BACKGROUND Hyperbaric oxygenation (HBO) therapy is the administration of 100%-inhaled oxygen to patients at increased atmospheric pressure. MATERIALS AND METHODS We used an in vitro model to examine the effects of HBO on mammary cell proliferation. Normal mammary epithelia, primary tumor and metastatic tumor cells derived from the same patient and immortalized by transfection with the human p...

Introduction/Theory: Molecular imaging is emerging as a potential tool for monitoring treatment response in the management of cancer patients. Recent cell biology as well as oncology research has focused on investigating apoptosis or programmed cell death as a means of measuring these induced effects and detecting response. A hallmark of early stage apoptosis is the externalization of phosphati...

The fusion protein CTLA-4 . FasL, a paradigmatic "trans signal converter protein", can attach to APC surfaces and in effect convert B7-activating costimulator signals into inhibitory Fas receptor-generated signals. The present study investigates CTLA-4 . FasL's mechanism of action. A combination of p27(kip) and proliferating cell nuclear Ag Western blot and propidium iodide flow cytometric anal...

The objective of this study was to determine whether neutrophil apoptosis and their consequent elimination by macrophages from the mammary gland is modulated by an infection caused by Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus). The study was performed on twenty mammary glands of 5 virgin heifers. A buffered physiological solution (PBS) was administered as a means of control into the mammary glands of th...

BACKGROUND Polysaccharopeptide (PSP) from Coriolus versicolor (Yunzhi) is used as a supplementary cancer treatment in Asia. The present study aims to investigate whether PSP pre-treatment can increase the response of the human leukemia HL-60 cells to apoptosis induction by Camptothecin (CPT). METHODS We used bivariate bromodeoxyuridine/propidium iodide (BrdUrd/PI) flow cytometry analysis to m...

9-Methoxycamptothecin (MCPT) was found to have antitumour activities through topoisomerase inhibition. However, the type of cell death induced in the tumour cells treated with MCPT was not elucidated. In this study, MCPT and camptothecin were isolated from Nothapodytes foetida distributed in Hubei Province, China and identified by NMR spectroscopy. MCPT was tested by the 3-(4,5-dimethylthiazol-...

Precisely identifying the type of programmed cell death is one of the key questions in contemporary biomedical research. We developed a straightforward approach allowing quantitative discrimination between two types of cell death on the single cell level: apoptosis and necroptosis. This method uses the combination of imaging flow cytometry with classical Annexin V/propidium iodide staining, whi...

BACKGROUND opioid and somatostatin receptors (SSTRs) that can assemble as heterodimer were individually reported to modulate malignant cell proliferation and to favour apoptosis. MATERIALS AND METHODS SSTRs and opioid receptors expression were examined by RT-PCR, western-blot and binding assays, cell proliferation was studied by XTT assay and propidium iodide (PI) staining and apoptosis by an...

5-Episinuleptolide acetate (5EPA), a cytotoxic norcembranoidal diterpene recently identified from the Formosan soft coral Sinularia sp., exhibited potent activity against the K562, Molt 4 and HL 60 cancer cell lines. The antiproliferative assay, as well as the annexin V-FITC/propidium iodide (PI) apoptotic assay, indicated that the HL 60 cell line is the most sensitive one towards 5EPA. This di...

BACKGROUND Glutaminase activity is correlated with cancer proliferation and with growth rate in normal cells. Ehrlich ascites tumour cells (EATC) and their derivative 0.28AS-2 cells, which express antisense glutaminase mRNA, show differences in both morphology and tumorigenic capacity. MATERIALS AND METHODS Cell viability was determined with the microtetrazolium cytotoxicity test assay. Immun...