Intercellular crosstalk in human malignant melanoma.

Incidence of malignant melanoma is increasing globally. While the initial stages of tumors can be easily treated by a simple surgery, the therapy of advanced stages is rather limited. Melanoma cells spread rapidly through the body of a patient to form multiple metastases.

Functional differences between neonatal and adult fibroblasts and keratinocytes: Donor age affects epithelial-mesenchymal crosstalk in vitro.

Clinical evidence suggests that healing is faster and almost scarless at an early neonatal age in comparison with that in adults. In this study, the phenotypes of neonatal and adult dermal fibroblasts and keratinocytes (nestin, smooth muscle actin, keratin types 8, 14 and 19, and fibronectin) were compared. Furthermore, functional assays (proliferation, migration, scratch wound closure) including mutual epithelial‑mesenchymal interactions were also performed to complete the series of experiments.

Melanoma cells influence the differentiation pattern of human epidermal keratinocytes.

Background: Nodular melanoma is one of the most life threatening tumors with still poor therapeutic outcome. Similarly to other tumors, permissive microenvironment is essential for melanoma progression. Features of this microenvironment are arising from molecular crosstalk between the melanoma cells (MC) and the surrounding cell populations in the context of skin tissue.

Erbb2 is required for cardiac atrial electrical activity during development.

The heart is the first organ required to function during embryonic development and is absolutely necessary for embryo survival. Cardiac activity is dependent on both the sinoatrial node (SAN), which is the pacemaker of heart's electrical activity, and the cardiac conduction system which transduces the electrical signal though the heart tissue, leading to heart muscle contractions. Defects in the development of cardiac electrical function may lead to severe heart disorders.

The role of connexin40 in developing atrial conduction.

Connexin40 (Cx40) is the main connexin expressed in the murine atria and ventricular conduction system. We assess here the developmental role of Cx40 in atrial conduction of the mouse. Cx40 deficiency significantly prolonged activation times in embryonic day 10.

Cultivation-dependent plasticity of melanoma phenotype.

Malignant melanoma is a highly aggressive tumor with increasing incidence and high mortality. The importance of immunohistochemistry in diagnosis of the primary tumor and in early identification of metastases in lymphatic nodes is enormous; however melanoma phenotype is frequently variable and thus several markers must be employed simultaneously. The purposes of this study are to describe changes of phenotype of malignant melanoma in vitro and in vivo and to investigate whether changes of environmental factors mimicking natural conditions affect the phenotype of melanoma cells and can revert the typical in vitro loss of diagnostic markers.

The effect of connexin40 deficiency on ventricular conduction system function during development.

Aims: The aim of this study was to characterize ventricular activation patterns in normal and connexin40-deficient mice in order to dissect the role of connexin40 in developing the conduction system.

Methods And Results: We performed optical mapping of epicardial activation between ED9.5-18.

Somitic origin of the medial border of the mammalian scapula and its homology to the avian scapula blade.

The scapula is the main skeletal element of the pectoral girdle allowing muscular fixation of the forelimb to the axial skeleton. The vertebrate limb skeleton has traditionally been considered to develop from the lateral plate mesoderm, whereas the musculature originates from the axial somites. However, in birds, the scapular blade has been shown to develop from the somites.

[Cancer microenvironment affects biological properties of tumor cells--tumor as an embryologic problem?].

Mutual epithelial-mesenchymal interaction represents a fundamental control mechanism during the development of organs and tissues. This review article demonstrates the importance of such interaction for tumor formation where it influences the biological properties of cancer stem cell and tumor itself. The teratoma and melanoma are employed as examples to demonstrate the influence of embryonic microenvironment on the biological properties of tumor, mainly on its potential to metastasize.

Rat hd mutation reveals an essential role of centrobin in spermatid head shaping and assembly of the head-tail coupling apparatus.

The hypodactylous (hd) locus impairs limb development and spermatogenesis, leading to male infertility in rats. We show that the hd mutation is caused by an insertion of an endogenous retrovirus into intron 10 of the Cntrob gene. The retroviral insertion in hd mutant rats disrupts the normal splicing of Cntrob transcripts and results in the expression of a truncated protein.

Deletion of a conserved noncoding sequence in Plzf intron leads to Plzf down-regulation in limb bud and polydactyly in the rat.

Lx mutation in SHR.Lx rat manifests in homozygotes as hindlimb preaxial polydactyly. It was previously mapped to a chromosome 8 segment containing the Plzf gene.