Oral L-histidine exerts antihypertensive effects via central histamine H3 receptors and decreases nitric oxide content in the rostral ventrolateral medulla in spontaneously hypertensive rats.

1. L-histidine is generally found in meat, poultry and fish. To investigate its effects on blood pressure, L-histidine was administered to 9-week-old spontaneously hypertensive rats (SHR).

Clonal diversity of cytotoxic T lymphocytes that recognize autologous oral squamous cell carcinoma.

Cytotoxic T lymphocytes (CTLs) play an essential role in immunologic responses for tumor rejection. In the past decade, various melanoma tumor-associated antigens (TAAs) have been identified, and several clinical trials of vaccination immunotherapy and adoptive immunotherapy using such antigens with or without adjuvants have had fascinating results. However, this has not been the case with oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) because of the difficulty of establishing oral cancer cell lines and CTLs against autologous oral cancer cells.

Expression of livin in renal cell carcinoma and detection of anti-livin autoantibody in patients.

Objectives: To assess the expression of livin, a member of the inhibitor of apoptosis protein family, in renal cell carcinoma (RCC) and to determine its prognostic relevance.

Methods: Immunohistochemical staining for livin was performed using paraffin-embedded tissues from 45 cases of RCC. Then we assessed anti-livin antibodies (Abs) in patient sera by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay and Western blotting.

A potent immunogenic general cancer vaccine that targets survivin, an inhibitor of apoptosis proteins.

We reported previously a HLA-A24-restricted antigenic peptide, survivin-2B80-88 (AYACNTSTL), recognized by CD8(+) CTL. This peptide was derived from survivin protein, an inhibitor of apoptosis proteins, expressed in a variety of tumors, such as adenocarcinoma, squamous cell carcinoma, and malignant melanoma. In this report, we provide further evidence that survivin-2B80-88 peptide might serve as a potent immunogenic cancer vaccine for various cancer patients.

Aberrant expression and potency as a cancer immunotherapy target of inhibitor of apoptosis protein family, Livin/ML-IAP in lung cancer.

CD8(+) CTLs have an essential role in immune response against tumor. Although an increasing number of tumor-associated antigens that can be recognized by CTLs have been identified from human tumors, a limited number of tumor-associated antigens is known in lung cancer. In addition, because some of them are expressed in noncancerous tissues, there exist limitations in their application to tumor immunotherapy.