Search results for "C2"
showing 10 items of 879 documents
High Levels of Exogenous C2-Ceramide Promote Morphological and Biochemical Evidences of Necrotic Features in Thyroid Follicular Cells
2002
CD95 and ceramide are known to be involved in the apoptotic mechanism. The triggering of CD95 induces a cascade of metabolic events that progressively and dramatically modifies the cell shape by intense membrane blebbing, leading to apoptotic bodies production. Although the CD95 pathway has been abundantly described in normal thyrocytes, the effects of cell permeable synthetic ceramide at morphological and biochemical levels are not fully known. In the present study, we show that thyroid follicular cells (TFC) exposed to 20 μM of C2-ceramide for 4 h are characterized by morphological features of necrosis, such as electron-lucent cytoplasm, mitochondrial swelling, and loss of plasma membrane…
Competitive interactions are mediated in a sex-specific manner by arbuscular mycorrhiza inAntennaria dioica
2017
Plants usually interact with other plants, and the outcome of such interaction ranges from facilitation to competition depending on the identity of the plants, including their sexual expression. Arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi have been shown to modify competitive interactions in plants. However, few studies have evaluated how AM fungi influence plant intraspecific and interspecific interactions in dioecious species. The competitive abilities of female and male plants of Antennaria dioica were examined in a greenhouse experiment. Females and males were grown in the following competitive settings: (i) without competition, (ii) with intrasexual competition, (iii) with intersexual competitio…
Sexes in gynodioeciousGeranium sylvaticumdo not differ in their isotopic signature or photosynthetic capacity
2017
• In gynodioecious plants, females are expected to produce more or better seeds than hermaphrodites in order to be maintained within the same population. Even though rarely measured, higher seed production can be achieved through differences in physiology. • In this work, we measured sexual dimorphism in several physiological traits in the gynodioecious plant Geranium sylvaticum. Photosynthetic rate, stomatal conductivity, transpiration rate, water use efficiency and isotopic signatures were measured in plants growing in two habitats differing in light availability. • Females have been reported to produce more seeds than hermaphrodites. However, we did not observe any significant difference…
Activin-A, myostatin and interleukin-6 in cancer associated cachexia
2017
Cachexia is a muscle wasting condition associated with multiple different chronic illnesses, such as cancer, diabetes and AIDS. In cancer, approximately 80% of patients with advanced disease have symptoms of muscle wasting, and around 25% of cancer mortality concerns cachexia. Elevated serum levels of different cytokines and TGF-β protein family members, such as Interleukin-6, Myostatin and Activin-A, have been observed in cachetic patients and test animals. However, the mechanistic role and the relative contribution of these molecules to muscle loss in the syndrome have not yet been fully elucidated. In this thesis, the gene-expression levels of Activin-A, Myostatin and Interleukin-6 was a…
Interleukin-30 feeds breast cancer stem cells via CXCL10 and IL23 autocrine loops and shapes immune contexture and host outcome
2021
BackgroundBreast cancer (BC) progression to metastatic disease is the leading cause of death in women worldwide. Metastasis is driven by cancer stem cells (CSCs) and signals from their microenvironment. Interleukin (IL) 30 promotes BC progression, and its expression correlates with disease recurrence and mortality. Whether it acts by regulating BCSCs is unknown and could have significant therapeutic implications.MethodsHuman (h) and murine (m) BCSCs were tested for their production of and response to IL30 by using flow cytometry, confocal microscopy, proliferation and sphere-formation assays, and PCR array. Immunocompetent mice were used to investigate the role of BCSC-derived IL30 on tumor…
Myeloid-Derived Suppressor Cells in Multiple Myeloma: Pre-Clinical Research and Translational Opportunities
2014
Immunosuppressive cells have been reported to play an important role in tumor-progression mainly because of their capability to promote immune-escape, angiogenesis, and metastasis. Among them, myeloid-derived suppressor cells (MDSCs) have been recently identified as immature myeloid cells, induced by tumor-associated inflammation, able to impair both innate and adaptive immunity. While murine MDSCs are usually identified by the expression of CD11b and Gr1, human MDSCs represent a more heterogeneous population characterized by the expression of CD33 and CD11b, low or no HLA-DR, and variable CD14 and CD15. In particular, the last two may alternatively identify monocyte-like or granulocyte-lik…
In the literature: February 2019
2019
Malignant pleural mesothelioma (MPM) is a rare and lethal cancer associated to asbestos exposure. Currently, the pemetrexed and cisplatin combination chemotherapy remains the only approved treatment. In the last 5 years, a growing knowledge on mesothelioma pathobiology has translated into the development of multiple novel therapeutic strategies.1 One of the largest reports of comprehensive genomic profiling of MPM was conducted by Bueno and colleagues. Using RNA-seq data, they identified four distinct molecular subtypes, and through exome analysis, they found that BAP1 , NF2 , TP53 , SETD2 , DDX3X , ULK2 , RYR2 , CFAP45 , SETDB1 and DDX51 were significantly mutated.2 In an article recently …
Why do results conflict regarding the prognostic value of the methylation status in colon cancers? The role of the preservation method.
2012
Abstract Background In colorectal carcinoma, extensive gene promoter hypermethylation is called the CpG island methylator phenotype (CIMP). Explaining why studies on CIMP and survival yield conflicting results is essential. Most experiments to measure DNA methylation rely on the sodium bisulfite conversion of unmethylated cytosines into uracils. No study has evaluated the performance of bisulfite conversion and methylation levels from matched cryo-preserved and Formalin-Fixed Paraffin Embedded (FFPE) samples using pyrosequencing. Methods Couples of matched cryo-preserved and FFPE samples from 40 colon adenocarcinomas were analyzed. Rates of bisulfite conversion and levels of methylation of …
In the literature: June 2020.
2020
Immunotherapy based on checkpoint blockade has revolutionised cancer treatment during last years. Whereas this approach fails in a relevant group of patients, the knowledge on tumour microenvironment (TME) opened the possibility to the use of additional therapeutic strategies to potentiate antitumour immunity, including depletion of protumourigenic or immune suppressive and activation of specific immune populations using agonistic antibodies. Nevertheless, due to the complexity of the TME, many of these strategies have been indiscriminately advanced to the clinic without clear mechanistic hypotheses. Nowadays, single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq)-based transcriptome analyses identify T ce…
Targeting MYCN in Pediatric and Adult Cancers
2021
The deregulation of theMYCfamily of oncogenes, includingc-MYC,MYCNandMYCLoccurs in many types of cancers, and is frequently associated with a poor prognosis. The majority of functional studies have focused onc-MYCdue to its broad expression profile in human cancers. The existence of highly conserved functional domains betweenMYCNandc-MYCsuggests thatMYCNparticipates in similar activities.MYCencodes a basic helix-loop-helix-leucine zipper (bHLH-LZ) transcription factor (TF) whose central oncogenic role in many human cancers makes it a highly desirable therapeutic target. Historically, as a TF, MYC has been regarded as “undruggable”. Thus, recent efforts focus on investigating methods to indi…