Absence of Host Plasminogen Activator Inhibitor 1 Prevents Cancer Invasion and Vascularization

Acquisition of invasive/metastatic potential through protease expression is an essential event in tumor progression. High levels of components of the plasminogen activation system, including urokinase, but paradoxically also its inhibitor, plasminogen activator inhibitor 1 (PAI1), have been correlated with a poor prognosis for some cancers. We report here that deficient PAI1 expression in host mice prevented local invasion and tumor vascularization of transplanted malignant keratinocytes. When this PAI1 deficiency was circumvented by intravenous injection of a replication-defective adenoviral vector expressing human PAI1, invasion and associated angiogenesis were restored. This experimental evidence demonstrates that host-produced PAI is essential for cancer cell invasion and angiogenesis

"Bargaining Power in the European Council"

What resources grant heads of state and government influence in the European Council? Despite its political importance, the European Council has only been subject to limited research. Part of the explanation is the difficulties of conducting research on a political body that convenes behind closed doors, whose proceedings are undocumented, and whose participants are unusually hard to gain access to. This paper reports the results of a project designed to overcome the problems of previous research through a unique series of elite interviews with European heads of state and government. Drawing on general theories of negotiation, it isolates and illustrates three complementary sources of bargaining power in the European Council: state sources of power, institutional sources of power, and individual sources of power. Elite testimonies suggest that the state dimension of power is most fundamental, whereas the institutional and individual dimensions of power play a secondary role and mainly mediate the impact of structural power asymmetries