0000000000794065
AUTHOR
Hans Hoffmann
Establishment and comparative characterization of novel squamous cell non-small cell lung cancer cell lines and their corresponding tumor tissue.
Abstract Background Cell lines play an important role for studying tumor biology and novel therapeutic agents. Particularly in pulmonary squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) the availability of cell lines is limited and knowledge about their representativeness for corresponding tumor tissue is scanty. Materials and methods We established three novel SCC cell lines from fresh tumor tissue of 28 donors, including 8 SCC. Two cell lines were derived from different localizations of the same donor, i.e. primary tumor and lymph node metastasis. This represents a so far unique combination in lung cancer. The genotypes, gene expression profiles and mutational status of epidermal growth factor receptor ( EG…
The Autoimmune Regulator AIRE in Thymoma Biology: Autoimmunity and Beyond
Thymomas are tumors of thymic epithelial cells. They associate more often than any other human tumors with various autoimmune diseases; myasthenia gravis is the commonest, occurring in 10-50% of thymoma patients, depending on the World Health Organization-defined histologic subtype. Most thymomas generate many polyclonal maturing T lymphocytes but in disorganized microenvironments Failure to induce self-tolerance may be a key factor leading to the export of potentially autoreactive CD4 progeny, thus predisposing to autoimmune diseases. Normally, the master Autoimmune Regulator promotes expression of peripheral tissue-restricted antigens such as insulin by medullary thymic epithelial cells a…