, including amplifications of oncogenes and losses of tumor suppressor genes (TSG). Losses may affect almost all chromosome arms and many TSGs remain to be identified. »
08/10/10