Pyrazoloacridine (NSC 366140, PD115934, PZA) is a new class of acridine anticancer agents under investigation in Phase II clinical trials in patients with advanced cancers. Although poor responses in patients to the treatment with PZA alone have been observed, this class of agents remains of interest because of its distinct mechanism of action from other topoisomerase poisons. Therefore, the co...

Gamma linoleic acid (GLA) salts may exert a direct antiproliferative activity on tumor cells. The cytotoxicity is linked to the generation of conjugated dienes, peroxyl radicals and superoxide radicals. Lithium gammalinolenate (LiGLA) and meglumine gammalinolenate (MeGLA) have been recently developed for enhancing the water solubility of these compounds. MeGLA or LiGLA (10(-5) to 10(-4) mol/l) ...

The hedgehog (Hh) signaling pathways have a crucial role in cell proliferation and survival, and the de-regulation of these pathways can lead to tumorigenesis. Here we investigated the expression and function of these pathways in acute T lymphocytic leukemia cells (T-ALL). Profiling of Hh pathway members revealed common expression of key Hh signaling effectors in all T-ALL cells. We found that ...

Previous studies have demonstrated the in vitro and in vivo activity of Revlimid(CC5013), an immunomodulatory analogue (IMiD) of thalidomide, in multiple myeloma (MM). In the present study, we have examined the anti-MM activity of rapamycin, a specific mTOR inhibitor, combined with Revlimid. Based on the Chou-Talalay method, combination indices of < 1 were obtained for all dose ranges of Revl...

PURPOSE The purpose of this study was to assess the activity of clinically used drugs and to define the most effective treatment scheme in human gastric cancer cell lines. EXPERIMENTAL DESIGN Cytotoxic activity was evaluated by sulforhodamine B assay, potential clinical activity was estimated by relative antitumor activity, and the type of drug interaction was assessed using the method of Cho...

PURPOSE To investigate whether celastrol could show synergism combined with lapatinib in HepG2 human hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) cell line in vitro. METHODS The effects of treatment with lapatinib and/or celastrol on cell growth were determined using MTT assay. Drug synergy was determined using combination index (CI) methods derived from Chou-Talalay equations using CalcuSyn software. Apop...

Cancer chemoprevention is a new promising strategy for cancer prevention. It is defined as the use of chemicals (natural or synthetic) or dietary components (daily foods enriched with cancer preventive components) to block, inhibit, or reverse the development of cancer in normal or preneoplastic tissue (Wattenberg, 1985; Greenwald et al., 1990; Weinstein, 1991; Morse and Stoner, 1993; Hong and ...

The widespread belief that oxidative damage plays a major role in cancer, ageing, and in a number of chronic diseases has focused scienti®c and public attention on the possibility that antioxidants could prevent or at least retard these processes. Antioxidants are of two types: direct and indirect. Direct antioxidants [e.g. glutathione (GSH), tocopherols, ascorbic acid and carotenoids] are subs...