A Phase II Study of Irinotecan and Etoposide as Treatment for Refractory Metastatic Breast Cancer.

Lessons Learned: The combination of irinotecan and etoposide showed modest efficacy in terms of response rate in the refractory setting for patients with metastatic breast cancer.The studied dose and schedule of irinotecan and etoposide is very toxic, with >70% grade 3 or 4 treatment-related adverse events.

Background: As single agents, both irinotecan and etoposide have documented activity against breast cancer among patients who have received multiple lines of prior chemotherapy.

INPP4B and PTEN Loss Leads to PI-3,4-P2 Accumulation and Inhibition of PI3K in TNBC.

Triple-negative breast cancer [TNBC, lacks expression of estrogen receptor (ER), progesterone receptor (PR), and amplification of HER2/Neu] remains one of the most aggressive subtypes, affects the youngest patients, and still lacks an effective targeted therapy. Both phosphatidylinositol-3-kinase (PI3K)-α and -β contribute to oncogenesis of solid tumors, including the development of breast cancer. Inositol polyphosphate-4-phosphatase type II (INPP4B) catalyzes the removal of the 4'-phosphate of phosphatidylinositol-(3, 4)-bisphosphate (PI-3,4-P2), creating phosphatidylinositol-3-phosphate.

DEAF-1 regulates immunity gene expression in Drosophila.

Immunity genes are activated in the Drosophila fat body by Rel and GATA transcription factors. Here, we present evidence that an additional regulatory factor, deformed epidermal autoregulatory factor-1 (DEAF-1), also contributes to the immune response and is specifically important for the induction of two genes encoding antimicrobial peptides, Metchnikowin (Mtk) and Drosomycin (Drs). The systematic mutagenesis of a minimal Mtk 5' enhancer identified a sequence motif essential for both a response to LPS preparations in S2 cells and activation in the larval fat body in response to bacterial infection.