前沿科技及其它

This chapter will focus on understanding how various wild type (WT), dominant negative (DN), constitutively active (CA), and conditionally active (COND) oncogenes, as well as antisense (AS) genes contained in retroviral vectors may be used to elucidate signal transduction pathways. We w ...

This chapter will focus on introduction of various wild type (WT) and mutant genes into cells by DNA transfection. Techniques for analysis of the inheritance, expression, and biological effects of the introduced genes will be described. Various strong and weak points about three different ...

Investigation of transcription factor activity in animal tissue during the early stage of cancer development can be difficult because of a low number of affected cells in a background of a large number of normal cells. We have used a well-established multistage skin carcinogenesis model to st ...

The ability to rescue viable prostate precursor tissue from Rb−/− fetal mice has allowed for the generation of Rb−/− prostate tissue and Rb−/− prostate epithelial cell lines. Herein, we provide a protocol for the rescue of urogenital precursor tissue from mouse embryos harboring the lethal Rb−/− mu ...

In order to be properly divisible, the cell membrane has to be remodeled and intracellular membranes must be converted into a vesiculated state prior to mitosis. Phospholipases A2, C, and D (PLA2, PLC, and PLD) are involved in regulatory events of intracellular mitogen signaling pathways. We des ...

Immunoprecipitation is one of the most commonly used techniques to study protein-protein interaction in vivo. There are three major steps involved in an immunoprecipitation procedure: 1) lysis of the cells to make the antigen of interest available; 2) formation of the antibody-antigen c ...

Alterations of protein tyrosine kinase and tyrosine phosphatase are often associated with uncontrolled cell growth and cellular transformation. Because of the large number of tyrosine kinase/phosphatase genes in such gene family, it is essential to use an efficient and simple appr ...

Loss of tumor suppressors contributes to numerous cancer types. Many, but not all, proteins encoded by tumor suppressor genes have antiproliferative activity and halt cell-cycle progression. In this chapter, we present three methods that have been utilized to monitor the antimitogen ...

In 1999 it was estimated that renal cell carcinoma (RCC) would account for 29,990 new cancer cases diagnosed in the United States (61% in men and 39% in women), and lead to 11,600 deaths. RCC accounts for 2–3% of all malignancies in adults and causes 2.3% of all cancer deaths in the United States annually (1). Approx 4% of ...

The classification of epithelial tumors of the kidney has undergone considerable change in the last two decades. Systems based on cytoplasmic characteristics and cytogenetic analysis have expanded our understanding of this group of tumors. These new, nontraditional systems have ...

Growth factors are polypeptides that induce cell mitogenicity, and thus play an important role in the etiology and progression of tumors (1). Fibroblast growth factors (FGF) constitute a family of structurally related polypeptides of 146 amino acids, which exhibit a wide spectrum of biol ...

Laser-capture microdissection is a recently discovered state-of-the-art method to obtain cells for genetic analysis. It is a one-step procedure that allows capture of selected cells under direct microscopic visualization.

Von Hippel-Lindau (VHL) disease is an autosomal dominant disorder that predisposes the affected individual to develop characteristic tumors. These include CNS hemangioblastoma, retinal angiomas, endolymphatic sac tumors, pancreatic cysts and tumors, epididymal cystad ...

Cytochrome P450 genes encode drug-metabolizing enzymes that bioactivate a number of widely used anticancer prodrugs. These genes have recently been shown to be useful for prodrug activation-based cancer gene therapy (1). Approaches to identify new P450 gene/prodrug combinations ...

Studies of tumor cell lines expressing individual cytochrome P450 genes are essential for evaluation of the utility of P450 prodrug activation-based cancer gene therapy (1). P450-expressing tumor cells may also be useful to identify novel P450 gene /prodrug combinations (see Chapter ...

Prodrug activation-based cancer gene therapy is a molecular strategy to improve the efficacy of cancer chemotherapy by conferring upon tumor cells the capability to metabolize specific anticancer prodrugs into lethal intracellular toxins. The overall goal of this strategy is to in ...

Although improved significantly, conventional treatment of hematologic malignancy remains inadequate for many patients. Novel treatment approaches could be useful if they would be more efficacious and less toxic. One such approach could involve the manipulation of genes crit ...

Live attenuated viruses used as vaccines are known for their efficacy to elicit protective immunity against viral diseases. More recently, with an increasing number of tumor-associated antigens (TAA) being identified and molecularly cloned (1) the development of vaccines for canc ...

Liver tumors, specially HCC, are among the most common malignancies in the world, and their annual world incidence is about 250,000 cases, with a male to female ratio 4:1 (1). HCC is one of the most important neoplasms in tropical and subtropical regions, particularly among the sub-Saharan African bl ...

Mutation of the p53 tumor-suppressor gene is recognized as one of the most common genetic alterations in human malignancy to date (1). Approximately 60% of human tumors are thought to possess mutation at the p53 locus. Transient overexpression of the wild-type p53 gene in various malignancies h ...