Ductal carcinoma in situ develops within clonal fields of mutant cells in morphologically normal ducts.

Mutations are abundantly present in tissues of healthy individuals, including the breast epithelium. Yet it remains unknown whether mutant cells directly induce lesion formation or first spread, leading to a field of mutant cells that is predisposed towards lesion formation. To study the clonal and spatial relationships between morphologically normal breast epithelium adjacent to pre-cancerous lesions, we developed a three-dimensional (3D) imaging pipeline combined with spatially resolved genomics on archival, formalin-fixed breast tissue with the non-obligate breast cancer precursor ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS).

Avoiding Overtreatment of Ductal Carcinoma in situ.

Ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS), a precursor to invasive breast cancer (IBC), represents 25% of all breast neoplasms. Most are harmless, but some progress to IBC. Yet, almost all DCIS are treated.

PD-L2 modulates asthma severity by directly decreasing dendritic cell IL-12 production.

Studies examining the role of programmed death 1 (PD-1) ligand 2 (PD-L2)/PD-1 in asthma have yielded conflicting results. To clarify its role, we examined the PD-L2 expression in biopsies from human asthmatics and the lungs of aeroallergen-treated mice. PD-L2 expression in bronchial biopsies correlated with the severity of asthma.

Virus safety of plasma products using 20 nm instead of 15 nm filtration as virus removing step.

During the manufacture of human plasma derivatives, a series of complementary measures are undertaken to prevent transmission of blood-borne viruses. Virus filtration using 15 nm (Planova15N) filters has successfully been implemented in manufacturing processes for various plasma derivatives primarily because virus filtration is a technique, mild for proteins, that can effectively remove even small non-lipid-enveloped viruses, such as HAV and parvovirus B19. However, the use of 15 nm filters has limitations with regard to protein capacity of the filters and the process flow, resulting in an expensive manufacturing step.

MicroRNAs in the midst of myeloid signal transduction.

MicroRNA (miRNA) play important roles in the development and physiological function of hematopoietic stem/progenitor and mature cell lineages. In addition, deregulated miRNA expression and subsequent gene expression changes are associated with hematologic diseases including myelodysplastic syndromes and acute myeloid leukemia. This review focuses on myelopoiesis as a model to highlight the involvement of miRNA in the regulation of normal and malignant cellular signaling pathways.