Proteinaceous Regulators and Inhibitors of Protein Tyrosine Phosphatases.

Proper control of the phosphotyrosine content in signal transduction proteins is essential for normal cell behavior and is lost in many pathologies. Attempts to normalize aberrant tyrosine phosphorylation levels in disease states currently involve either the application of small compounds that inhibit tyrosine kinases (TKs) or the addition of growth factors or their mimetics to boost receptor-type TK activity. Therapies that target the TK enzymatic counterparts, the multi-enzyme family of protein tyrosine phosphatases (PTPs), are still lacking despite their undisputed involvement in human diseases.

Comprehensive protein tyrosine phosphatase mRNA profiling identifies new regulators in the progression of glioma.

The infiltrative behavior of diffuse gliomas severely reduces therapeutic potential of surgical resection and radiotherapy, and urges for the identification of new drug-targets affecting glioma growth and migration. To address the potential role of protein tyrosine phosphatases (PTPs), we performed mRNA expression profiling for 91 of the 109 known human PTP genes on a series of clinical diffuse glioma samples of different grades and compared our findings with in silico knowledge from REMBRANDT and TCGA databases. Overall PTP family expression levels appeared independent of characteristic genetic aberrations associated with lower grade or high grade gliomas.

Intracellular and extracellular domains of protein tyrosine phosphatase PTPRZ-B differentially regulate glioma cell growth and motility.

Gliomas are primary brain tumors for which surgical resection and radiotherapy is difficult because of the diffuse infiltrative growth of the tumor into the brain parenchyma. For development of alternative, drug-based, therapies more insight in the molecular processes that steer this typical growth and morphodynamic behavior of glioma cells is needed. Protein tyrosine phosphatase PTPRZ-B is a transmembrane signaling molecule that is found to be strongly up-regulated in glioma specimens.

Effects of dual targeting of tumor cells and stroma in human glioblastoma xenografts with a tyrosine kinase inhibitor against c-MET and VEGFR2.

Anti-angiogenic treatment of glioblastoma with Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor (VEGF)- or VEGF Receptor 2 (VEGFR2) inhibitors normalizes tumor vessels, resulting in a profound radiologic response and improved quality of life. This approach however does not halt tumor progression by diffuse infiltration, as this phenotype is less angiogenesis dependent. Combined inhibition of angiogenesis and diffuse infiltrative growth would therefore be a more effective treatment approach in these tumors.

Modifiers of mutant huntingtin aggregation: functional conservation of C. elegans-modifiers of polyglutamine aggregation.

Protein aggregation is a common hallmark of a number of age-related neurodegenerative diseases, including Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, and polyglutamine-expansion disorders such as Huntington's disease, but how aggregation-prone proteins lead to pathology is not known. Using a genome-wide RNAi screen in a C. elegans-model for polyglutamine aggregation, we previously identified 186 genes that suppress aggregation.