Activity profiling of deubiquitinating enzymes in cervical carcinoma biopsies and cell lines.

Ubiquitin specific proteases (USPs) regulate the production and recycling of ubiquitin and are thereby critically involved in the control of cell growth, differentiation, and apoptosis. Increasing evidence implicates deregulation of USPs in malignant transformation but there is very little information on the overall and specific activity of USPs in normal and tumor tissues. We have used a chemistry-based functional proteomics approach to profile the activities of individual USPs in biopsies of human papillomavirus (HPV) carrying cervical carcinoma and adjacent normal tissue.

Methylation and silencing of the retinoic acid receptor-beta 2 gene in cervical cancer.

Background: Expression of the retinoic acid receptor beta2 (RAR-beta2), a putative tumor suppressor gene, is reduced in various human cancers, including squamous cell carcinomas (SCC) of the uterine cervix. The mechanism of the inhibition of RAR-beta2 expression remains obscure. We examined whether methylation of RAR-beta2 gene could be responsible for this silencing in cervical SCC.

[Molecular markers of the cervical cancer].

The genome of human papilloma viruses from a high-risk group (HPV types 16 and 18) has been detected in 90% of cervical tumors and, in some cases, in the adjacent normal tissues. The presence of viral DNA is the main molecular marker of this neoplasia. HPV genome may persist in the tumors as episomal and integrative forms at early and late stages of tumor progression.

[Status of the human DNA papillomavirus in cervical tumors].

Cervical carcinoma is etiologically associated with the human papilloma virus (HPV), HPV 16 and HPV 18 being the most common. Viral DNA is thought to persist mostly in the episomal form in early tumor development, and in the integrated form in carcinomas. This assumption was checked with a new method that discriminated between RNAs transcribed from episomal and integrated HPV DNAs.

[Acute attacks in pseudoexfoliative glaucoma].

Clinical picture and the results of treatment of an acute attack in 23 eyes with open-angle pseudoexfoliative glaucoma are presented. A total of 47.9 percent of patients were hospitalized with erroneous diagnoses of neovascular, phacolytic, uveal, phacotopic glaucoma or suspected neoplastic process.