The lymphatic vascular system plays an important role in the maintenance of fluid homeostasis, in the afferent immune response, in the intestinal lipid uptake and in the metastatic spread of malignant cells. The recent discovery of specific markers and growth factors for lymphatic endothelium and the establishment of genetic mouse models with impairment of lymphatic function have provided novel...

Lymphangiogenesis is one of the promoters of tumor lymphatic metastasis. Fucoidan which is a fucose-enriched sulfated polysaccharide has effect on various pharmacological activities including anti-metastasis activity. However, the inhibitory effect of fucoidan on lymphangiogenesis remains unclear. Here, fucoidan extracted from U. pinnatifida sporophylls suppressed HLECs proliferation, migration...

The incidence of gastric cancer worldwide, and in particular in developing countries, has shown a marked increase (Inal et al., 2012). Poor prognosis of gastric cancer patients occurs due to rapid metastasis of the disease via the lymphs as well as blood in advanced stages. Previous studies have shown that lymphatic and blood vessel invasion (LBVI) is closely correlated with characteristics of ...

Dissociation from epithelial sheets and invasion through the surrounding stroma are critical early events during epithelial cancer metastasis. Here we find that a lymphocyte lineage-restricted transcription factor, Spi-B, is frequently expressed in human lung cancer tissues. The Spi-B-expressing cancer cells coexpressed vimentin but repressed E-cadherin and exhibited invasive behavior. Increase...

BACKGROUND CC chemokine receptor-7 (CCR7), which plays a critical role in the migration of activated dendritic cells to regional lymph nodes via afferent lymphatic vessels, is also expressed by human breast and melanoma cell lines. Because neoplastic cells also enter lymphatic vessels before metastasis to the lymph nodes, we investigated whether CCR7 expression enhances metastasis of B16 murine...

Pathological stage is the most important prognostic factor in patients with lung cancer, and is defined according to the tumor node metastasis classification system. The present study aimed to investigate the clinicopathological significance of lymphatic invasion in 103 patients who underwent surgical resection of lung squamous cell carcinoma (SqCC). The patients were divided into two groups, a...

Breast cancer is one of the most common malignancies among women and considered as the first caise of mortality in females suffering from malignant processes.axillary lymph node metastasis (ALNM)is the most important predictor of survival in patient with breast carcinoma.the purpose of this study was to determine the association between the incidence of ALNM and morphologic criteria by univaria...

Lymphatic metastasis plays a critical role in ovarian cancer, indicates poor prognoses and correlates to the majority of cancer deaths. Camptothecin derivatives exhibit promising activity for the treatment of solid tumors because of its specific inhibition of eukaryotic DNA topoisomerase I. Yet, its application is hindered due to extreme water insolubility and severe side effects. It is essenti...

The matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs), a family of proteolytic enzymes that degrade different components of the extracellular matrix, play important roles in tumor development and invasion. A single adenine insertion/deletion polymorphism (6A/5A) in the MMP3 promoter region causes transcriptional elevation. The aim of this study was to assess the effects of this single nucleotide polymorphism (S...

Lymphatic research has progressed rapidly in recent years. Though lymphatic dysfunction has been found in a wide array of disorders from transplant rejection to cancer metastasis, to date, there is still little effective treatment for lymphatic diseases. The cornea offers an optimal site for lymphatic research due to its accessible location, transparent nature, and lymphatic-free but inducible ...