BACKGROUND Bromelain is a pineapple stem extract with a variety of therapeutic benefits arising from interaction with a number of different biological processes. Several preclinical studies and anecdotal clinical observations have reported the anticancer properties of bromelain. In the present study, we investigated the cytotoxic effects of bromelain in four human cancer cell lines of gastroint...

Helicobacter pylori colonises the gastric mucosa of humans. The majority of organisms live in mucus. These organisms are an important reservoir for infection of the underlying epithelium. Cell culture models for H. pylori infection do not normally possess a mucus layer. The interaction of H. pylori with TFF1, a member of the trefoil factor family found in gastric mucin, is mediated by lipopolys...

Several chaperone-binding drugs based on geldanamycin (GA) have been synthesized, and one of them, 17-allylamino-17-demethoxygeldanamycin (17-AAG), is being developed in the clinic. Interest in the use of 17-AAG in combination with cytotoxic drugs led us to study both GA and 17-AAG with cisplatin (DDP) in the human colon adenocarcinoma cell lines HT29 and HCT116. We performed isobologram analys...

BACKGROUND The antitumor efficacy of combination therapy of the vascular disrupting agent ZD6126 and antiangiogenic agent ZD6474 was evaluated in the models of human colorectal (HT29) and ovarian carcinoma (OW1). MATERIALS AND METHODS HT29 and OW1 xenograft-bearing mice were treated with ZD6126 and ZD6474 either alone or in combination. ZD6126 therapy consisted of three doses of 100 mg/kg adm...

BACKGROUND Programmed cell death (apoptosis) is a physiological process needed to remove unwanted or damaged cells. It has been hypothesized that any failure of programmed cell death leads to the development of neoplasm. Identifying new agents which induce apoptosis in tumor cells is of great significance in treatment of neoplasms. Numerous studies suggest that exposure of tumor cells to statin...

Folic acid (FA) consumption at high levels has been associated with colon cancer risk. Several mechanisms have been proposed to explain this association. The Notch signal pathway has been implicated in the regulation of cellular proliferation. Our aim was to demonstrate that high concentrations of FA or its reduced form, 5-methyltetrahydrofolic acid (5-MTHF), increase colorectal carcinoma HT29 ...

Tumor repopulation after radiotherapy is a big obstacle for clinical cancer therapy. The molecular mechanisms of tumor cell repopulation after radiotherapy remain unclear. This study investigated the role of sonic hedgehog (SHH) and Wnt signaling pathways in tumor repopulation after radiotherapy in an in vitro repopulation model. In this model, irradiated dying tumor cells functioned as feeder ...

Neutrophils play an important role in intestinal inflammation by interacting with intestinal epithelial cells. In this study, we evaluated neutrophil adhesion to intestinal epithelial cells using intestinal epithelial cell line HT29 stimulated with tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF-alpha) and histamine for a short time (30 min). The TNF-alpha and histamine stimulation markedly increased neutroph...

Keratins 8 and 18 (K8 and K18) are regulated by site-specific phosphorylation in response to multiple stresses. We examined the effect and regulation of hyposmotic stress on keratin phosphorylation. K8 phospho-Ser431 (Ser431-P) becomes dephosphorylated in HT29 cells, but hyperphosphorylated on other K8 but not K18 sites in HRT18 and Caco2 cells and in normal human colonic ex vivo cultures. Hypo...

We investigated the role of insulin-like growth factor (IGF)-I and IGF-binding proteins (IGFBPs) in the regulation of vascular endothelial growth factor (VE(ìF)expression in colon cancer cells and the mechanism by which this regulation occurs. HT29 human colon cancer cells were treated with K.I -I for various time periods. VEGF mRNA expression increased within 2 h and peaked at 24 h. SYV620 co...