We adapted competitive reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) for quantitative evaluation of c-erbB-2 expression in breast cancer. A fixed amount of cDNA target was coamplified with dilutions of a nonhomologous DNA sequence used as an internal standard (IS). The IS and the target shared the same primer sequences but yielded PCR products of different sizes (348 and 340 bp, resp...

Plexins are widely expressed transmembrane proteins that mediate the effects of semaphorins. The molecular mechanisms of plexin-mediated signal transduction are still rather unclear. Plexin-B1 has recently been shown to mediate activation of RhoA through a stable interaction with the Rho guanine nucleotide exchange factors PDZ-RhoGEF and LARG. However, it is unclear how the activity of plexin-B...

From a human genomic library, we obtained six v-erbB-related DNA clones. A DNA probe prepared from one of the clones, lambda 107, hybridized to EcoRI fragments of 6.4 and 13 kilobase pairs of human DNA. Neither of these fragments was amplified in A431 vulva carcinoma cells, in which the gene encoding the epidermal growth factor receptor is amplified. In addition, the probe from lambda 107 hybri...

Deregulation of the ErbB (proto-oncogene B of the avian erythroblastosis virus AEV-H strain) receptor network is well recognized as an oncogenic driver in epithelial cancers. Several targeted drugs have been developed, including antibodies and small-molecule kinase inhibitors, each of them characterized by distinct patterns of ErbB receptor interactions. Understanding the precise pharmacologica...

Aptamers, oligonucleotides able to avidly bind cellular targets, are emerging as promising therapeutic agents, analogous to monoclonal antibodies. We selected from a DNA library an aptamer specifically recognizing human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (ErbB-2/HER2), a receptor tyrosine kinase, which is overexpressed in a variety of human cancers, including breast and gastric tumors. Treatmen...

BACKGROUND Salivary duct carcinoma (SDC) is considered to be a distinct malignancy of the major salivary glands, because of its highly aggressive behaviour, and the high rate of recurrence, metastasis, and disease related death. AIMS To investigate expression of the proteins involved in the retinoblastoma (pRb) and p53 pathways, which control cell cycle progression at the G1/S checkpoint, and...

Trastuzumab, a monoclonal antibody targeting human epidermal growth factor receptor-2 (HER2/ErbB-2), has become the mainstay of treatment for HER2-positive breast cancer. Nevertheless, its exact mechanism of action has not been fully elucidated. Although several studies suggest that Fc receptor-expressing immune cells are involved in trastuzumab therapy, the relative contribution of lymphocyte-...

Amplification and/or overexpression of the erbB-2 gene have been demonstrated in 20-30% of adenocarcinomas of the breast, ovary, lung, and stomach and are associated with aggressive clinical course and poor prognosis. Interference with erbB-2 function by the use of monoclonal antibodies is a promising approach to the treatment of these diseases. In this study we demonstrate that a combination o...

Angiogenesis, formation of new blood vessels from a preexisting vascular bed is a complex multistep process, which may also permit metastasis. The subset of patients with breast cancer demonstrating a c-erbB-2 (HER2/neu)-positive status has aggressive tumors and a poor prognosis. To investigate how tumor angiogenesis correlates with c-erbB-2 (HER2/neu) overexpression in breast carcinoma diagnos...

PURPOSE erbB-2 and epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) may mediate motility via signaling that enables changes in the actin cytoskeleton. A physical basis for this motility may depend on the coexpression of gelsolin, a M(r) 80,000 actin-binding protein. EXPERIMENTAL DESIGN The expression of erbB-2, EGFR, and gelsolin was analyzed in 790 archival invasive breast cancers. These data were co...