Tumour endothelial marker-8 (TEM-8) belongs to a family of endothelial markers that are raised during tumour angiogenesis. We have recently reported aberrant expression of TEMs at the mRNA level in human breast cancer. This study sought to examine the level of TEM-8 expression at the protein and mRNA level in human breast cancer tissue, and in a panel of human breast cancer cell lines. We also ...

BACKGROUND Both tumor cells and their supporting endothelial cells should be considered for targeted cell killing when designing cancer treatments. Here we investigated the feasibility of combining radioiodide and antiangiogenic therapies after baculovirus-mediated transfer of genes encoding the sodium iodide symporter (NIS) and plasminogen kringle 5 (K5). METHODS A recombinant baculovirus co...

Three sulfonamides and four dihydrofolate reductase inhibitors were tested alone and in combination to determine their in vitro effects on two strains of Toxoplasma gondii grown in MRC5 fibroblast tissue culture. Toxoplasma growth was quantitated by an enzyme immunoassay performed directly on the fixed cultures, and linear regression models were used to quantify the relationship between the opt...

E1B-55kD-deleted adenoviruses have been used as conditionally replicative adenoviruses (CRAds) for therapeutic purposes in tumors with loss-of-function p53 mutation. To target cancer cells that harbor activating mutant KRAS (KRAS(aMut)) but spare p53(wild) normal cells, we constructed and examined by reporter assays a KRAS(aMut) but not p53-responsive promoter, the Deltap53REP2 promoter. The De...

BACKGROUND DNA-damaging compounds (e.g., alkylating agents, cytotoxic antibiotics and DNA topoisomerase poisons) are the most widely used anticancer drugs. The inability of tumor cells to properly repair some types of DNA damage may explain why specific DNA-damaging drugs can selectively kill tumor cells. Phenylglyoxal is a dicarbonyl compound known to react with guanidine groups such as that o...

Oxidized low density lipoproteins (LDLs) play a central role in atherosclerosis, and their toxicity is due, at least in part, to the formation of oxysterols that have been shown to induce apoptosis in various cell types. As 7beta-hydroxycholesterol and 7-ketocholesterol are the major oxysterols found in oxidized LDLs, we have investigated and compared the mode of cell death, apoptosis versus ne...

Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) is associated with the accumulation of collagen-secreting fibroblasts and myofibroblasts in the lung parenchyma. Many mechanisms contribute to their accumulation, including resistance to apoptosis. In previous work, we showed that exposure to the proinflammatory cytokines TNF-a and IFN-g reverses the resistance of lung fibroblasts to apoptosis. In this study,...