background: functional defects in mitochondria are involved in the induction of cell death in cancer cells. the process of programmed cell death may occur through the mechanisms of apoptosis. several potential lead molecules such as camptothecin (cpt) and its analogues have been isolated from plants with anticancer effect. the aim of the present study was to understand the necrotic effect versu...

Previous work from our laboratory has demonstrated that both anticoagulant and nonanticoagulant heparin species can inhibit the proliferation of vascular smooth muscle cells in vivo and in vitro. In this communication, we report studies on the structure-function relationships of heparin to its antiproliferative effect on vascular smooth muscle cells. These structure-function studies were carrie...

Raloxifene hydrochloride (RH) is considered to be an antiproliferative agent of mammary tissue. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of the encapsulation of RH in polymeric nanocapsules with anionic or cationic surface on its release profile and antiproliferative activity. They were prepared by interfacial deposition of preformed polymer, followed by wide physicochemical characte...

SIR, We were interested to read the recently published report' demonstrating a direct antiproliferative effect of cyclosporin A on cultured keratinocytes and fibroblasts. These authors observed a reversible, dose-dependent inhibitory effect and that the presence of serum attenuated this response. These findings were of interest to us because we previously observed the same phenomena and reporte...

miRNAs as one of the potential therapeutic agents have been recently considered for cancer treatment. AS1411 (aptNCL) is a DNA aptamer specifically binding to nucleolin protein on the cancer cell surface with antiproliferative effect. The aim of the study was to develop a conjugate consisted of aptNCL (as targeted delivery of therapeutic agent) and miRNA let-7d (as a tumor suppressor) using two...

Type I interferons (IFN-α/β) have broad and potent immunoregulatory and antiproliferative activities, which are negatively regulated by Src homology domain 2 containing tyrosine phosphatase-2 (SHP-2). Inhibition of SHP2 by small molecules may be a new strategy to enhance the effcacy of type I IFNs. Using an in vitro screening assay for new inhibitors of SHP2 phosphatase, we found that quercetin...

The K562 cell line has been proposed as a useful experimental system to identify anti-tumor compounds acting by inducing terminal erythroid differentiation. K562 cells exhibit a low proportion of hemoglobin-synthesizing cells under standard cell growth conditions, but are able to undergo terminal erythroid differentiation when treated with a variety of anti-tumor compounds. In this paper we rep...

T lymphocyte activation and proliferation is involved in many pathological processes. We have recently shown that carbon monoxide (CO), an enzymatic product of heme oxygenase-1 (HO-1), confers potent antiproliferative effects in airway and vascular smooth muscle cells. The purpose of this study was to determine whether CO can inhibit T lymphocyte proliferation and then to determine the mechanis...

BACKGROUND Kynurenic acid (KYNA), tryptophan metabolite synthesized in the kynurenine pathway, is an endogenous antagonist of α-7 nicotinic receptor and all ionotropic glutamate receptors: N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) receptor, α-amino-3-hydroxy-5-methyl-4-isoxasole propionate (AMPA) receptor and kainate receptor. The antiproliferative activity of KYNA toward colon and renal cancer cells has rec...