Gene therapy for carcinoma of the breast: Pro-apoptotic gene therapy

The dysregulation of apoptosis contributes in a variety of ways to the malignant phenotype. It is increasingly recognized that the alteration of pro-apoptotic and anti-apoptotic molecules determines not only escape from mechanisms that control cell cycle and DNA damage, but also endows the cancer cells with the capacity to survive in the presence of a metabolically adverse milieu, to resist the attack of the immune system, to locally invade and survive despite a lack of tissue anchorage, and to evade the otherwise lethal insults induced by drugs and radiotherapy. A multitude of apoptosis mediators has been identified in the past decade, and the roles of several of them in breast cancer have been delineated by studying the clinical correlates of pathologically documented abnormalities. Using this information, attempts are being made to correct the fundamental anomalies at the genetic level. Fundamental to this end are the design of more efficient and selective gene transfer systems, and the employment of complex interventions that are tailored to breast cancer and that are aimed concomitantly towards different components of the redundant regulatory pathways. The combination of such genetic modifications is most likely to be effective when combined with conventional treatments, thus robustly activating several pro-apoptotic pathways

The liver proteome in a mouse model for Ascaris suum resistance and susceptibility: evidence for an altered innate immune response

Background: Ascariasis is a neglected tropical disease that affects 800 million people worldwide. Whereas most people only experience light worm burden, some people experience heavy worm burdens even after several rounds of chemotherapy, a phenomenon known as predisposition. Such heavy infections are associated with more severe symptoms and increased chronic morbidity. Methods: In order to investigate potential mechanisms that may explain the observed predisposition, we infected mice with the porcine ascarid Ascaris suum using an established mouse model with two different mouse strains, where the C57BL/6J strain is more susceptible to infection and therefore a model for heavy infection and the CBA/Ca strain is more resistant and thus a model for light infection. At day 7 post-infection we investigated the liver proteome, using shotgun mass spectrometry, of both infected and control mice of each strain. Results: We identified intrinsic differences, between the two mouse strains, in both oxidative phosphorylation proteins and proteins involved in retinol metabolism. Additionally, we found differences between the two mouse strains in activation of the complement system, where the CBA/Ca strain has higher protein abundances for lectin pathway proteins and the C57BL/6J strain has higher protein abundances for complement inhibiting proteins. The CBA/Ca strain had a higher abundance of proteins involved in the activation of the complement cascade via the lectin pathway. In contrast, the C57BL/6J strain demonstrated a higher abundance of proteins involved in arresting the complement pathway. Conclusions: We observed clear differences between the two mouse strains both intrinsically and under infection