Exacerbation of myasthenia gravis in a patient with melanoma treated with pembrolizumab.

Introduction: While anticancer immunotherapies have traditionally focused on activation of the immune system, there is recent interest in disinhibition of the natural antitumor immune response by targeting immune checkpoints such as cytotoxic T-lymphocyte associated antigen-4 (CTLA-4) and programmed death-1 (PD-1). One humanized monoclonal antibody against PD-1, pembrolizumab, was recently approved for treatment of metastatic malignant melanoma.

Methods: We report exacerbation of myasthenia gravis (MG) after treatment with pembrolizumab and provide a brief literature review.

Homocysteine-impaired angiogenesis is associated with VEGF/VEGFR inhibition.

This study investigated the effects of homocysteine (Hcy) on angiogenesis in cultured human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVEC) and zebrafish embryos. We found that Hcy (50 micromol/L) significantly decreased cell numbers, viability, and induced a G1/S arrest in HUVEC in the presence of adenosine (Ade, 50 micromol/L). Hcy, in combination with Ade, reduced migration and suppressed tube-like formation on Matrigel in HUVEC.

Defining the pathogenesis of inflammatory and immune diseases through database mining.

Recent research in human and animal genomes, transcriptomes, proteomes, and antigen-omes has generated a large library of data and has led to the establishment of many experimental data-based searchable databases. Scientists now face new, unprecedented challenges to develop more systemic methods to analyze experimental data and generate new hypotheses. This review will briefly summarize our pioneering efforts in using new database mining methods to answer important questions in inflammatory and immune-related diseases.