Macrophages and platelets in liver fibrosis and hepatocellular carcinoma.

During fibrosis, (myo)fibroblasts deposit large amounts of extracellular matrix proteins, thereby replacing healthy functional tissue. In liver fibrosis, this leads to the loss of hepatocyte function, portal hypertension, variceal bleeding, and increased susceptibility to infection. At an early stage, liver fibrosis is a dynamic and reversible process, however, from the cirrhotic stage, there is significant progression to hepatocellular carcinoma.

A PCR protocol to establish standards for routine mycoplasma testing that by design detects over ninety percent of all known mycoplasma species.

Mycoplasma infection leads to false and non-reproducible scientific data and poses a risk to human health. Despite strict guidelines calling for regular mycoplasma screening, there is no universal and widely established standard procedure. Here, we describe a reliable and cost-effective PCR method that establishes a universal protocol for mycoplasma testing.

Definitive evidence for Club cells as progenitors for mutant Kras/Trp53-deficient lung cancer.

Accumulating evidence suggests that both the nature of oncogenic lesions and the cell-of-origin can strongly influence cancer histopathology, tumor aggressiveness and response to therapy. Although oncogenic Kras expression and loss of Trp53 tumor suppressor gene function have been demonstrated to initiate murine lung adenocarcinomas (LUADs) in alveolar type II (AT2) cells, clear evidence that Club cells, representing the second major subset of lung epithelial cells, can also act as cells-of-origin for LUAD is lacking. Equally, the exact anatomic location of Club cells that are susceptible to Kras transformation and the resulting tumor histotype remains to be established.

Nano-Enhanced Cancer Immunotherapy: Immunology Encounters Nanotechnology.

Cancer immunotherapy utilizes the immune system to fight cancer and has already moved from the laboratory to clinical application. However, and despite excellent therapeutic outcomes in some hematological and solid cancers, the regular clinical use of cancer immunotherapies reveals major limitations. These include the lack of effective immune therapy options for some cancer types, unresponsiveness to treatment by many patients, evolving therapy resistance, the inaccessible and immunosuppressive nature of the tumor microenvironment (TME), and the risk of potentially life-threatening immune toxicities.