Publications by authors named "K Burkhard"

Article Synopsis
  • Tissue transglutaminase 2 (TGM2) and matrix metalloproteinase 7 (MMP7) play critical roles in colon cancer development, influencing epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT), which is crucial for cancer cell invasion and migration.
  • This study shows that overexpressing TGM2 enhances MMP7 activity, promoting invasive behaviors of colon cancer cells, while knocking down TGM2 has the opposite effect.
  • The research suggests that targeting TGM2 may provide a new therapeutic approach to hinder the progression of colon cancer by affecting the MEK/ERK signaling pathway and EMT processes.
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Nanoparticle drug delivery has been promoted as an effective mode of delivering antineoplastic therapeutics. However, most nanoparticle designs fail to consider the multifaceted tumor microenvironment (TME) that produce pro-tumoral niches, which are often resistant to chemo- and targeted therapies. In order to target the chemoresistant cancer stem-like cells (CSCs) and their supportive TME, in this chapter we describe a nanoparticle-based targeted co-delivery that addresses the paracrine interactions between CSC and non-cancerous mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) in the TME.

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Cancer stem-like cells (CSC) are a major contributing factor to chemoresistance, tumor recurrence, and poor survival outcomes in patients across cancer types. Signaling from non-tumor cells in the tumor microenvironment (TME) enriches for and supports CSC. This complex cell-cell signaling in the heterogeneous TME presents a challenge for patient survival; however, it also presents an opportunity to develop new targeted therapies that can inhibit survival of CSC.

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Introduction: Multiple cardiovascular conditions can lead to unexpected fatality, which is defined as sudden cardiac death. One of these potentially underlying conditions is aortic regurgitation, which can be caused by discrete changes of the geometry of the proximal aorta. To analyze aortic valve competency and furthermore to elucidate underlying pathological alterations of the coronary arteries and the vasa vasorum a perfusion method to simulate a diastolic state was designed.

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