Recombinant tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-related apoptosis-inducing ligand (TRAIL), as a novel cancer therapeutic, is being tested in phase II and III clinical trials; however, TRAIL resistance remains a big obstacle preventing its clinical application. Considering that TRAIL-induced apoptosis through death receptors DR4 and DR5, their activation may be an alternative pathway to suppress TRAIL r...

TRAIL is a trimeric protein that potently induces apoptosis in cancer cells by binding to the trimeric death receptors (DR4 or DR5). Death receptors are attractive therapeutic targets through both the recombinant TRAIL ligand as well as receptor agonist monoclonal antibodies. Although efficacy of the ligand is hampered by its short half-life, agonistic antibodies have a much longer half-life an...

BACKGROUND An important step toward improvement of the conduct of pediatric clinical research is the standardization of the ages of children to be included in pediatric trials and the optimal age-subgroups to be analyzed. METHODS We set out to evaluate empirically the age ranges of children, and age-subgroup analyses thereof, reported in recent pediatric randomized clinical trials (RCTs) and ...

Results of subgroup analysis (SA) reported in randomized clinical trials (RCT) cannot be adequately interpreted without information about the methods used in the study design and the data analysis. Our aim was to show how often inaccurate or incomplete reports occur. First, we selected eight methodological aspects of SA on the basis of their importance to a reader in determining the confidence ...

BACKGROUND Catheter-based renal denervation (RDN) is a novel treatment for resistant hypertension (RH). A recent meta-analysis reported that RDN did not significantly reduce blood pressure (BP) based on the pooled effects with mild to severe heterogeneity. The aim of the present study was to identify and reduce clinical sources of heterogeneity and reassess the safety and efficacy of RDN within...

Objective(s): Although tumor necrosis factor-related apoptosis-inducing ligand (TRAIL) can selectively induce apoptosis in tumor cells, more than half of tumors including non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) exhibit TRAIL-resistance. The purpose of this study was to determine whether subtoxic-dose cisplatin and TRAIL could synergistically enhance apoptosis on NSCLC cells and investigate its under...

Tumor necrosis factor-related apoptosis-inducing ligand (TRAIL/Apo2L) is a member of TNF superfamily able to induce programmed death in cancer cells with no toxicity against normal tissues. TRAIL mediate apoptosis follows binding to the two death receptors, TRAIL-R1 (DR4) and/or TRAIL-R2 (DR5). In this study we investigated the cytotoxic and apoptotic effect of TRAIL on bladder cancer cells and...

TNF-related apoptosis-inducing ligand (TRAIL) induces apoptosis through death receptors (DRs) 4 and/or 5 expressed on the surface of target cells. We have previously shown that deficiency of DR4 and DR5 on the surface membrane is a critical mechanism of cancer cell resistance to the recombinant human TRAIL and its receptor agonistic antibodies, which are being evaluated clinically for treating ...

Tumor necrosis factor-related apoptosis-inducing ligand (TRAIL, Apo2 ligand) effectively kills multiple myeloma (MM) cells in vitro irrespective of refractoriness to dexamethasone and chemotherapy. Because clinical trials with this anticancer agent are expected shortly, we investigated the signaling pathway of TRAIL-induced apoptosis in MM. We detected rapid cleavage of caspases-8, -9, -3, and ...

The Tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-Related Apoptosis Inducing Ligand, TRAIL, has gained much attention due to its specific anti-tumor potential without toxic side effects. TRAIL binds to a complex receptor system. In humans there are two death-inducing receptors for TRAIL while only one is present in mice. The signaling induced by these receptors leads to apoptosis but might also result in activat...