PURPOSE To develop a mouse model to study the influence of hypoxia in breast cancer progression and metastasis. METHODS The 4T1 cell line was used to engraft the kidneys of female BALB/c mice. Placing an aneurysm clip on the kidney hilum, hypoxia can be directed to tumor site. Histological evaluation was used to analyze the morphological changes induced by ischemia in kidney cortex, and to ve...

Breast cancer is the most common malignant disease in women, and metastasis formed at distant anatomic sites was the major cause of cancer-related mortality. Thus, a novel therapy target and progression biomarker for breast cancer metastasis was necessary. microRNA (miR)-376b has been demonstrated to regulate angiogenesis; however, its role in cancer metastasis remains elusive. In the present s...

The coagulation and fibrinolytic systems contribute to malignancy by increasing angiogenesis, tumor growth, tumor invasion, and tumor metastasis. Oncogenic transformation increases the expression of tissue factor (TF) that results in local generation of coagulation proteases and activation of protease-activated receptor (PAR)-1 and PAR-2. We compared the PAR-dependent expression of urokinase pl...

Lipocalin 2 is an iron-binding secreted protein that converts embryonic kidney mesenchyme to epithelia. Previously, we reported that lipocalin 2 could revert 4T1-ras-transformed mesenchymal tumor cells to a more epithelial phenotype, increase E-cadherin expression, and suppress cell invasiveness in vitro and in vivo, indicating that lipocalin 2 is a metastasis suppressor. Here, we show that lip...

Tumor relapse after initial regression post-chemotherapy is a major challenge in cancer treatment, as it usually leads to local-regional recurrence or inoperable distant metastasis. M2 macrophages diminish the tumor-inhibitory effect of chemotherapy and correlate with distant metastasis and poor prognosis. In this study, we investigated whether molecular imaging of M2 macrophages could serve as...

The reovirus fusion-associated small transmembrane (FAST) proteins are the smallest known viral fusogens (∼100-150 amino acids) and efficiently induce cell-cell fusion and syncytium formation in multiple cell types. Syncytium formation enhances cell-cell virus transmission and may also induce immunogenic cell death, a form of apoptosis that stimulates immune recognition of tumor cells. These pr...

Therapeutic strategies aiming at mobilizing immune effector cells to kill tumor cells independent of tumor mutational load and MHC expression status are expected to benefit cancer patients. Recently, we engineered various peptide-Fc fusion proteins for directing Fcg receptor-bearing immune cells toward tumor cells. Here, we investigated the immunostimulatory and anti-tumor effects of one of the...

The α(v)β(3) integrin receptor plays an important role in human metastasis and tumor-induced angiogenesis. Cyclic Arg-Gly-Asp (cRGD) peptide represents a selective α(v)β(3) integrin ligand that has been extensively used for research, therapy, and diagnosis of neoangiogenesis. For developing photosensitizers with enhanced PDT efficacy, we here report the synthesis of a series of bifunctional age...

PURPOSE It has been implied that the collagen binding integrin α11β1 plays a role in carcinogenesis. As still relatively little is known about how the stromal integrin α11β1 affects different aspects of tumor development, we wanted to examine the direct effects on primary tumor growth, fibrosis, tumor interstitial fluid pressure (PIF) and metastasis in murine 4T1 mammary and RM11 prostate tumor...

One of the leading causes of death for women is metastatic breast cancer. Because most animal tumors do not accurately model clinical metastatic disease, the development of effective therapies has progressed slowly. In this study, we establish the poorly immunogenic mouse 4T1 mammary carcinoma as a postsurgical animal model. 4T1 growth characteristics parallel highly invasive human metastatic m...