Besides its thermogenic capacity, brown adipose tissue (BAT) performs important secretory functions that regulate metabolism. However, the BAT microenvironment and factors involved in BAT homeostasis and adaptation to cold remain poorly characterized. We therefore aimed to study brown adipocyte-derived secreted factors that may be involved in adipocyte function and/or may orchestrate intercellular communications.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFLung metastases occur in up to 54% of patients with metastatic tumours. Contributing factors to this high frequency include the physical properties of the pulmonary system and a less oxidative environment that may favour the survival of cancer cells. Moreover, secreted factors from primary tumours alter immune cells and the extracellular matrix of the lung, creating a permissive pre-metastatic environment primed for the arriving cancer cells.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFUntil two decades ago, brown adipose tissue (BAT) was studied primarily as a thermogenic organ of small rodents in the context of cold adaptation. The discovery of functional human BAT has opened new opportunities to understand its physiological role in energy balance and therapeutic applications for metabolic disorders. Significantly, the role of BAT extends far beyond thermogenesis, including glucose and lipid homeostasis, by releasing mediators that communicate with other cells and organs.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFNPJ Metab Health Dis
November 2024
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The major lactiferous ducts of the human breast branch out and end at terminal ductal lobular units (TDLUs). Despite their functional and clinical importance, the three-dimensional (3D) architecture of TDLUs has remained undetermined. Our quantitative and volumetric imaging of healthy human breast tissue demonstrates that highly branched TDLUs, which exhibit increased proliferation, are uncommon in the resting tissue regardless of donor age, parity, or hormonal contraception.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAims: During embryonic development, arteriovenous (AV) differentiation ensures proper blood vessel formation and maturation. Defects in arterial or venous identity cause inappropriate fusion of vessels, resulting in atypical shunts, so-called AV malformations (AVMs). Currently, the mechanism behind AVM formation remains unclear, and treatment options are fairly limited.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFOncogenic mutations are abundant in the tissues of healthy individuals, but rarely form tumours. Yet, the underlying protection mechanisms are largely unknown. To resolve these mechanisms in mouse mammary tissue, we use lineage tracing to map the fate of wild-type and Brca1;Trp53 cells, and find that both follow a similar pattern of loss and spread within ducts.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: UKA is a well-established treatment option for anteromedial osteoarthritis of the knee, resulting in superior functional outcomes but also higher revision rates than TKA. This study aimed to compare the outcomes of UKA, TKA, UKA converted to TKA using identical standard implants and revised TKA to support clinical decision-making.
Methods: In this study, we retrospectively examined 116 patients who underwent UKA, 77 patients who received TKA, 28 patients whose UKA was converted to TKA using identical standard implants, and 21 patients who had a one-stage revision of TKA.
Cancer immunotherapy has emerged as a promising approach for the induction of an antitumor response. While immunotherapy response rates are very high in some cancers, the efficacy against solid tumors remains limited caused by the presence of an immunosuppressive tumor microenvironment. Induction of immunogenic cell death (ICD) in the tumor can be used to boost immunotherapy response in solid cancers by eliciting the release of immune-stimulatory components.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjective: Simultaneous activation of β2- and β3-adrenoceptors (ARs) improves whole-body metabolism via beneficial effects in skeletal muscle and brown adipose tissue (BAT). Nevertheless, high-efficacy agonists simultaneously targeting these receptors whilst limiting activation of β1-ARs - and thus inducing cardiovascular complications - are currently non-existent. Therefore, we here developed and evaluated the therapeutic potential of a novel β2-and β3-AR, named ATR-127, for the treatment of obesity and its associated metabolic perturbations in preclinical models.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMutations 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).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFResearch on metastatic cancer has been hampered by limited sample availability. Here we present the breast cancer post-mortem tissue donation program UPTIDER and show how it enabled sampling of a median of 31 (range: 5-90) metastases and 5-8 liquids per patient from its first 20 patients. In a dedicated experiment, we show the mild impact of increasing time after death on RNA quality, transcriptional profiles and immunohistochemical staining in tumor tissue samples.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFLymphatic endothelial cells (LECs) of the lymph node (LN) parenchyma orchestrate leukocyte trafficking and peripheral T cell dynamics. T cell responses to immunotherapy largely rely on peripheral T cell recruitment in tumors. Yet, a systematic and molecular understanding of how LECs within the LNs control T cell dynamics under steady-state and tumor-bearing conditions is lacking.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPeptide therapeutics is gaining momentum. Advances in the field of peptidomics have enabled researchers to harvest vital information from various organisms and tissue types concerning peptide existence, expression and function. The development of mass spectrometry techniques for high-throughput peptide quantitation has paved the way for the identification and discovery of numerous known and novel peptides.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFOver the past 50 years, researchers from the mammary gland field have launched a collection of distinctive 3D cell culture systems to study multiple aspects of mammary gland physiology and disease. As our knowledge about the mammary gland evolves, more sophisticated 3D cell culture systems are required to answer more and more complex questions. Nowadays, morphologically complex mammary organoids can be generated in distinct 3D settings, along with reproduction of multiple aspects of the gland microenvironment.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Neoadjuvant chemotherapy (NAC) is the standard of care for patients with early-stage triple negative breast cancers (TNBC). However, more than half of TNBC patients do not achieve a pathological complete response (pCR) after NAC, and residual cancer burden (RCB) is associated with dismal long-term prognosis. Understanding the mechanisms underlying differential treatment outcomes is therefore critical to limit RCB and improve NAC efficiency.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Unicompartmental knee arthroplasty (UKA), in addition to total knee arthroplasty (TKA), has been shown to be effective in the surgical treatment of knee osteoarthritis with appropriate patient selection. In clinical studies, it has demonstrated superior functional results with lower complication rates. In clinical practice, these advantages must be weighed against the disadvantage of an increased revision rate, especially in younger patients with sports and work activities.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIntroduction: Minimally invasive calcaneal osteotomy (MICO) is already an established surgical procedure for correcting hindfoot deformities using a lateral approach. So far, no description of a medial approach for MICO has been published.
Material And Methods: Between August 2022 and March 2023, 32 consecutive patients (MICO with medial approach, MMICO: n = 15; MICO with lateral approach, LMICO: n = 17) underwent MICO as part of complex reconstructive surgery of the foot and ankle with concomitant procedures.
Background: Chronic pancreatitis (CP) causes suffering and socioeconomic burden. This study evaluated perioperative results and patient-reported outcomes (PRO) in CP patients treated with duodenum-preserving pancreatic head resection (DPPHR).
Methods: Data were analyzed of CP patients undergoing DPPHR between 01/2001-10/2014.
Mouse intraductal modeling enables efficient in vivo propagation of pre-invasive breast cancer lesions and provides a suitable micro-environment for creating patient-derived tumor xenograft models of estrogen-receptor-positive breast cancer. Here, we present a protocol for mouse intraductal modeling of primary ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS). We describe steps for processing primary DCIS tissues and performing intraductal injections.
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