Cancer vaccination may be our best and most benign option for preventing or treating metastatic cancer. However, breakthroughs are hampered by immune suppression in the tumor microenvironment. In this study, we analyzed whether cyclic diguanylate (c-di-GMP), a ligand for stimulator of interferon genes (STING), could overcome immune suppression and improve vaccination against metastatic breast c...

Background/purpose The aim of this study was to test the hypothesis that mechanical ventilation (MV) during cancer surgery induces lung stroma/tissue milieu changes, creating a favorable microenvironment for postoperative lung metastatic tumor establishment. Materials and methods In Protocol A, female BALB/c mice were divided into an MV group and a control (no MV) group, both of which were an...

Low vitamin D status is considered as a risk factor for breast cancer and has prognostic significance. Furthermore, vitamin D deficiency increases after adjuvant cancer therapy, which alters bone metabolism increasing the risk of osteoporosis. It is now postulated that vitamin D supplementation in breast cancer treatment delays the recurrence of cancer thereby extending survival. We evaluated t...

Liposomal doxorubicin (Lipo-DOX) has been widely and successfully used in chemotherapy for breast cancer patients. Since our previous studies found that 188Rhenium (188Re)-N,N-bis (2-mercaptoethyl)-N',N'-diethy-lethylenediamine (BMEDA)-labeled pegylated liposomes (188Re-liposomes) have radiotherapeutic potential in a colon cancer model, and little information is available to make a comparison o...

Mesenchymal stem cells (MSC) migrate to and proliferate within sites of inflammation and tumors as part of the tissue remodeling process. Radiation increases the expression of inflammatory mediators that could enhance the recruitment of MSC into the tumor microenvironment. To investigate this, bilateral murine 4T1 breast carcinomas (expressing renilla luciferase) were irradiated unilaterally (1...

We have shown previously that interleukin-12 (IL-12) gene therapy induced strong antitumor effects in several syngeneic murine tumor models including 4T1 mammary adenocarcinoma. Antiangiogenic treatment with a monoclonal antibody (mAb) directed against the vascular endothelial growth factor receptor-2 (VEGFR-2) is another promising treatment approach that can cause transient suppression of tumo...

Triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC), defined by the absence of an estrogen receptor, progesterone receptor, and human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 expression, is associated with an early recurrence of disease and poor outcome. Furthermore, the majority of deaths in breast cancer patients are from metastases instead of from primary tumors. In this study, MCF-7 (an estrogen receptor-positi...

PURPOSE An inherent problem in breast cancer treatment is that current therapeutic approaches fail to specifically target the dissemination of breast cancer cells from the primary tumor. Clinical findings show that the loss of Wnt-5a protein expression in the primary breast tumor predicts a faster tumor spread, and in vitro analyses reveal that it does so by inhibiting tumor cell migration. The...