NANOG Dominates Interleukin-6-Induced Sphere Formation in Prostate Cancer.

Objective: Identifying the dynamics of prostate tumor aggressiveness is essential to find new therapeutics for the treatment. Cancer stem cells contribute to cancer progression by promoting tumor growth and metastasis, resisting treatment, and evading the immune system. Interleukin 6 (IL-6) is a pleiotropic cytokine that functions in inflammation, immune response, etc.

Impact of silencing eEF2K expression on the malignant properties of chordoma.

Background: Eukaryotic elongation factor 2 kinase (eukaryotic elongation factor 2 kinase, eEF2K) is a calcium calmodulin dependent protein kinase that keeps the highest energy consuming cellular process of protein synthesis under check through negative regulation. eEF2K pauses global protein synthesis rates at the translational elongation step by phosphorylating its only kown substrate elongation factor 2 (eEF2), a unique translocase activity in ekaryotic cells enabling the polypeptide chain elongation. Therefore, eEF2K is thought to preserve cellular energy pools particularly upon acute development of cellular stress conditions such as nutrient deprivation, hypoxia, or infections.

E-cadherin might be a stage-dependent modulator in aggressiveness in pancreatic cancer cells.

Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) pathology is known for its uncontrollable progress due to highly invasive characteristics and refractory behavior against existing chemotherapies. The aberrant expression of CDH1 (expresses the protein E-cadherin) is associated with increased overall survival in various cancers, however, E-cadherin expression in PDAC progression has remained elusive. We investigated the impact of exogenously elevated E-cadherin levels on the tumorigenicity of transduced low grade and metastatic PDAC cell lines, Panc-1 and AsPC-1, respectively.

Targeting Cancer Metabolism and Cell Cycle by Plant-Derived Compounds.

Cancer has an increasing death rate over the world population without discriminating between the industrial and developing countries. Complexity of cancer such as ability of cancer cells to develop resistance to drugs or differential behavior of sub-types and different responses from the patients indicate the continuous need for research and development of new anticancer drugs, new formulations of drug combinations and treatment strategies. Not too surprisingly nature itself, is often the largest territorial reservoir as a source for this type of research and development.