Your browser does not fully support modern features. Please upgrade for a smoother experience.
Subject:
All Disciplines Arts & Humanities Biology & Life Sciences Business & Economics Chemistry & Materials Science Computer Science & Mathematics Engineering Environmental & Earth Sciences Medicine & Pharmacology Physical Sciences Public Health & Healthcare Social Sciences
Sort by:
Most Viewed Latest Alphabetical (A-Z) Alphabetical (Z-A)
Filter:
All Topic Review Biography Peer Reviewed Entry Video Entry
Topic Review
TMEFF2
Transmembrane protein with an EGF-like and two follistatin-like domains 2 (TMEFF2) is a 374-residue long type-I transmembrane proteoglycan which is proteolytically shed from the cell surface. The protein is involved in a range of functions including metabolism, neuroprotection, apoptosis, embryonic development, onco-suppression and endocrine function. TMEFF2 is methylated in numerous cancers, and an inverse correlation with the stage, response to therapy and survival outcome has been observed. Moreover, TMEFF2 methylation increases with breast, colon and gastric cancer progression. TMEFF2 is methylated early during oncogenesis in breast and colorectal cancer, and the detection of methylated free-circulating TMEFF2 DNA has been suggested as a potential diagnostic tool. The TMEFF2 downregulation signature equals and sometimes outperforms the Gleason and pathological scores in prostate cancer. TMEFF2 is downregulated in glioma and cotricotropinomas, and it impairs the production of adrenocorticotropic hormone in glioma cells. Through binding the amyloid β protein, its precursor and derivatives, TMEFF2 provides neuroprotection in Alzheimer’s disease. Primary literature regarding TMEFF2 is incoherent and offers conflicting information, in particular, the oncogenic vs. onco-suppressive role of TMEFF2 in prostate cancer. 
  • 1.3K
  • 26 Jan 2021
Topic Review
SMYD3
The SMYD3 methyltransferase has been found overexpressed in several types of cancers of the gastrointestinal (GI) tract. While high levels of SMYD3 have been positively correlated with cancer progression in cellular and advanced mice models, suggesting it as a potential risk and prognosis factor, its activity seems dispensable for autonomous in vitro cancer cell proliferation. We first describe the oncogenic activity of SMYD3 as a transcriptional activator of genes involved in tumorigenesis, cancer development and transformation and as a co-regulator of key cancer-related pathways. Then, we dissect its role in orchestrating cell cycle regulation and DNA damage response (DDR) to genotoxic stress by promoting homologous recombination (HR) repair, thereby sustaining cancer cell genomic stability and tumor progression. Based on this evidence and on the involvement of PARP1 in other DDR mechanisms, we also outline a synthetic lethality approach consisting of the combined use of SMYD3 and PARP inhibitors, which recently showed promising therapeutic potential in HR-proficient GI tumors expressing high levels of SMYD3. Overall, these findings identify SMYD3 as a promising target for drug discovery.
  • 1.2K
  • 14 Sep 2021
Topic Review
Self-Expandable Metal Stent
Self-expandable metal stent (SEMS) is commonly accepted in a palliative setting for symptomatic obstructive colorectal cancer.
  • 1.2K
  • 28 Apr 2021
Topic Review
Cancer Therapy Targeting CD47
The interaction between cluster of differentiation 47 (CD47) on cancer cells and signal regulatory protein alpha (SIRPα) on immune cells, such as macrophages and dendritic cells, generates a “don’t eat me” signal. This is a common mechanism that provides cancer cells an escape from the innate immune system. Several therapeutics directed to CD47 or SIRPα have entered early clinical trials in recent years.
  • 1.2K
  • 29 Mar 2022
Topic Review
Baicalein
Baicalein, a flavonoid extract (5,6,7-trihydroxy-2-phenyl-4H-1-benzopyran-4-one) derived from the dried root of Scutellaria baicalensis Georgi, can inhibit cancer-promoting mechanisms such as metastasis, angiogenesis, and inflammation without harming healthy cells. Despite having enormous prospects for anti-cancer use, low bioavailability limits its applications.
  • 1.2K
  • 19 Apr 2023
Topic Review
Senolytics for Cancer Therapy
Senolytics represent a group of mechanistically diverse drugs that can eliminate senescent cells, both in tumors and in several aging-related pathologies. Consequently, senolytic use has been proposed as a potential adjuvant approach to improve the response to senescence-inducing conventional and targeted cancer therapies. However, the translation of senolytics to the clinic faces many challenges that need to be addressed by the research community. 
  • 1.2K
  • 09 Mar 2021
Topic Review
Radiomics of Liver Metastases
Multidisciplinary management of patients with liver metastases (LM) requires a precision medicine approach, based on adequate profiling of tumor biology and robust biomarkers. Radiomics, defined as the high-throughput identification, analysis, and translational applications of radiological textural features, could fulfill this need. The present review aims to elucidate the contribution of radiomic analyses to the management of patients with LM. We performed a systematic review of the literature through the most relevant databases and web sources. English language original articles published before June 2020 and concerning radiomics of LM extracted from CT, MRI, or PET-CT were considered. Thirty-two papers were identified. Baseline higher entropy and lower homogeneity of LM were associated with better survival and higher chemotherapy response rates. A decrease in entropy and an increase in homogeneity after chemotherapy correlated with radiological tumor response. Entropy and homogeneity were also highly predictive of tumor regression grade. In comparison with RECIST criteria, radiomic features provided an earlier prediction of response to chemotherapy. Lastly, texture analyses could differentiate LM from other liver tumors. The commonest limitations of studies were small sample size, retrospective design, lack of validation datasets, and unavailability of univocal cut-off values of radiomic features. In conclusion, radiomics can potentially contribute to the precision medicine approach to patients with LM, but interdisciplinarity, standardization, and adequate software tools are needed to translate the anticipated potentialities into clinical practice.
  • 1.2K
  • 06 Nov 2020
Topic Review
β-Hemoglobinopathies
β-hemoglobinopathies are the most common genetic disorders worldwide and are caused by mutations affecting the production or the structure of adult hemoglobin. Patients affected by these diseases suffer from anemia, impaired oxygen delivery to tissues, and multi-organ damage. In the absence of a compatible donor for allogeneic bone marrow transplantation, the lifelong therapeutic options are symptomatic care, red blood cell transfusions and pharmacological treatments. The last decades of research established lentiviral-mediated gene therapy as an efficacious therapeutic strategy. However, this approach is highly expensive and associated with a variable outcome depending on the effectiveness of the viral vector and the quality of the cell product. In the last years, genome editing emerged as a valuable tool for the development of curative strategies for β-hemoglobinopathies. Moreover, due to the wide range of its applications, genome editing has been extensively used to study regulatory mechanisms underlying globin gene regulation allowing the identification of novel genetic and pharmacological targets.
  • 1.2K
  • 18 Feb 2021
Topic Review
Structure and Function of UHRF1
Cancer is one of the leading causes of death worldwide, and its incidence and mortality are increasing each year. Improved therapeutic strategies against cancer have progressed, but remain insufficient to invert this trend. Along with several other risk factors, abnormal genetic and epigenetic regulations play a critical role in the initiation of cellular transformation, as well as tumorigenesis. The epigenetic regulator UHRF1 (ubiquitin-like, containing PHD and RING finger domains 1) is a multidomain protein with oncogenic abilities overexpressed in most cancers. Through the coordination of its multiple domains and other epigenetic key players, UHRF1 regulates DNA methylation and histone modifications. This well-coordinated dialogue leads to the silencing of tumor-suppressor genes (TSGs) and facilitates tumor cells’ resistance toward anticancer drugs, ultimately promoting apoptosis escape and uncontrolled proliferation. Several studies have shown that the downregulation of UHRF1 with natural compounds in tumor cells induces the reactivation of various TSGs, inhibits cell growth, and promotes apoptosis.
  • 1.2K
  • 24 Aug 2023
Topic Review
Carbonic Anhydrase IX Inhibitors and Solid Tumors
Carbonic anhydrase (CA, EC 4.2.1.1) IX isoform is a surficial zinc metalloenzyme that is proven to play a central role in regulating intra and extracellular pH, as well as modulating invasion and metastasis processes. With its strong association and distribution in various tumor tissues and well-known druggability, this protein holds great promise as a target to pharmacologically interfere with the tumor microenvironment by using drug combination regimens.
  • 1.2K
  • 20 Apr 2022
Topic Review
Anti-Cancer and Anti-Inflammatory Properties of Black Garlic
Black garlic (BG) is a fermented form of garlic (Allium sativum L.), produced at precisely defined temperatures, humidities, and time periods. Although garlic has been used for thousands of years, black garlic is a relatively new discovery. There are many bioactive compounds in black garlic that give it medicinal properties, including anti-inflammatory and anti-cancer properties.
  • 1.2K
  • 19 Feb 2024
Topic Review
Antigenic Essence
Antigenic essence – the part of a cell that is both available to the immune system and also highly specific to cell type on a molecular profile level. Antigenic essence can be collected from the cell surface by treating living cells with protease (trypsin) under mild conditions. Cells are a natural source for the entire diversity of native antigens including for anticancer vaccination. Antigenic essence takes advantage of this while also minimizing the limitations associated with the use of whole cells for anticancer vaccination.
  • 1.2K
  • 23 Jun 2021
Topic Review
Imaging of Colorectal Liver Metastases
Computed tomography (CT), magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), and 18-fluorideoxyglucose positron emission tomography (18FDG-PET) are historically the most accurate imaging techniques for diagnosing liver metastases. Recently, the combination of diffusion-weighted imaging and hepatospecific contrast media, such as gadoxetic acid in MRI, have been demonstrated to have the highest diagnostic accuracy, sensitivity, and specificity for detecting liver metastases. Various recent meta-analyses have confirmed the diagnostic superiority of this combination (diffusion-weighted imaging and gadoxetic acid-enhanced MRI), especially in terms of per lesion sensitivity, as compared with CT and 18FDG-PET, even for smaller lesions (≤1 cm). However, none of the oncological guidelines have suggested the use of MRI as a first-line technique for liver metastasis detection during the staging process of oncological patients.
  • 1.2K
  • 08 Jul 2021
Topic Review
Targeting Replication Stress Response Pathways to Treat Cancer
Proliferating cells regularly experience replication stress caused by spontaneous DNA damage that results from endogenous reactive oxygen species, DNA sequences that can assume secondary and tertiary structures, collisions between opposing transcription and replication machineries, and exogenous genotoxic agents. Replication stress often leads to DNA double-strand breaks (DSBs) that can cause genome instability and cell death. The importance of replication stress responses in cells exposed to genotoxic chemo- or radiotherapy has prompted considerable research focused on how tumor cells might be selectively killed by combined treatments with genotoxins and agents targeting DNA damage response (DDR) factors involved in the replication stress response.
  • 1.2K
  • 12 Aug 2022
Topic Review
Proton radiobiology: DNA damage response
Clinical use of proton radiation has massively increased over the past years. The main reason for this is the beneficial depth-dose distribution of protons that allows to reduce toxicity to normal tissues surrounding the tumor. Despite the experience in the clinical use of protons, the radiobiology after proton irradiation compared to photon irradiation remains to be completely elucidated. Proton radiation may lead to differential damages and activation of biological processes.
  • 1.2K
  • 08 Mar 2021
Topic Review
Nanotechnology-facilitated Bacterial Therapy
In recent years, advancing nanotechnology has extended bacterial therapies to a higher level through tailoring bacteria on a nanoscale, such as bacteria-derived nanovesicles and bacterial membrane-coated nanoparticles, or endowing bacteria with abilities to serve as drug carriers, photosensitizers, and sonosensitizers.
  • 1.2K
  • 09 Jul 2021
Topic Review
Antisense Oligonucleotide-Mediated Splice Switching
Antisense oligonucleotides (AOs) have been developed to inhibit the production of alternatively spliced carcinogenic isoforms through splice modulation or mRNA degradation. AOs can also be used to induce splice switching, where the expression of an oncogenic protein can be inhibited by the induction of a premature stop codon. In general, AOs are modified chemically to increase their stability and binding affinity. One of the major concerns with AOs is efficient delivery. Strategies for the delivery of AOs are constantly being evolved to facilitate the entry of AOs into cells. 
  • 1.2K
  • 25 Nov 2021
Topic Review
Preclinical Prostate Cancer Research
We address the challenges of using primary cultures and patient-derived xenografts to study prostate cancer. We describe emerging approaches using primary prostate epithelial cells and prostate organoids and their genetic manipulation for disease modelling. Furthermore, the use of human prostate-derived induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) is highlighted as a promising complimentary approach. Finally, we discuss the manipulation of iPSCs to generate ‘avatars’ for drug disease testing. Specifically, we describe how a conceptual advance through the creation of living biobanks of "genetically engineered cancers" that contain patient-specific driver mutations hold promise for personalised medicine. 
  • 1.2K
  • 27 Oct 2020
Topic Review
Differential Co-Expression Analyses
Biological systems respond to perturbations through the rewiring of molecular interactions, organised in gene regulatory networks (GRNs). Among these, the increasingly high availability of transcriptomic data makes gene co-expression networks the most exploited ones. Differential co-expression networks are useful tools to identify changes in response to an external perturbation, such as mutations predisposing to cancer development, and leading to changes in the activity of gene expression regulators or signalling. They can help explain the robustness of cancer cells to perturbations and identify promising candidates for targeted therapy, moreover providing higher specificity with respect to standard co-expression methods.
  • 1.2K
  • 18 Dec 2020
Topic Review
Capecitabine in Head and Neck Cancers
Head and neck cancers (HNCs) are the sixth most common malignancies in the world, with more than 500,000 new cases occurring each year. Capecitabine, an oral pro-drug that is metabolized to 5-FU, the use of capecitabine has been evaluated in many trials including cases diagnosed in recurrent or metastatic settings. Induction regimens or a combination with radiation therapy were evaluated in head and neck cancers, but 5-FU still remained the fluoropyrimidine used as a part of the current therapeutic standard.
  • 1.2K
  • 18 Oct 2022
  • Page
  • of
  • 129
Featured Entry Collections
>>

Featured Reprints

>>
Encyclopedia of Digital Society, Industry 5.0 and Smart City
Encyclopedia of Engineering
Encyclopedia of Social Sciences
Encyclopedia of Medieval Royal Iconography
Academic Video Service
Feedback