Search results for "BIOINFORMATICS"
showing 10 items of 1632 documents
Immunotherapy in non-small-cell lung cancer: a bridge between research and clinical practice
2018
Lung cancer has been historically considered a poorly immunogenic disease because of the few evidence of immune responses in affected patients and the limited efficacy of immunomodulating strategies. Recent understanding of the molecular mechanisms leading to cancer immune evasion has allowed the development of a new class of drugs called immune checkpoint inhibitors, which reactivate host responses with outstanding clinical benefits in a portion of patients with non-small-cell lung cancer. In this review, we briefly summarize the basis of immunogenicity and immune escape of cancer, with specific focus on non-small-cell lung cancer, mechanisms underlying immune checkpoint inhibitors effica…
Concepts to Target MYC in Pancreatic Cancer.
2016
Abstract Current data suggest that MYC is an important signaling hub and driver in pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC), a tumor entity with a strikingly poor prognosis. No targeted therapies with a meaningful clinical impact were successfully developed against PDAC so far. This points to the need to establish novel concepts targeting the relevant drivers of PDAC, like KRAS or MYC. Here, we discuss recent developments of direct or indirect MYC inhibitors and their potential mode of action in PDAC. Mol Cancer Ther; 15(8); 1792–8. ©2016 AACR.
Preclinical models for precision oncology
2018
Precision medicine approaches have revolutionized oncology. Personalized treatments require not only identification of the driving molecular alterations, but also development of targeted therapies and diagnostic tests to identify the appropriate patient populations for clinical trials and subsequent therapeutic implementation. Preclinical in vitro and in vivo models are widely used to predict efficacy of newly developed treatments. Here we discuss whether, and to what extent, preclinical models including cell lines, organoids and tumorgrafts recapitulate key features of human tumors. The potential of preclinical models to anticipate treatment efficacy and clinical benefit is also presented,…
Epigenetic biomarkers for human sepsis and septic shock: insights from immunosuppression
2020
Sepsis is a life-threatening condition that occurs when the body responds to an infection damaging its own tissues. Sepsis survivors sometimes suffer from immunosuppression increasing the risk of death. To our best knowledge, there is no ‘gold standard’ for defining immunosuppression except for a composite clinical end point. As the immune system is exposed to epigenetic changes during and after sepsis, research that focuses on identifying new biomarkers to detect septic patients with immunoparalysis could offer new epigenetic-based strategies to predict short- and long-term pathological events related to this life-threatening state. This review describes the most relevant epigenetic mecha…
Molecular pathway activation – New type of biomarkers for tumor morphology and personalized selection of target drugs
2018
Anticancer target drugs (ATDs) specifically bind and inhibit molecular targets that play important roles in cancer development and progression, being deeply implicated in intracellular signaling pathways. To date, hundreds of different ATDs were approved for clinical use in the different countries. Compared to previous chemotherapy treatments, ATDs often demonstrate reduced side effects and increased efficiency, but also have higher costs. However, the efficiency of ATDs for the advanced stage tumors is still insufficient. Different ATDs have different mechanisms of action and are effective in different cohorts of patients. Personalized approaches are therefore needed to select the best ATD…
Hormone Involvement in Tissue Development, Physiology and Oncogenesis: A Preface to the Special Issue
2020
Hormones, i.e., the products of specialized endocrine cells which spread throughout the body via the bloodstream, control the normal development and growth of organisms at the embryo-fetal stage and, in adult life, regulate, integrate, and coordinate a range of different physiological processes which concern virtually all body tissues. They exert their biological effects by interacting with either surface or intracellular receptors, thereby activating signalization pathways [1]. For example, steroid hormones, such as those released by the adrenal glands, testes and ovaries, once freely crossed through the plasmalemma, bind to receptors that act as ligand-dependent transcriptional regulators…
Immunomodulatory activity of microRNAs: potential implications for multiple myeloma treatment
2015
Multiple myeloma (MM) is an incurable plasma cell neoplasm accounting for about 10% of all hematologic malignancies. Recently, emerging evidence is disclosing the complexity of bone marrow interactions between MM cells and infiltrating immune cells, which have been reported to promote proliferation, survival and drug resistance of tumor cells. MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are small non-coding RNA molecules with regulatory functions in the cell, whose expression has predictive and prognostic value in different malignancies. MiRNAs are gaining increasing interest due to their capability to polarize the immune-response through different mechanisms, which include the molecular reprogramming of immune cel…
Integrative analysis of key candidate genes and signaling pathways in autoimmune thyroid dysfunction related to anti-CTLA-4 therapy by bioinformatics
2020
Summary Cytotoxic T lymphocyte-associated antigen-4 (CTLA-4), the first immune checkpoint to be targeted clinically, has provided an effective treatment option for various malignancies. However, the clinical advantages associated with CTLA-4 inhibitors can be offset by the potentially severe immune-related adverse events (IRAEs), including autoimmune thyroid dysfunction. To investigate the candidate genes and signaling pathways involving in autoimmune thyroid dysfunction related to anti-CTLA-4 therapy, integrated differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were extracted from the intersection of genes from Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) datasets and text mining. The functional enrichment was perfo…
Evaluation of in vivo and in vitro models of toxicity by comparison of toxicogenomics data with the literature.
2017
Toxicity affecting humans is studied by observing the effects of chemical substances in animal organisms (in vivo) or in animal and human cultivated cell lines (in vitro). Toxicogenomics studies collect gene expression profiles and histopathology assessment data for hundreds of drugs and pollutants in standardized experimental designs using different model systems. These data are an invaluable source for analyzing genome-wide drug response in biological systems. However, a problem remains that is how to evaluate the suitability of heterogeneous in vitro and in vivo systems to model the many different aspects of human toxicity. We propose here that a given model system (cell type or animal o…
Genetic susceptibility to angiotensin-converting enzyme-inhibitor induced angioedema: A systematic review and evaluation of methodological approaches.
2019
Angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) converts angiotensin I to angiotensin II which causes vasoconstriction. ACE inhibitors reduce blood pressure by inhibiting ACE. A well-known adverse drug reaction to ACE inhibitors is ACE inhibitor-induced angioedema (ACEi-AE). Angioedema is a swelling of skin and mucosa, which can be fatal if the airway is compromised. We have performed a systematic review of the evidence suggesting that genetic polymorphisms are associated with ACEi-AE and evaluated the methodological approaches of the included studies. The Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, Google Scholar, and PubMed were searched. Studies investigating the association between genetic markers and…