Breast cancer immunotherapy: Realities and advances.

Breast cancer (BC) is the most common malignant tumor and the main cause of death in women worldwide. With increased knowledge regarding tumor escape mechanisms and advances in immunology, many new antitumor strategies such as nonspecific immunotherapies, monoclonal antibodies, anticancer vaccines, and oncolytic viruses, among others, make immunotherapy a promising approach for the treatment of BC. However, these approaches still require meticulous assessment and readjustment as resistance and modest response rates remain important barriers.

Evaluation of a ConvitVax/anti-PD-1 combined immunotherapy for breast cancer treatment.

Breast cancer therapies using checkpoints alone have not been highly effective. Based on previous experiences using the ConvitVax, an autologous tumor cells/bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG)/formalin-based vaccine, in breast cancer and the potential success of combined therapies, we sought to ascertain whether the ConvitVax combined with anti-PD-1 enhances the antitumor effect in a 4T1 breast cancer model. Animals received four weekly injections of either PBS (G1), ConvitVax (200 μg cell homogenate, 0.

Extracellular Application of CRMP2 Increases Cytoplasmic Calcium through NMDA Receptors.

Collapsin Response Mediator Protein 2 (CRMP2) is an intracellular protein involved in axon and dendrite growth and specification. In this study, CRMP2 was identified in a conditioned media derived from degenerated sciatic nerves (CM). On cultured rat hippocampal neurons, acute extracellular application of CM or partially purified recombinant CRMP2 produced an increase in cytoplasmic calcium.

Implantation of Miniosmotic Pumps and Delivery of Tract Tracers to Study Brain Reorganization in Pathophysiological Conditions.

Pharmacological treatment in animal models of cerebral disease imposes the problem of repeated injection protocols that may induce stress in animals and result in impermanent tissue levels of the drug. Additionally, drug delivery to the brain is delicate due to the blood brain barrier (BBB), thus significantly reducing intracerebral concentrations of selective drugs after systemic administration. Therefore, a system that allows both constant drug delivery without peak levels and circumvention of the BBB is in order to achieve sufficiently high intracerebral concentrations of drugs that are impermeable to the BBB.