前沿科技及其它

The expression of a foreign protein in the skin following direct in vivo gene transfer results in the induction of potent cellular and humoral immune responses. This strategy, now known as genetic or DNA immunization, was first described by Johnston et al. in 1992. They reported that bombardment of ...

Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer death for men and women in the United States. Several factors affect survival in nonsmall-cell lung cancer . The 5-yr survival rate is

The application of antioncogene ribozyme in the gene therapy of breast cancer by means of recombinant adenoviral vector is dicussed in this chapter. We have shown that recombinant adenovirus encoding anti-cerbB2 ribozyme inhibited the breast cancer cell growth in vivo efficiently (1 ...

Multidrug resistance (MDR) in human cancer seriously limits the efficacy of anticancer agents. Circumvention of MDR is, thus, one of the urgent goals for successful cancer chemotherapy.

The technical approaches to gene therapy for cancer utilize ex vivo and in vivo gene-transfer methodology. This chapter focuses on applicability and use of an ex vivo approach using an IGF-1 antisense RNA strategy of treatment. Insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF-1) and IGF-2 have pivotal roles in c ...

The progress made in understanding the molecular basis of mammalian cell transformation has led to the unifying concept of growth regulation and its disorders in cancer cells. Today it is well recognized that many products of “cancer genes” encode for proteins that regulate normal mitogen ...

The loss of control over the cell cycle and the disruption of cascade mechanisms for programmed cell death are major factors in tumorigenesis. Defects in thep53 gene and in the regulation of genes of the retinoblastoma pathway such as p16 or cyclin D1 occur in a large percentage of tumors and have been we ...

The delineation of the molecular basis of cancer in general, allows for the possibility of specific intervention at the molecular level for therapeutic purposes. To this end, three main approaches have been developed: mutation compensation, molecular chemotherapy, and genetic immu ...

P450 prodrug activation-based cancer gene therapy strategies have been developed and show striking effectiveness in both in vitro cell culture and preclinical antitumor animal models (1,2). In vivo tumor models play an important role in the evaluation of the therapeutic efficacy of the ...

Telomeres are repeating sequences located at each end of eukaryotic chromosomes. These sequences function to protect chromosome positioning and replication (1–3). In vertebrates, telomere DNA consists of tandem repeats of TTAGGG, 10–15 kb pairs long (4). In most normal cells, DNA replic ...

Comparative genomic hybridization (CGH) allows a genome-wide survey of the relative copy number of tumor DNA in a single hybridization. The tumor-cell DNA (Test DNA) is hybridized together with a sex-matched normal DNA (Reference DNA) onto normal metaphase spreads. Test DNA and Reference D ...

The unambiguous identification of human chromosomes became possible with the discovery and implementation of G-banding techniques (1). Almost immediately, investigators developed various methods to physically map specific DNA sequences to banded chromosomes. A commonly ...

Apoptosis is a selective process of programmed cell death that plays an important role in both physiologic and malignant states. In neoplastic disease, the rate at which a tumor grows depends on cell deletion as well as cell proliferation. It has been shown in several types of tumors that more aggres ...

Matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs) are a group of 16 enzymes that are capable of degrading extracellular matrix components. Their catalytic function is dependent on a zinc ion in the active center. MMPs are separated in three groups: gelatinases (type IV-collagenases), stromelysins, and ...

Allelic loss of human chromosome sequences contributes to tumorigenesis through the inactivation of putative tumor-suppressor genes. The Knudson hypothesis proposes that deletion or mutation must affect both alleles of the gene in order to disable tumor suppression (1). As might be e ...

A human renal cancer was first established in continuous culture in 1962. Currently, there are well over 100 different characterized renal cancer cell lines derived from both primary and metastatic renal cell carcinomas (RCCs) (1–3). The biological phenotype of cultured renal cancer cel ...

Experimental animal models are available for the development of new treatment. Murine animal models have particular advantages for comparative study to evaluate the efficacy and safety of different treatment modalities because many mice can be treated at the same time with easy handl ...

Angiogenesis—the formation of a vascular network—is essential for the support of a developing tumor when simple diffusion of nutrients is impossible. The ability of a solid tumor to achieve metabolic needs beyond simple diffusion is dependent on the development of this neovascular net ...

Angiogenesis—the formation of new blood vessels from preexisting ones—is a complex process regulated by a number of soluble factors as well as important interactions between endothelial cells, extracellular matrix components, and adjacent cells (1–5). Activation of the endothe ...

Treatment of renal cell carcinoma (RCC) has historically involved surgical removal of the primary tumor when localized, but when presented with metastatic disease the options have been limited. Approximately 30% of patients present with metastatic disease implicating a generally ...