Protocol for long-term treatment of lowly aggressive cancer cell lines with low concentrations of anti-tumor drugs.

The understanding of anti-tumor drug effects requires specific experimental settings which model clinical scenarios. We describe a protocol for 10-day treatment of lowly aggressive tumor cell lines with antineoplastic agents at concentrations which do not affect cell growth. We describe steps for seeding cells and treating cells with anti-tumor drugs.

Specific cellular microenvironments for spatiotemporal regulation of StAR and steroid synthesis.

For many years, research in the field of steroid synthesis has aimed to understand the regulation of the rate-limiting step of steroid synthesis, i.e. the transport of cholesterol from the outer to the inner mitochondrial membrane, and identify the protein involved in the conversion of cholesterol into pregnenolone.

New insights into signal transduction pathways in adrenal steroidogenesis: role of mitochondrial fusion, lipid mediators, and MAPK phosphatases.

Hormone-receptor signal transduction has been extensively studied in adrenal gland. and cells are responsible for glucocorticoid and mineralocorticoid synthesis by adrenocorticotropin (ACTH) and angiotensin II (Ang II) stimulation, respectively. Since the rate-limiting step in steroidogenesis occurs in the mitochondria, these organelles are key players in the process.

Acyl-CoA synthetase-4 is implicated in drug resistance in breast cancer cell lines involving the regulation of energy-dependent transporter expression.

Acyl-CoA synthetase-4 (ACSL4) is an enzyme implicated in estrogen receptor α (ERα) negative regulation and hormone therapy resistance in breast cancer. In addition, ACSL4 has been associated to certain types of hormone resistance in prostate cancer. Chemotherapeutic treatment of disseminated breast cancer is usually faced with therapy resistance associated to ATP-binding cassette (ABC) transporter expression, which detect and eject anti-cancer drugs from cells.