Publications by authors named "Biffoni M"

Background: Bacterial toxins are emerging as promising hallmarks of colorectal cancer (CRC) pathogenesis. In particular, Cytotoxic Necrotizing Factor 1 (CNF1) from E. coli deserves special consideration due to the significantly higher prevalence of this toxin gene in CRC patients with respect to healthy subjects, and to the numerous tumor-promoting effects that have been ascribed to the toxin in vitro.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Tertiary hyperparathyroidism is characterized by hypercalcemia resulting from autonomous parathyroid hormone production and usually occurs after a prolonged period of secondary hyperparathyroidism. This condition can be a complication of X-linked hypophosphatemia (XLH), a rare genetic disease characterized by renal phosphate loss and consequent hypophosphatemia. Parathyroidectomy is considered the first-line therapy but surgical intervention can be complicated by hungry bone syndrome.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • Papillary thyroid carcinoma (PTC) is the most common type of thyroid cancer, and this study examined the potential of two microRNAs, miR-146a-5p and miR-221-3p, as biomarkers for diagnosing and monitoring PTC.
  • The researchers conducted an observational study with PTC patients and healthy controls, analyzing levels of these microRNAs through digital PCR before and after surgery.
  • Results showed that both microRNAs are effective in differentiating PTC patients from healthy individuals, with specific fold changes indicating disease progression, making them useful for ongoing patient monitoring.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF

The process of drug discovery and pre-clinical testing is currently inefficient, expensive, and time-consuming. Most importantly, the success rate is unsatisfactory, as only a small percentage of tested drugs are made available to oncological patients. This is largely due to the lack of reliable models that accurately predict drug efficacy and safety.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

: Effective pre-surgical planning is crucial for achieving successful outcomes in endocrine surgery: it is essential to provide patients with a personalized plan to minimize operative and postoperative risks. Preoperative lymph node (LN) mapping is a structured high-resolution ultrasonography examination performed in the presence of two endocrinologists and the operating surgeon before intervention to produce a reliable "anatomical guide". Our aim was to propose a preoperative complete model that is non-invasive, avoids overdiagnosis of thyroid microcarcinomas, and reduces medical expenses.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Glioblastoma (GBM) is the most lethal primary brain tumor in adult, characterized by highly aggressive and infiltrative growth. The current therapeutic management of GBM includes surgical resection followed by ionizing radiations and chemotherapy. Complex and dynamic interplay between tumor cells and tumor microenvironment drives the progression and contributes to therapeutic resistance.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Hypercalcitoninaemia has been described in patients with pseudohypoparathyroidism (PHP) type 1A and 1B. Elevated calcitonin levels are thought to result from impaired Gsα receptor signaling, leading to multiple hormone resistance. Evidence on the risk of medullary thyroid carcinoma (MTC) or C-cell hyperplasia in PHP patients with hypercalcitoninaemia is lacking.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Metastatic melanoma poses significant challenges as a highly lethal disease. Despite the success of molecular targeting using BRAF inhibitors (BRAFis) and immunotherapy, the emergence of early recurrence remains an issue and there is the need for novel therapeutic approaches. This study aimed at creating a targeted delivery system for the oncosuppressor microRNA 126 (miR126) and testing its effectiveness in combination with a phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase (PI3K)/ protein kinase B (AKT) inhibitor for treating metastatic melanoma resistant to BRAFis.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Glioblastoma, isocitrate dehydrogenase-wildtype (GB), is the most common and aggressive primary brain malignancy with poor outcome. Immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) have been tested in GB and, despite disappointing results, the identification of a small subgroup of responders underlies the need to improve our understanding of the tumour microenvironment (TME) immunity. This study aimed to determine whether the expression of selected immune checkpoints on tissue-resident memory T cells (Trm) may predict patient outcome.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Cystic fibrosis (CF) is caused by defects of the cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance regulator (CFTR) gene. CFTR-modulating drugs may overcome specific defects, such as the case of Trikafta, which is a clinically approved triple combination of Elexacaftor, Tezacaftor and Ivacaftor (ETI) that exhibited a strong ability to rescue the function of the most frequent F508del pathogenic variant even in genotypes with the mutated allele in single copy. Nevertheless, most rare genotypes lacking the F508del allele are still not eligible for targeted therapies.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Incidental sonographic discovery of thyroid nodules is an increasingly common event in clinical practice. Less frequently, patients with cytological benign thyroid nodules have suspicious cervical lymph nodes detected by ultrasound examination or by cytological exam. Here, we discuss an intriguing case of cervical lymph node metastasis with a probable thyroid origin in a 65-year-old asymptomatic male smoker.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Apoptosis is a tightly controlled cell death program executed by proteases, the so-called caspases. It plays an important role in tissue homeostasis and is often dysregulated in cancer. Here, we identified FYCO1, a protein that promotes microtubule plus end-directed transport of autophagic and endosomal vesicles as a molecular interaction partner of activated CASP8 (caspase 8).

View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • The study evaluated whether the size of thyroid nodules can predict malignancy as effectively as other factors like composition, echogenicity, and shape, in line with ACR guidelines for fine-needle aspiration biopsy (FNAB).
  • Conducted on 86 patients, the research involved categorizing nodules based on size and calculating diagnostic metrics like sensitivity, specificity, and predictive values across different sub-classes.
  • Findings indicated no significant difference in the prediction of malignancy based on size categories, suggesting that the importance of size may not be as clear-cut as the ACR guidelines imply in standardized thyroid assessments.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF

The evolution of emerging technologies that use Radio Frequency Electromagnetic Field (RF-EMF) has increased the interest of the scientific community and society regarding the possible adverse effects on human health and the environment. This article provides NextGEM's vision to assure safety for EU citizens when employing existing and future EMF-based telecommunication technologies. This is accomplished by generating relevant knowledge that ascertains appropriate prevention and control/actuation actions regarding RF-EMF exposure in residential, public, and occupational settings.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Despite recent improvements in therapy, the five-year survival rate for patients with advanced melanoma is poor, mainly due to the development of drug resistance. The aim of the present study was to investigate the mechanisms underlying this phenomenon, applying proteomics and structural approaches to models of melanoma cells.

Methods: Sublines from two human (A375 and SK-MEL-28) cells with acquired vemurafenib resistance were established, and their proteomic profiles when exposed to denaturation were identified through LC-MS/MS analysis.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

The actual rates of suspicious thyroid nodules (TNs) and confirmed thyroid cancer (TC) in putatively "at-risk" selected populations (e.g., individuals with family history of TC) are still uncertain.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Cancer stem cells (CSCs) are a subpopulation of cancer cells endowed with high tumorigenic, chemoresistant and metastatic potential. Nongenetic mechanisms of acquired resistance are increasingly being discovered, but molecular insights into the evolutionary process of CSCs are limited. Here, we show that type I interferons (IFNs-I) function as molecular hubs of resistance during immunogenic chemotherapy, triggering the epigenetic regulator demethylase 1B (KDM1B) to promote an adaptive, yet reversible, transcriptional rewiring of cancer cells towards stemness and immune escape.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

MiR-378a-3p plays a critical role in carcinogenesis acting as a tumor suppressor, promoting apoptosis and cell cycle arrest and reducing invasion and drug resistance in several human cancers, including colorectal cancer (CRC), where its expression is significantly associated with histological classification and prognosis. In this study, we investigated the biological and cellular processes affected by miR-378a-3p in the context of CRC carcinogenesis. In agreement with the literature, miR-378a-3p is downregulated in our cohort of CRC patients as well as, in 15 patient-derived colorectal cancer stem-like cell (CRC-SC) lines and 8 CRC cell lines, compared to normal mucosae.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Metastasis to the thyroid gland is a rare event. To date, only 11 cases of metastasis from neuroendocrine tumors (NETs) originating in the lung have been reported. We present a case of a patient in his 40s harboring two nodules in the thyroid gland that were diagnosed as well-differentiated NET (G1).

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Circulating tumor cells (CTCs) are responsible for the metastatic dissemination of colorectal cancer (CRC) to the liver, lungs and lymph nodes. CTCs rarity and heterogeneity strongly limit the elucidation of their biological features, as well as preclinical drug sensitivity studies aimed at metastasis prevention.

Methods: We generated organoids from CTCs isolated from an orthotopic CRC xenograft model.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • Family history of thyroid cancer is linked to a higher risk of extrathyroidal extension (ETE) and multifocality in thyroid malignancies, prompting some experts to recommend more aggressive surgical techniques.* -
  • This study aimed to determine if neck ultrasonography could effectively identify or rule out multifocality and ETE in patients with a first-degree relative who had thyroid cancer.* -
  • Results showed that while ultrasonography has some predictive value for multifocality and ETE, it is not reliable enough to exclude these features before surgery, suggesting that negative ultrasound findings do not guarantee the absence of these complications.*
View Article and Find Full Text PDF