Publications by authors named "Anna L Koessinger"
Glomerular disease due to podocyte malfunction is a major factor in the pathogenesis of chronic kidney disease. Identification of podocyte-specific signaling pathways is therefore a prerequisite to characterizing relevant disease pathways and developing novel treatment approaches. Here, we employed loss of function studies for () as a central podocyte gene to generate a cell type-specific disease model.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFGlioblastoma (GBM) is the most prevalent malignant primary brain tumour in adults. GBM typically has a poor prognosis, mainly due to a lack of effective treatment options leading to tumour persistence or recurrence. We investigated the therapeutic potential of targeting anti-apoptotic BCL-2 proteins in GBM.
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- Apoptosis is when damaged cells die, but some of these dying cells help nearby healthy cells survive by sending signals.* -
- They release a special growth factor called FGF2, which helps the nearby cells create protective proteins called BCL-2 that keep them alive.* -
- In certain cancers, this signal can make the cancer worse, but it also plays a part in how our skin heals after it gets hurt.*
Article Synopsis
- Little progress in glioblastoma therapy is attributed to inadequate preclinical in vivo models, leading to the use of primary patient-derived cell lines that maintain stem-like characteristics.
- Due to the heterogeneous nature of glioblastoma, larger experimental groups are often needed for studies using these primary cells, making imaging techniques essential for monitoring tumor growth.
- The study demonstrates that equipping patient-derived glioblastoma cells with a near-infrared fluorescent protein (iRFP) allows for effective, non-invasive monitoring of tumor development, enhancing quantitative evaluation of tumor burden without introducing variability from agents like luciferin.
Purpose: The incidence of mesothelioma continues to rise and prognosis remains dismal owing to resistance to conventional therapies and few novel treatment options. Failure to activate apoptotic cell death is a resistance mechanism that may be overcome by inhibition of antiapoptotic Bcl-2 proteins using BH3-mimetic drugs. We investigated the role of antiapoptotic proteins in the radioresistance of mesothelioma, identifying clinically relevant targets for radiosensitization and evaluating the activity of BH3-mimetics alone and in combination with radiation therapy in preclinical models.
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