Using a new super-resolution microscope they’ve been able to see single molecules of the enzyme at work in a liver cancer cell line. Then they’ve used confocal microscopes to see how disrupting the enzyme slows down living cancer cells. The enzyme is DPP9 (dipeptidyl peptidase 9) which the researchers at the Centenary Institute and the Sydney Medical School were first to discover and clone, in 1999. …
Biologists have previously found that this kind of transformation, which often occurs in cancer cells as well as during embryonic development, is controlled by transcription factors — proteins that turn genes on and off. However, the new MIT research reveals that RNA-binding proteins also play an important role. Human cells have about 500 different RNA-binding proteins, which influence gene expression by regulating messenger RNA, the molecule that carries DNA’s instructions to the rest of the cell. “Recent discoveries show that there’s a lot of RNA-processing that happens in human cells and mammalian cells in general,” says Yarden Katz, a recent MIT PhD recipient and one of the lead authors of the new paper…
The researchers investigated patterns of molecules called long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs), a class of RNA molecules more than 200 nucleotide units long that are involved in regulating genes. The researchers examined the abundance, or expression, of lncRNAs in patients who were 60 years and older and who had cytogenetically normal (CN) AML. The study is published online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences…
“What we know now about ECP is that it is able to function in more than one way,” said Ratcliffe. “It can immunotolerize in the autoreactive setting, and immunize against, in a situation such as lymphoma. This enigma poses tremendous opportunity for future basic science investigation in immunology where cancer applications in bone marrow transplantation and lymphoma will benefit from novel therapeutics.” Currently, ECP is used to treat cancer patients who have cutaneous T-cell lymphoma or in patients with Graft versus Host disease after transplantation. There are many questions about how the therapy works and the best schedules for treating patients…
“This is the first time that biofilms have been shown to be associated with colon cancer, to our knowledge,” says co-author Jessica Mark Welch, a scientist at the Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) in Woods Hole, Mass. The discovery, led by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions, draws on a novel way to “see” microbial community structure that was developed by Mark Welch and colleagues at the MBL. Called combinatorial imaging, it could potentially be used to clinically diagnose pre-cancerous and cancerous conditions in the ascending colon…
Mariana Chavez Mac Gregor, M.D., assistant professor, health services research and breast medical oncology, will present the findings at a poster session of the 2014 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium. Oncotype DX is a 21-gene assay used to help estimate the likelihood of recurrence in women with early-stage breast cancer and, thus, determine those who may or may not benefit from adjuvant chemotherapy. The National Comprehensive Cancer Network includes its use for women with lymph node-negative, hormone receptor (HR)-positive and HER2-negative disease. …
The IBIS-I trial (International Breast Cancer Intervention Study), led by Queen Mary University of London and funded by Cancer Research UK, examined the long-term risks and benefits of taking tamoxifen to prevent breast cancer in women at high risk of the disease (aged 35-70 years old, primarily with a family history of breast cancer). During the study 7,154 pre and post-menopausal women were randomized to receive either tamoxifen (20mg daily) or a matching placebo for five years. …
The latest types of treatment for cancer are designed to switch on the immune system, allowing the patient’s own immune cells to attack and kill cancerous cells, when normally the immune cells would lie dormant. In a study, funded by Cancer Research UK and published in the journal Cancer Cell, the Southampton team have found that a particular form of antibody, called IgG2B, is much more effective at stimulating cancer immunity than other types. Unlike other forms of antibody, IgG2B can work independently without needing help from other immune cells, making it more active and able to work in all tissues of the body. The team have also been able to engineer antibodies that will be locked into the particular shape (called a locked B structure) that is most active, making them much stronger immune stimulators than previous drugs…
“What is most exciting is that we are now able to identify what senescent cells express that makes them beneficial,” said Campisi, senior scientist on the study. “This means we will be able to simply provide that factor while we eliminate senescent cells to prevent a deleterious side effect before it even occurs.” Postdoctoral fellow, Marco Demaria, PhD, lead author of the study, used two different mouse models: in the first, which was developed in collaboration with colleagues at the Erasmus, Harvard and Einstein Medical Schools, senescent cells can be visualized and eliminated in living animals; in the second, which was developed by Eiji Hara, Naoko Ohtani and colleagues at the Japanese Foundation for Cancer Research, mutations in two key genes block the senescence program…
The results clarify the risk of intellectual decline faced by children, teenagers and young adults following bone marrow transplantation. …