Search results for "membrane proteins"
showing 10 items of 713 documents
Highly specific auto-antibodies against claudin-18 isoform 2 induced by a chimeric HBcAg virus-like particle vaccine kill tumor cells and inhibit the…
2011
Abstract Strategies for antibody-mediated cancer immunotherapy, such as active immunization with virus-like particle (VLP)-based vaccines, are gaining increasing attention. We developed chimeric hepatitis B virus core antigen (HBcAg)-VLPs that display a surface epitope of the highly selective tumor-associated cell lineage marker claudin-18 isoform 2 (CLDN18.2) flanked by a mobility-increasing linker. Auto-antibodies elicited by immunization with these chimeric HBcAg-VLPs in 2 relevant species (mouse and rabbit) bind with high precision to native CLDN18.2 at physiologic densities on the surface of living cells but not to the corresponding epitope of the CLDN18.1 splice variant that differs b…
Claudin-18 splice variant 2 is a pan-cancer target suitable for therapeutic antibody development
2008
Abstract Purpose: Antibody-based cancer therapies have emerged as the most promising therapeutics in oncology. The purpose of this study was to discover novel targets for therapeutic antibodies in solid cancer. Experimental Design: We combined data mining and wet-bench experiments to identify strictly gastrocyte lineage–specific cell surface molecules and to validate them as therapeutic antibody targets. Results: We identified isoform 2 of the tight junction molecule claudin-18 (CLDN18.2) as a highly selective cell lineage marker. Its expression in normal tissues is strictly confined to differentiated epithelial cells of the gastric mucosa, but it is absent from the gastric stem cell zone. …
Spontaneous and Fas-induced apoptosis of low-grade MDS erythroid precursors involves the endoplasmic reticulum
2008
Spontaneous apoptosis of bone marrow erythroid precursors accounts for the anemia that characterizes most low-grade myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS). We have shown that death of these precursors involved the Fas-dependent activation of caspase-8. To explore the pathway leading from caspase-8 activation to apoptosis, we transduced MDS bone marrow CD34(+) cells with a lentivirus encoding wild-type (WT) or endoplasmic reticulum (ER)-targeted Bcl-2 protein before inducing their erythroid differentiation. Both WT-Bcl-2 and ER-targeted Bcl-2 prevented spontaneous and Fas-dependent apoptosis in MDS erythroid precursors. ER-targeted Bcl-2 inhibited mitochondrial membrane depolarization and cytochrom…
Chemotherapy-induced apoptosis in hepatocellular carcinoma involves the p53 family and is mediatedviathe extrinsic and the intrinsic pathway
2010
We investigated the downstream mechanisms by which chemotherapeutic drugs elicit apoptosis in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). Genomic signatures of HCC cell lines treated with different chemotherapeutic drugs were obtained. Analyses of apoptosis pathways were performed and RNA interference was used to evaluate the role of the p53 family. Endogenous p53, p63 and p73 were upregulated in response to DNA damage by chemotherapeutic drugs. Blocking p53 family function led to chemoresistance in HCC. Stimulation and blocking experiments of the CD95-, the TNF- and the TRAIL-receptor systems revealed that cytotoxic drugs, via the p53 family members as transactivators, can trigger expression of each o…
Functional TCR Retrieval from Single Antigen-Specific Human T Cells Reveals Multiple Novel Epitopes
2014
Abstract The determination of the epitope specificity of disease-associated T-cell responses is relevant for the development of biomarkers and targeted immunotherapies against cancer, autoimmune, and infectious diseases. The lack of known T-cell epitopes and corresponding T-cell receptors (TCR) for novel antigens hinders the efficient development and monitoring of new therapies. We developed an integrated approach for the systematic retrieval and functional characterization of TCRs from single antigen-reactive T cells that includes the identification of epitope specificity. This is accomplished through the rapid cloning of full-length TCR-α and TCR-β chains directly from single antigen-spec…
Interleukin-6 and the soluble interleukin-6 receptor induce stem cell factor and Flt-3L expression in vivo and in vitro.
2001
Abstract Objective We recently established transgenic animals expressing either interleukin-6 (IL-6) or the soluble IL-6 receptor (sIL-6R) alone, or both components, IL-6 and the sIL-6R, in the liver. This animal model demonstrated that the expression of IL-6 in combination with its sIL-6R led to extramedullary expansion of hematopoietic progenitor cells in the spleen and liver. Materials and Methods We studied other relevant hematopoietic cytokines involved in the IL-6/sIL-6R–induced stimulation of hematopoiesis. Results Using immunohistochemistry, we showed that cell-associated stem cell factor (SCF) and Flt-3L expression were upregulated in liver and spleen only in double transgenic mice…
The aryl hydrocarbon receptor (AhR) in the regulation of cell–cell contact and tumor growth
2010
The aryl hydrocarbon receptor (AhR) is a ligand-dependent transcription factor, which is activated by a large group of environmental pollutants including polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, dioxins and planar polychlorinated biphenyls. Ligand binding leads to dimerization of the AhR with aryl hydrocarbon receptor nuclear translocator and transcriptional activation of several xenobiotic phase I and phase II metabolizing enzymes, such as cytochrome P4501A1 and glutathione- S -transferase, respectively. Since phase I enzymes convert inert carcinogens to active genotoxins, the AhR plays a key role in tumor initiation. Besides this classical route, the AhR mediates tumor promotion and recent evide…
Synaptophysin expressed in the bronchopulmonary tract: neuroendocrine cells, neuroepithelial bodies, and neuroendocrine neoplasms.
1987
Synaptophysin is an integral membrane glycoprotein with an Mr of 38,000 that occurs in the small, clear vesicles present in neuronal cells and tumors as well as in pancreatic islet cells and various neuroendocrine (NE) carcinomas. We found that synaptophysin is also expressed in normal NE cells of the lungs of newborn rabbits and mice as well as of human fetuses. In bronchial ganglion cells and in nerves, synaptophysin is coexpressed with neurofilament proteins (NFPs), whereas in solitary NE cells and in at least some of the neuroepithelial bodies (NEBs) of the bronchial mucosal lining, synaptophysin coexists with cytokeratins. We also studied a series of NE neoplasms of the lung covering t…
Flt3 ligand lessens the growth of tumors obtained after colon cancer cell injection in rats but does not restore tumor-suppressed dendritic cell func…
2000
A defective function of the antigen-presenting cells may represent one of the ways used by cancer cells to escape the immune response. We have previously shown that human and rat colon carcinomas were infiltrated by dendritic cells that did not express the B7 co-stimulatory molecules required for inducing an efficient T-cell response. Flt3 ligand is a cloned hematopoietic growth factor that markedly augments the number of functional dendritic and NK cells in lymphoid and non-lymphoid tissues and exerts anti-tumor activity in various experimental models. We show here that repeated Flt3 ligand administration delays the s.c. growth of rat colon cancer cells in syngeneic animals without inducin…
Divergently Transcribed Overlapping Genes Expressed in Liver and Kidney and Located in the 11p15.5 Imprinted Domain
1998
Human chromosomal band 11p15.5 has been shown to contain genes involved in the development of several pediatric and adult tumors and in Beckwith-Wiedemann syndrome (BWS). Overlapping P1 artificial chromosome clones from this region have been used as templates for genomic sequencing in an effort to identify candidate genes for these disorders. PowerBLAST identified several matches with expressed sequence tags (ESTs) from fetal brain and liver cDNA libraries. Northern blot analysis indicated that two of the genes identified by these ESTs encode transcripts of 1-1.5 kb with predominant expression in fetal and adult liver and kidney. With RT-PCR and RACE, full-length transcripts were isolated f…