Activation of liver X receptors inhibits hedgehog signaling, clonogenic growth, and self-renewal in multiple myeloma.

The Hedgehog (Hh) signaling pathway is aberrantly activated in a wide variety of human cancers, and recent clinical studies have demonstrated that pathway inhibitors are effective in advanced basal cell carcinoma (BCC). The majority of these agents have been designed to target SMOOTHENED (SMO), a transmembrane regulator of Hh signaling, but subsequent mutations in SMO have been found to generate drug resistance. In other cancers, oncogenic events that bypass SMO may activate canonical Hh signaling, and SMO antagonists have not demonstrated significant activity in several diseases.

Nucleofection induces non-specific changes in the metabolic activity of transfected cells.

Transfection has become an everyday technique widely used for functional studies in living cells. The choice of the particular transfection method is usually determined by its efficiency and toxicity, and possible functional consequences specific to the method used are normally overlooked. We describe here that nucleofection, a method increasingly used because of its convenience and high efficiency, increases the metabolic rate of some cancer cells, which can be misleading when used as a measure of proliferation.

Multiple myeloma: a paradigm for translation of the cancer stem cell hypothesis.

Despite recent advances in drug development, multiple myeloma (MM) remains incurable for the majority of patients due to relapse and disease progression. The cancer stem cell (CSC) hypothesis may provide an explanation for these clinical findings. It suggests that the long-term proliferative potential responsible for disease initiation, maintenance, and relapse is contained within specific subpopulations of biologically distinct tumor cells.

The potassium channel Ether à go-go is a novel prognostic factor with functional relevance in acute myeloid leukemia.

Background: The voltage-gated potassium channel hEag1 (KV10.1) has been related to cancer biology. The physiological expression of the human channel is restricted to the brain but it is frequently and abundantly expressed in many solid tumors, thereby making it a promising target for a specific diagnosis and therapy.