Previously we reported that Stat3 is persistently activated in GBM tumours and derived cell lines. Hypoxia, necrosis and neo-angiogenesis are hallmarks of GBM. To unfold the contribution of activated Stat3 to the growth of GBM, we generated human GBM cell line (U87)-derived stable clones expressing a dominant negative mutant (DN)-Stat3 in a hypoxia-inducible manner, and examined their tumour-fo...

Recent studies indicate the critical role of tumour associated macrophages, tumour associated neutrophils, dendritic cells, T lymphocytes, and natural killer cells in tumourigenesis. These cells can have a significant impact on the tumour microenvironment via their production of cytokines and chemokines. Additionally, products secreted from all these cells have defined specific roles in regulat...

Inflammation and lymphangiogenesis are two cohesively coupled processes that promote tumour growth and invasion. Here we report that TNF-α markedly promotes tumour lymphangiogenesis and lymphatic metastasis. The TNF-α-TNFR1 signalling pathway directly stimulates lymphatic endothelial cell activity through a VEGFR3-independent mechanism. However, VEGFR3-induced lymphatic endothelial cell tips ar...

Cell-based therapy exploits modified human cells to treat diseases but its targeted application in specific tissues, particularly those lying deep in the body where direct injection is not possible, has been problematic. Here we use a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) system to direct macrophages carrying an oncolytic virus, Seprehvir, into primary and metastatic tumour sites in mice. To achieve...

The aim of the present study was to define the point at which mesothelioma T-cell responses fail in order to design better immunotherapies. A murine model of mesothelioma was used which was established with asbestos. Inoculation of tumour cells into syngeneic mice results in progressing tumours with similar histopathology to human mesothelioma. The tumour cells secrete a marker tumour antigen s...

Objective(s): The ability to measure cellular proliferation non-invasively in renal cell carcinoma may allow prediction of tumour aggressiveness and response to therapy. The aim of this study was to evaluate the uptake of 18Ffluorothymidine (FLT) PET in renal cell carcinoma (RCC), and to compare this to 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG), and to an immunohistochemical measure of cellular proliferatio...

Micropapillary variant of urothelial carcinoma (UC) of the bladder is an aggressive tumour, comprising 0.6-6% of all UC. It generally presents with high-grade and stage, and has been reported as having a worse prognosis when compared to traditional UC. We report the case of a 58-year-old man who presented with macroscopic haematuria. The patient was diagnosed with high-grade urothelial carcinom...

Understanding therapeutic mechanisms of drug anticancer cytotoxicity represents a key challenge in preclinical testing. Here we have performed a meta-analysis of publicly available tumor cell line growth inhibition assays (~ 70 assays from 6 independent experimental groups covering ~ 500 000 molecules) with the primary goal of understanding molecular therapeutic mechanisms of cancer cytotoxicit...

the aim of the present study is to evaluate the effect of ethanolic extract of leaves of leptadenia reticulata leaves (lelr) against dalton’s ascitic lymphoma (dal) in swiss albino mice. dal cells were injected intraperitoneally (106 cells/mouse) to the mice. two days after cells injection the animals were treated with 200 mg/kg of lelr for 8 days. five-fluorouracil (20 mg/kg) was used as refer...

Targeting human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2) during or in sequence with chemotherapy improves overall survival in metastatic and early HER2-overexpressing breast cancer. In this paper we systematically review neoadjuvant clinical trial data in HER2-positive breast cancer and discuss key unanswered clinical questions. All trials of HER2-targeted neoadjuvant therapy were identified t...