Relevance of Fc Gamma Receptor Polymorphisms in Cancer Therapy With Monoclonal Antibodies.

Therapeutic monoclonal antibodies (mAbs), including immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs), are an important breakthrough for the treatment of cancer and have dramatically changed clinical outcomes in a wide variety of tumours. However, clinical response varies among patients receiving mAb-based treatment, so it is necessary to search for predictive biomarkers of response to identify the patients who will derive the greatest therapeutic benefit. The interaction of mAbs with Fc gamma receptors (FcγR) expressed by innate immune cells is essential for antibody-dependent cellular cytotoxicity (ADCC) and this binding is often critical for their efficacy.

Therapeutic drug monitoring of nivolumab in routine clinical practice. A pilot study.

Objective: A review of the literature about the anti-programmed death 1 monoclonal antibody nivolumab permits to verify the existence  of several issues still unresolved about their dosing schedule. The aim of the present work was to explore possibilities of nivolumab treatment  personalization through therapeutic drug monitoring, in order to  improve their effectiveness and efficiency.

Method: Observational, prospective study carried out from May 2017  through June 2019 in patients with different tumor diagnoses treated with nivolumab.

A novel genomic signature predicting FDG uptake in diverse metastatic tumors.

Background: Building a universal genomic signature predicting the intensity of FDG uptake in diverse metastatic tumors may allow us to understand better the biological processes underlying this phenomenon and their requirements of glucose uptake.

Methods: A balanced training set (n = 71) of metastatic tumors including some of the most frequent histologies, with matched PET/CT quantification measurements and whole human genome gene expression microarrays, was used to build the signature. Selection of microarray features was carried out exclusively on the basis of their strong association with FDG uptake (as measured by SUVmean35) by means of univariate linear regression.

Cancer Immunotherapy with Cytokine-Induced Killer Cells.

Cytokine-induced killer (CIK) cells form under certain stimulation conditions in cultures of peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs). They are a heterogeneous immune cell population and contain a high percentage of cells with a mixed T-NK phenotype (CD3+CD56+). The ready availability of a lymphocyte source, together with the high proliferative rate and potent anti-tumor activity of CIK cells, has allowed their use as immunotherapy in a wide variety of neoplasms.

Microarray phosphatome profiling of breast cancer patients unveils a complex phosphatase regulatory role of the MAPK and PI3K pathways in estrogen receptor-negative breast cancers.

Phosphatases are proteins with the ability to dephosphorylate different substrates and are involved in critical cellular processes such as proliferation, tumor suppression, motility and survival. Little is known about their role in the different breast cancer (BC) phenotypes. We carried out microarray phosphatome profiling in 41 estrogen receptor-negative (ER-) BC patients, as determined by immunohistochemistry (IHC), containing both ERBB2+ and ERBB2- in order to characterize the differences between these two groups.

Phylogeny and molecular evolution of the tribe Harpalini (Coleoptera, Carabidae) inferred from mitochondrial cytochrome-oxidase I.

The tribe Harpalini is a group of ground beetles with a world-wide distribution that comprises approximately 2000 species and about 238 genera and subgenera. Hypotheses about the phylogenetic relationships of the subtribes of Harpalini are implicit within the systematic criteria put forward by different authors. A 759 bp fragment of the mitochondrial COI was sequenced in 119 specimens (107 species) of 52 genera and subgenera that represent the main lineages of Harpalines, and 3 species of other tribes used as outgroups.