Prognostic factors in laryngeal carcinoma: the role of apoptosis,p53, proliferation (Ki-67) and angiogenesis

Even though the roles of different known or suggested prognostic factors in laryngeal cancer have been studied in detail, clinical stage at time of diagnosis and anatomic subsite of the tumour remain the only practical predictors of clinical outcome and offer the only guidelines in the planning of treatment. In this study, the relative roles of known demographic and clinical prognostic factors, in addition to four histopathological factors, were evaluated in a sample of 100 laryngeal carcinoma patients with multivariate analysis using the Cox regression model. In addition to advanced stage (stage III-IV) (relative hazard of death (HR) 8.9, p=0.01) and supraglottic disease (HR 5.6, p=0.02), high apoptotic index (HR 11.1, p=0.05) was significantly associated with poor survival. Cell proliferation, p53 and angiogenesis did not significantly affect the prognosis. In the future, high degree of apoptosis could be used to identify patients with poor prognosis in laryngeal cancer.     

Overexpression of S100A4 is closely related to the aggressiveness of gastric cancer

Elevated levels of the calcium-binding protein S100A4 cause metastasis of benign rat mammary tumor cells. To investigate whether S100A4 plays an important role in the invasion and metastasis of gastric cancers, we examined the gene mutations in the coding regions and expression patterns of the S100A4 in gastric adenocarcinoma in Korea. Moderate to strong expression of S100A4 was found in 53 (68.8%) of the 77 gastric adenocarcinomas, whilst normal gastric epithelium either failed to stain or showed weak staining. Interestingly, S100A4 expression was more frequently observed in gastric cancer patients with advanced gastric cancer (p=0.039), positive lymph node metastasis (p=0.001), and peritoneal dissemination (p=0.022). No gene mutations were found in the analyzed genomic area in 77 gastric adenocarcinomas and 15 gastric cancer cell lines. We found one single nucleotide polymorphism without an amino acid change, A99G, in two cases. These data suggest that the overexpression of S100A4 may be closely related to the aggressiveness of gastric cancer in Korea.     

幽门螺杆菌cagA菌株感染对IL-8蛋白在胃癌组织中表达的影响

目的 探讨胃癌组织中HpcagA菌株感染对IL-8蛋白表达的影响。方法 采用流式细胞技术，对27例胃癌及相应的癌旁正常组织中IL-8蛋白的表达进行定量检测，用PCR法，对27例胃癌组织中HpcagA基因进行扩增。结果 27例胃癌组织中中，有25例（92%）可明显表达IL-8蛋白；而相应的癌旁正常组织中，基本没有IL-8蛋白的表达或仅有弱相应的癌旁正常组织中，基本没有IL-8蛋白的表达或仅有弱表达，HpcagA感染的胃癌组织中，IL-8的表达水平为64.27%，高于未感染HpcagA的胃癌组织（39.86%)。结论 IL-8在胃癌组织中的高表达与HpcagA感染有关。即HpcagA菌株感染可上调IL-8在胃癌组织中的表达水平。     

Immunological analysis of plasminogen activators from cultured human cancer cells

Summary Immunological similarities or differences between urokinase and plasminogen activators from 9 lines of cultured human caner cells with varying degrees of fibrinolytic activity were examined with antibodies against human urokinase.The antibodies completely inhibited the fibrinolytic activity of 4 lines of gastric cancer, 2 lines of lung cancer, 1 line of urinary bladder cancer and 1 line of renal cancer, indicating that the plasminogen activators from these cell lines were immunologically identical to urokinase. In 5 out of these cell lines, immunological identity was also confirmed by double diffusion analysis.The plasminogen activator from 1 line of lung cancer was found to be immunologically dissimilar to urokinase by a neutralization experiment and double diffusion analysis.These findings indicate that there are at least two immunologically distinguishable forms of plasminogen activators from human cancer cells.     

Identification of a naturally processed cyclin D1 T-helper epitope by a novel combination of HLA class II targeting and differential mass spectrometry

T-helper (Th) cells play an important role in orchestrating the effector function of CTL in anti-tumor immunity. However, only a limited number of Th cell epitopes has been characterized. Here we describe a novel approach for identifying naturally processed and presented peptides derived from chosen antigens. This method combines a transfection step of antigen-presenting cells with a vector encoding a fusion protein between the Ii chain and the antigen of interest, elution of the HLA-bound peptides and identification of the antigen-derived peptides by mass spectrometric comparison to the non-transfected cells. In vitro-stimulated Th cells against the identified peptide of interest specifically recognize transfectants overexpressing the cognate antigen. Using this approach, we were able to identify the HLA-DR4-restricted Th cell epitope NPPSMVAAGSVVAAV derived from cyclin D1, which is frequently overexpressed in tumors. This method will help in identifying peptide candidates for vaccination studies for tumor immunotherapy.     

Association of common missense changes in ELAC2 (HPC2) with prostate cancer in a Japanese case–control series

 The recently identified prostate cancer susceptibility gene ELAC2 (HPC2) harbors two common missense variants, a serine to leucine substitution at residue 217 (Leu217) and an alanine to threonine substitution at residue 541 (Thr541). We genotyped the two variants in a Japanese cohort consisting of 350 prostate cancer patients 242 male population controls, and 114 male low-risk controls. Both missense alleles, Leu217 and Thr541, were carried at higher frequency in Japanese patients than in the controls (Leu217, P = 0.0012; Thr541, P = 0.0145), and the odds ratios associated with carrying these sequence variants were higher in Japanese than in Caucasians. Although the Leu217 and Thr541 variants of ELAC2 are less common in Japanese than in Caucasians, both variants confer significantly increased risk of prostate cancer in Japanese. Carriage of these variants was not associated with age at diagnosis, tumor stage, or tumor grade in these Japanese prostate cancer patients. The allele-specific pattern of risk observed in Japanese and familial Caucasian patients was qualitatively similar; however, the magnitude of that risk was considerably greater in Japanese than in Caucasians. Received: September 3, 2002 / Accepted: October 2, 2002     

Tumor-induced tolerance and immune suppression by myeloid derived suppressor cells

Summary: Emerging evidence indicates that the Achilles' heel of cancer immunotherapies is often the complex interplay of tumor-derived factors and deviant host properties, which involve a wide range of immune elements in the lymphoid and myeloid compartments. Regulatory lymphocytes, tumor-conditioned myeloid-derived suppressor cells (MDSCs), tumor-associated macrophages, and dysfunctional and immature dendritic cells take part in a complex immunoregulatory network. Despite the fact that some mechanisms governing tumor-induced immune tolerance and suppression are starting to be better understood and their complexity dissected, little is known about the diachronic picture of immune tolerance. Based on observations of MDSCs, we present a time-structured and topologically consistent idea of tumor-dependent tolerance progression in tumor-bearing hosts.     

Plasminogen activator system modulates invasivecapacity and proliferation in prostatic tumor cells

The malignant phenotype of prostatic tumor cells correlates with the expression of both uPA and itscell-membrane receptor (uPAR); however, there is little information concerning the role of cell-bound uPAin matrix degradation and invasion. Our results suggest that cell-associated uPA plays a key role in regulat-ingthe amount of plasmin present at the surface of prostatic carcinoma (PRCA) cells and show that differ-entialproduction of uPA corresponds with the capacity to bind and activate plasminogen. In addition, weprovide direct evidence that both uPA secretion and the presence of uPA-uPAR complexes characterize theinvasive phenotype of PRCA cells and suggest the existence of several pathways by which tumor cells acquireplasmin activity. LNCaP cells (which do not produce uPA but express uPAR) may activate plasmin throughexogenous uPA. In vivo, the source of uPA may be infiltrating macrophages and/or fibroblasts as observedin several other systems. PAI-1 accumulation in the conditioned medium (CM) limits plasmin action to thepericellular microenvironment. Our results indicate that MMP-9 and MMP-2 are also activated by plasmingenerated by cell-bound but not by soluble, extracellular uPA. Plasmin activation and triggering of the pro-teolyticcascade involved in Matrigel invasion is blocked by antibodies against uPA (especially by anti- A-chainof uPA which interacts with uPAR) and by PA inhibitors such as p-aminobenzamidine which mayregulate levels of cell-bound uPA. uPA may also regulate growth in PRCA cells. Indeed, antibodies againstuPA A-chain (and also p-aminobenzamidine treatment) interfere with the ATF domain and inhibit cell growthin uPA-producing PC3 and DU145 prostate cancer cell lines, whereas exogenous uPA (HMW-uPA with ATF)induces growth of LNCaP prostate tumor cell line. These data support the hypothesis that in prostatic can-cerpatients at risk of progression, uPA/plasmin blockade may be of therapeutic value by blocking both growthof the primary tumor and dissemination of metastatic cells. ©Kluwer Academic Publishers     

人表皮生长因子—PE40重组毒素的构建

用ＰＣＲ方法扩增人表皮生长因子（ＥＧＦ）片段，并将其与绿脓杆菌外毒素（ＰＥ４０）片段分别插入质粒ｐＥＴ－１７ｂ中，经酶切分析和ＰＣＲ检测证明成功地构建了表达质粒ｐＥＧＦ４０，旨在表达一种对癌细胞有特异杀伤作用的融合蛋白，以探索其作为新型导向药物的可能性。