apoptosis
A lung cancer treatment that inhibits nicotine receptors was shown to double survival time in mice, according to Italian researchers.
The results of the early phase animal model study were reported in the June 15 issue of the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine.
It turns out that from the perspective of cell biology, Nietzsche may have been right after all: that which does not kill us does make us stronger.
BUFFALO, N.Y. -- University at Buffalo researchers have demonstrated for the first time that injecting adult bone marrow stem cells into skeletal muscle can repair cardiac tissue, reversing heart failure.
Reperfusion of a previously ischemic tissue is associated with additional injury leading to structural and functional alterations in many organs including the liver. The injury induced during reperfusion is evolved a biphasic pattern consisting of an early stage started upon reoxygenation and a delayed phase.
(PHILADELPHIA) A protein called Mcl-1 plays a critical role in melanoma cell resistance to a form of apoptosis called anoikis, according to research published this week in Molecular Cancer Research.
When cells undergo potentially catastrophic damage, for example as a result of exposure to ionizing radiation, they must make a decision: either to fix the damage or program themselves for death, a process called apoptosis.
Fulminant hepatic failure is a serious clinical disease and may threaten the life of patients. However, because of the damage of mass liver cells, the organ function is often irreversible due to the liver cell degeneration, swelling, or apoptosis. Thus, to supply new sources of functional liver cells is a valuable choice for these patients.
WASHINGTON, D.C. - A class of Alzheimer's disease drugs currently studied in clinical trials appears to reduce damage caused by traumatic brain injury in animals, researchers at Georgetown University Medical Center report in an upcoming advance online publication of Nature Medicine.
Orange juice and cancer don't mix. In fact, the popular citrus drink could become a cocktail to prevent or stop the deadly disease in humans. Research by Texas Agriculture Experiment Station scientists has shown that citrus compounds called limonoids targeted and stopped neuroblastoma cells in the lab. They now hope to learn the reasons for the stop-action behavior and eventually try the citrus concoction in humans.
A common antibacterial and antifungal ingredient used in mouthwashes and tooth paste may have another positive medicinal use: protection against skin cancer. According to new studies, sanguinarine was shown to enhance production of proteins that induce cell death, or apoptosis, in cells damaged by ultraviolet-B (UVB) radiation. The alkaloid also restricts skin cell production of other pro-proliferation proteins. ''This natural compound may protect skin from cells that acquire the genetic damage caused by UV radiation from advancing toward cancer.''
Patients who undergo radiation for treatment of brain tumors may survive their cancer only to have lasting memory and learning deficiencies, the impact of which can be particularly devastating for children. Now, researchers have discovered that lithium, a drug commonly used to treat bipolar disorder and other mental illnesses, can protect the brain cells involved in learning and memory from radiation damage. While the work has been conducted in cell culture and animal studies thus far, clinical trials are expected to be conducted soon to test whether the drug can protect humans from cognitive deficits as a result of cranial radiation therapy.
Researchers have uncovered specific mechanisms by which cells that are genetically programmed to commit suicide stimulate growth in surrounding cells. The research, published online in Developmental Cell, provides new information about how normal, healthy tissues are maintained and may shed some light on a pathway that may contribute to tumor growth.
A fundamental cellular event related to programmed cell death has been decoded by cell biologists. The work could provide insights on two devastating inherited diseases. In healthy cells, mitochondria (tiny energy substations that churn out each cell's power supply) continually fuse together and split in two. When mitochondrial fusion goes awry, cells are targeted for programmed cell death, or apoptosis. Apoptosis is a normal process in healthy individuals, but if mitochondrial fusion doesn't work, the wrong cells die, causing disease. This is what happens in two neurodegenerative diseases: dominant optic atrophy, the most common inherited cause of blindness, and Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease, which reduces sensation in the feet, lower legs and hands. Both diseases kill nerve cells.
Scientists have corrected a flaw in cancer cells that lets them evade the normal cell-death process, and as a result they eliminated leukemia cells from mice. With this achievement, the researchers confirm that a key anti-cell-death molecule called BCL-2 is required by many types of cancer cells to survive, and that silencing it with designer drugs may prove to be an effective new avenue for cancer therapy. Using drugs to manipulate apoptosis, or ''programmed cell death'' in cancers ''is a new paradigm that hasn't been well explored yet.''
By mimicking a molecular switch that triggers cell death, researchers have killed cells grown in the laboratory from one of the most resilient and aggressive cancers -- a virulent brain cancer known as glioblastoma. The new approach to tricking the cell-death machinery could be applied to a wide range of cancers where this pathway, known as apoptosis, has been inactivated.
