Targeting Cell Death Mechanism Specifically in Triple Negative Breast Cancer Cell Lines

Triple negative breast cancer (TNBC) is currently associated with a lack of treatment options. Arsenic derivatives have shown antitumoral activity both in vitro and in vivo; however, their mode of action is not completely understood. In this work we evaluate the response to arsenate of the double positive MCF-7 breast cancer cell line as well as of two different TNBC cell lines, Hs578T and MDA-MB-231. Multimodal experiments were conducted to this end, using functional assays and microarrays. Arsenate was found to induce cytoskeletal alteration, autophagy and apoptosis in TNBC cells, and moderate effects in MCF-7 cells. Gene expression analysis showed that the TNBC cell lines’ response to arsenate was more prominent in the G2M checkpoint, autophagy and apoptosis compared to the Human Mammary Epithelial Cells (HMEC) and MCF-7 cell lines. We confirmed the downregulation of anti-apoptotic genes (MCL1, BCL2, TGFβ1 and CCND1) by qRT-PCR, and on the protein level, for TGFβ2, by ELISA. Insight into the mode of action of arsenate in TNBC cell lines it is provided, and we concluded that TNBC and non-TNBC cell lines reacted differently to arsenate treatment in this particular experimental setup. We suggest the future research of arsenate as a treatment strategy against TNBC.     

An Overview of Oxidative Stress,Neuroinflammation, and Neurodegenerative Diseases

Oxidative stress has been linked with a variety of diseases, being involved in the debut and/or progress of several neurodegenerative disorders. This review intends to summarize some of the findings that correlate the overproduction of reactive oxygen species with the pathophysiology of Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, Huntington’s disease, and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. Oxidative stress was also noted to modify the inflammatory response. Even though oxidative stress and neuroinflammation are two totally different pathological events, they are linked and affect one another. Nonetheless, there are still several mechanisms that need to be understood regarding the onset and the progress of neurodegenerative diseases in order to develop efficient therapies. As antioxidants are a means to alter oxidative stress and slow down the symptoms of these neurodegenerative diseases, the most common antioxidants, enzymatic as well as non-enzymatic, have been mentioned in this paper as therapeutic options for the discussed disorders.     

Recent Advances in Managing Spinal Intervertebral Discs Degeneration

Low back pain (LBP) represents a frequent and debilitating condition affecting a large part of the global population and posing a worldwide health and economic burden. The major cause of LBP is intervertebral disc degeneration (IDD), a complex disease that can further aggravate and give rise to severe spine problems. As most of the current treatments for IDD either only alleviate the associated symptoms or expose patients to the risk of intraoperative and postoperative complications, there is a pressing need to develop better therapeutic strategies. In this respect, the present paper first describes the pathogenesis and etiology of IDD to set the framework for what has to be combated to restore the normal state of intervertebral discs (IVDs), then further elaborates on the recent advances in managing IDD. Specifically, there are reviewed bioactive compounds and growth factors that have shown promising potential against underlying factors of IDD, cell-based therapies for IVD regeneration, biomimetic artificial IVDs, and several other emerging IDD therapeutic options (e.g., exosomes, RNA approaches, and artificial intelligence).     

Trajectories towards balancing value creation and capture: Resolution paths and tension loops in open innovation projects

This study aims to elevate the current understanding of value creation and value capture tensions that emerge in open innovation projects and of their potential solutions. In contrast with prior studies that often suggest specific solutions to individual tensions, our study takes an integrative approach by considering complex (bundles of) tensions and potential solutions to these. The study employs qualitative methods and builds on interview data from six case companies and a group of expert informants. We investigate unfolding events from the point when value creation – value capture tensions are identified in open innovation projects, to the search for their solutions. We label such sequences of unfolding events as trajectories. Our findings reveal two types of trajectories: resolution paths, which are trajectories from initial tensions to solutions, and tension loops, where initial tensions persist and/or new tensions emerge after solutions are enforced. We analyze a total of 17 trajectories, of which seven are marked as resolution paths, and ten represent tension loops. For the majority of the tension loops in our data (eight out of ten) the tensions remain unresolved. We further categorize the types of tensions and discuss the implications of our results for researchers and practitioners.     

杭州RAFFLES城

杭州Raffles城发展坐落于浙江省省会杭州市的钱塘江边,是嘉德置地继新加坡、上海、北京、成都和巴林之后的第六栋,将零售店、办公楼、住户和酒店设施融于一体,成为新城区的文化地标。     

The Synthesis and Antiproliferative Activities of New Arylidene-Hydrazinyl-Thiazole Derivatives

New and known arylidene-hydrazinyl-thiazole derivatives have been synthesized by a convenient Hantzsch condensation. All compounds were evaluated for their in vitro cytotoxicity on two carcinoma cell lines, MDA-MB231 and HeLa. Significant antiproliferative activity for 2-(2-benzyliden-hydrazinyl)-4-methylthiazole on both MDA-MB-231 (IC₅₀: 3.92 µg/mL) and HeLa (IC₅₀: 11.4 µg/mL) cell lines, and for 2-[2-(4-methoxybenzylidene) hydrazinyl]-4-phenylthiazole on HeLa (IC₅₀: 11.1 µg/mL) cell line is reported. Electrophoresis experiments showed no plasmid DNA (pTZ57R) cleavage in the presence of the investigated thiazoles.     

Applications of Nanomaterials in Cell Stem Therapies and the Onset of Nanomedicine

Stem cells hold enormous potential in the treatment of diseases such as diabetes, arthritis, cirrhosis, spinal cord injury, and Alzheimer's disease, due to their unique ability to differentiate into various cell lines and tissues and integrate seamlessly into damaged or diseased tissue. The use of nanoparticles as bioactive molecules is still considered a nascent science, but their unique physical and chemical properties hold great hopes for drug delivery, cancer targeting, and bioimaging. There is active worldwide ongoing research to generate advanced therapeutic compounds for incurable diseases, combining the unique properties of nanomaterials and stem cells. The present review will cover emerging areas of nanotechnology applications in stem cell therapy, one of the next frontiers of medical science.     

Collagen/hydroxyapatite composite materials with desired ceramic properties

Our purpose was to obtain and characterize some collagen/hydroxyapatite (COLL/HA) hybrid composite materials with desired ceramic properties. The ceramic properties of these materials were achieved by combining two drying methods: controlled air drying at 30°C followed by freeze-drying. Through the function of the air drying times, the materials morphology varies from porous materials (when the materials are freeze-dried) up to dense materials (when the materials are air-dried), while the combined drying allows us to obtain an intermediary morphology. The composite materials intended to be used as bone grafts and in a drug delivery system were characterized by XRD, FTIR, SEM, and also by determining the ceramic properties by using the Arthur method. The ceramic properties of these COLL/HA composite materials vary in large range, for instance the density of the materials varies from 0.06 up to 1.5?g/cm(3) while the porosity varies from 96.5% down to 27.5%.     

Time-Frequency Characterization and Receiver Waveform Design for Shallow Water Environments

We investigate a frequency-domain characterization of shallow water environments based on normal-mode models of acoustic mediums. The shallow water environment can be considered as a time-dispersive system whose time-varying impulse response can be expressed as a superposition of time-frequency components with dispersive characteristics. After studying the dispersive characteristics, a blind time-frequency processing technique is employed to separate the normal-mode components without knowledge of the environment parameters. This technique is based on first approximating the time-frequency structure of the received signal and then designing time-frequency separation filters based on warping techniques. Following this method, we develop two types of receivers to exploit the diversity inherent in the shallow water environment model and to improve underwater communication performance. Numerical results demonstrate the dispersive system characterization and the improved processing performance of the receiver structures.