BACKGROUND Gemcitabine (2'-deoxy-2'-difluorodeoxycytidine: Gemzar) (GEM) appears to be the only effective anticancer drug for pancreatic cancer, but it has little impact on outcome due to a high level of inherent and acquired tumor resistance. Our previous proteomic study demonstrated that the expression of three spots of heat-shock protein 27 (HSP27) was increased in GEM-resistant pancreatic c...

Anaplastic thyroid carcinoma (ATC) affects primarily elderly patients, with a median survival of 4-12 months after diagnosis. Presently, under clinical investigation the combination of cisplatin (CDDP) and gemcitabine (GEM) has promising activity in several of human tumor types. To develop new approaches for therapy of ATC, we evaluated the antineoplastic activity of GEM and CDDP alone (1-h and...

The Rem, Rem2, Rad, and Gem/Kir (RGK) family of small GTP-binding proteins potently inhibits high voltage-activated (HVA) Ca(2+) channels, providing a powerful means of modulating neural, endocrine, and muscle functions. The molecular mechanisms of this inhibition are controversial and remain largely unclear. RGK proteins associate directly with Ca(2+) channel beta subunits (Ca(v)beta), and thi...

BACKGROUND Gemcitabine is first-line therapy for advanced pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) with a poor survival and response rate. Hyperbaric oxygenation (HBO) enhances delivery of oxygen to hypoxic tumor cells and increases their susceptibility to cytotoxic effects of chemotherapy. We hypothesized that the anticancer activity of gemcitabine (GEM) may be enhanced if tumor cells are place...

PURPOSE European Mistletoe (Viscum album L.) extracts (mistletoe) are commonly used for cancer treatment in Europe. This phase I study of gemcitabine (GEM) and mistletoe in advanced solid cancers (ASC) evaluated: (1) safety, toxicity, and maximum tolerated dose (MTD), (2) absolute neutrophil count (ANC) recovery, (3) formation of mistletoe lectin antibodies (ML ab), (4) cytokine plasma concentr...

Glycolipid-enriched membrane (GEM) domains, or lipid rafts, function in signaling in immune cells, but their properties during Ag presentation are less clear. To address this question, GEM domains were studied using fluorescence cell imaging of mouse CH27 B cells presenting Ag to D10 T cells. Our experiments showed that APCs were enriched with GEM domains in the immune synapse, and this occurre...

Pancreatic cancer exhibits the worst prognostic outcome among human cancers. Recently, we have described that depletion of RUNX2 enhances gemcitabine (GEM) sensitivity of p53-deficient pancreatic cancer AsPC-1 cells through the activation of TAp63-mediated cell death pathway. These findings raised a question whether RUNX2 silencing could also improve GEM efficacy on pancreatic cancer cells bear...

We describe further development of a previous laboratory prototype pulsed cavity ring-down spectroscopy (CRDS) sensor into a field-deployable system for hightime-resolution, continuous, and automated measurement of gaseous elemental mercury (GEM) concentrations in ambient air. We employed an external, isotopically enriched Hg cell for automated locking and stabilization of the laser wavelength ...

Gemfibrozil (GEM) is a clofibrate analog used to treat moderate to severe hypertriglyceridemias. In lab animals, GEM causes peroxisome proliferation, an effect that has been associated with hepatocarcinogenesis in rats. In humans, hepatobiliary disorders, but not carcinogenesis, have been associated with GEM therapy. In the present study [14C]GEM was administered orally to rats at a dose of 200...

The emerging albumin nanoparticle brings new hope for the delivery of antitumor drugs. However, a lack of robust tumor targeting greatly limits its application. In this paper, cyclic arginine-glycine-aspartic-conjugated, gemcitabine-loaded human serum albumin nanoparticles (cRGD-Gem-HSA-NPs) were successfully prepared, characterized, and tested in vitro in the BxPC-3 cell line. Initially, 4-N-m...