Publications by authors named "Maria Pinzon-Ortiz"

Article Synopsis
  • - The text discusses the presence of glycosylphosphatidylinositol (GPI) anchors on proteins in Plasmodium species, particularly focusing on the circumsporozoite protein (CSP), which is vital for the malaria parasite's infective stage.
  • - While CSP has been presumed to have a GPI anchor, this research provides biochemical evidence to confirm this assumption through methods like metabolic labeling and mass spectrometry.
  • - Specific tests including the presence of myo-inositol, a key component of GPI, solidify the conclusion that CSP is indeed GPI-anchored, reinforcing its significance in malaria biology.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • GPI anchor proteins are a major form of glycosylation in certain species and were primarily studied in the asexual blood stage of the malaria parasite.
  • The circumsporozoite protein (CSP), crucial for sporozoite infectivity, was investigated to confirm whether it has a GPI anchor, which was previously assumed but not definitively proven.
  • Metabolic labeling and mass-spectrometry techniques provided strong evidence supporting the presence of a GPI anchor on CSP, confirming its important role in the malaria parasite's structure.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Purpose: The JAK1/2 inhibitor ruxolitinib has demonstrated significant benefits for patients with myeloproliferative neoplasms (MPN). However, patients often lose response to ruxolitinib or suffer disease progression despite therapy with ruxolitinib. These observations have prompted efforts to devise treatment strategies to improve therapeutic efficacy in combination with ruxolitinib therapy.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Resistance to oncogene-targeted therapies involves discrete drug-tolerant persister cells, originally discovered through in vitro assays. Whether a similar phenomenon limits efficacy of programmed cell death 1 (PD-1) blockade is poorly understood. Here, we performed dynamic single-cell RNA-Seq of murine organotypic tumor spheroids undergoing PD-1 blockade, identifying a discrete subpopulation of immunotherapy persister cells (IPCs) that resisted CD8+ T cell-mediated killing.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Inhibition of cyclin-dependent kinases 4 and 6 (CDK4/6) is associated with robust antitumor activity. Ribociclib (LEE011) is an orally bioavailable CDK4/6 inhibitor that is approved for the treatment of hormone receptor-positive, human epidermal growth factor receptor 2-negative advanced breast cancer, in combination with an aromatase inhibitor, and is currently being evaluated in several additional trials. Here, we report the preclinical profile of ribociclib.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: The JAK-STAT pathway is an important signaling pathway downstream of multiple cytokine and growth factor receptors. Dysregulated JAK-STAT signaling has been implicated in the pathogenesis of multiple human malignancies.

Objective: Given this pivotal role of JAK-STAT dysregulation, it is important to identify patients with an overactive JAK-STAT pathway for possible treatment with JAK inhibitors.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Activation of the phosphoinositide 3-kinase (PI3K) pathway occurs frequently in breast cancer. However, clinical results of single-agent PI3K inhibitors have been modest to date. A combinatorial drug screen on multiple PIK3CA mutant cancers with decreased sensitivity to PI3K inhibitors revealed that combined CDK 4/6-PI3K inhibition synergistically reduces cell viability.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

The mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR) is regulated by oncogenic growth factor signals and plays a pivotal role in controlling cellular metabolism, growth and survival. Everolimus (RAD001) is an allosteric mTOR inhibitor that has shown marked efficacy in certain cancers but is unable to completely inhibit mTOR activity. ATP-competitive mTOR inhibitors such as NVP-BEZ235 can block rapamycin-insensitive mTOR readouts and have entered clinical development as anti-cancer agents.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Localized angiopoietin-2 (Ang2) expression has been shown to function as a key regulator of blood vessel remodeling and tumor angiogenesis, making it an attractive candidate for antiangiogenic therapy. A fully human monoclonal antibody (3.19.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Neuromedin U (Nmu) is a neuropeptide expressed primarily in the gastrointestinal tract and central nervous system. Previous reports have identified two G protein-coupled receptors (designated Nmur1 and Nmur2) that bind Nmu. Recent reports suggest that Nmu mediates immune responses involving mast cells, and Nmur1 has been proposed to mediate these responses.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Inhibition of gamma-secretase, one of the enzymes responsible for the cleavage of the amyloid precursor protein (APP) to produce the pathogenic beta-amyloid (Abeta) peptides, is an attractive approach to the treatment of Alzheimer disease. In addition to APP, however, several other gamma-secretase substrates have been identified (e.g.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

A PHP Error was encountered

Severity: Warning

Message: fopen(/var/lib/php/sessions/ci_sessionfd9cg0s93uatqms8ncg11qfb3rgpthrh): Failed to open stream: No space left on device

Filename: drivers/Session_files_driver.php

Line Number: 177

Backtrace:

File: /var/www/html/index.php
Line: 316
Function: require_once

A PHP Error was encountered

Severity: Warning

Message: session_start(): Failed to read session data: user (path: /var/lib/php/sessions)

Filename: Session/Session.php

Line Number: 137

Backtrace:

File: /var/www/html/index.php
Line: 316
Function: require_once