Abscopal Effect in Metastatic Melanoma: Generating Clinical Insights From Radiation-Induced Immune Response.

Despite modern advancements in systemic therapies, melanoma remains a highly malignant cancer, with persistent resistance to therapies such as checkpoint inhibitors and inhibitors of mutated BRAF V600E. Current therapy for targeting metastatic melanoma remains palliative radiation therapy, particularly directly at symptomatic sites. Extraordinarily, few case studies have reported locally targeted radiation resulting in regression of distal non-targeted lesions.

Bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells can differentiate into type II alveolar epithelial cells in vitro.

In this study, we demonstrate that BMSCs (bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells) can be successfully differentiated into type II alveolar epithelial cells in vitro under mimic pulmonary microenvironment. BMSCs were co-cultured with MRC-5 cells in modified SAGM (small airway growth medium). The BMSC-derived type II alveolar epithelial cells morphologically resemble human lung epithelial cells.

Generation of murine hepatic lineage cells from induced pluripotent stem cells.

Induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells can be generated from somatic cells of individuals by retrodifferentiation using defined transcription factors. Similar to embryonic stem (ES) cells, iPS cells can be differentiated into a variety of specific cell types. However, to date, no detailed hepatic differentiation of mouse iPS cells has been reported.

Generation and characterization of functional cardiomyocytes using induced pluripotent stem cells derived from human fibroblasts.

We have successfully developed both spontaneous and inductive cardiomyocyte differentiation of iPS cells reprogrammed from human foreskin fibroblasts. The reprogrammed iPS cells morphologically resemble human cardiomyocytes which can beat. RT-PCR and immunostaining show that cardiac markers are expressed that are comparable to the differentiation pattern of authentic human embryonic stem cells, indicating the existence of both immature and mature differentiated cardiomyocytes.