0000000000606003
AUTHOR
Bruno Allolio
Endothelial capillaries chemotactically attract tumour cells.
Directional migration of capillaries towards tumour implants is generally assumed to be regulated by chemotaxis. Preliminary evidence has also been presented for the existence of a reverse chemotactic signalling pathway, with capillaries attracting tumour cells via paracrine factors. By using a variety of endothelial cell types and tumour cell lines, this study has systematically investigated chemotaxis between endothelial cells and tumour cells in two- and three-dimensional systems. Checkerboard analysis revealed faint attraction of human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVECs), but not porcine aortic endothelial cells (PAECs), by tumour cells. In reverse, both PAECs and HUVECs potently …
Multiple endocrine neoplasia type 1 gene expression is normal in sporadic adrenocortical tumors.
Multiple endocrine neoplasia type 1 (MEN1) is an autosomal dominant disorder with neoplasia of the anterior pituitary, the parathyroid, the endocrine pancreas and other endocrine tissues including the adrenal cortex. The tumor-suppressor gene causing this disease was identified at the gene locus 11q13. We recently reported that adrenocortical carcinomas frequently show loss of heterozygosity (LOH) of 11q13, but do not contain point mutations within the MEN1-coding region. To investigate whether reduced gene expression (for example by mutations within the MEN1 promoter) may contribute to the tumorigenesis of sporadic adrenocortical tumors, 24 adrenocortical specimen were studied by Northern …
The pro-opiomelanocortin gene of the zebrafish (Danio rerio)
The cDNA and the gene for pro-opiomelanocortin (POMC) in the zebrafish (Danio rerio) were isolated and analyzed. The gene consists of three exons and two short introns and has a similar overall structural organization as in Homo sapiens. Intron 1 (339 bp) divides the 5(') untranslated region from the coding region while intron 2 (1522 bp) is located between the signal peptide and the sequence encoding ACTH. Transcription starts 26 bp downstream of a TATA box and there is one polyadenylation signal in the 3(') untranslated region. The cDNA comprises of 964 bp with an open reading frame encoding a 222 amino acid hormone prepropeptide that is split into six putative hormones. Sequence comparis…