Anticancer Activity, Mechanism, and Delivery of Allyl Isothiocyanate.

Allyl isothiocyanate (AITC) is a phytochemical that is abundantly present in cruciferous vegetables of the family, such as cabbage, broccoli, mustard, wasabi, and cauliflower. The pungent taste of these vegetables is mainly due to the content of AITC present in these vegetables. AITC is stored stably in the plant as its precursor sinigrin (a type of glucosinolate), which is physically separated from myrosin cells containing myrosinase.

Eradication of Myrosinase-Tethered Cancer Cells by Allyl Isothiocyanate Derived from Enzymatic Hydrolysis of Sinigrin.

Sinigrin is present in significant amounts in cruciferous vegetables. Epidemiological studies suggest that the consumption of such vegetables decreases the risk of cancer, and the effect is attributed mainly to allyl isothiocyanate (AITC), a hydrolysis product of sinigrin catalyzed by myrosinase. Anticancer activity of AITC has been previously investigated for several cancer models, but less attention was paid to delivering AITC on the target site.

Less phagocytosis of viral vectors by tethering with CD47 ectodomain.

Many viral vectors, which are effective when administrated , lack efficacy when delivered intravenously. The key reason for this is the rapid clearance of the viruses from the blood circulation the immune system before they reach target sites. Therefore, avoiding their clearance by the immune system is essential.

Mesenchymal stem cells anchored with thymidine phosphorylase for doxifluridine-mediated cancer therapy.

Many tumors express thymidine phosphorylase (TYMP) with various levels, however due to tumor heterogeneity, the amount of TYMP is usually not enough to convert prodrug doxifluridine (5'-DFUR) to toxic drug 5-fluorouracil (5-FU). Since human mesenchymal stem cells (hMSCs) have unique features of tumor-tropism and low immunogenicity, the purpose of this study is to use mesenchymal stem cells as carriers to deliver TYMP to cancer cells and then trigger their death by administrating doxifluridine. First, the TYMP gene sequence and core streptavidin (core SA) were constructed into pET-30a(+) plasmid.

Efficient Expression of Soluble Recombinant Protein Fused with Core-Streptavidin in Bacterial Strain with T7 Expression System.

The limited amount of fusion protein transported into cytosol milieu has made it challenging to obtain a sufficient amount for further applications. To avoid the laborious and expensive task, T7 promoter-driving pET-30a(+) coding for chimeric gene of thymidine phosphorylase and core streptavidin as a model system was constructed and transformed into a variety of strains with T7 expression system. Our results demonstrated that the pET-30a(+)-TP-coreSA/Lemo21(DE3) system is able to provide efficient expression of soluble TP-coreSA fusion protein for purification.