Brentuximab in the treatment of CD30-positive enteropathy-associated T-cell lymphoma.

Enteropathy-associated T-cell lymphoma (EATL) is a rare aggressive lymphoma that confers a poor prognosis with current treatment strategies. Given the rarity of this disease, prospective randomized trials are limited, and thus a standard validated treatment strategy is lacking. This report presents the disease course of a patient with EATL who was treated with single-agent brentuximab vedotin, an anti-CD30 conjugated antibody.

K-ras is critical for modulating multiple c-kit-mediated cellular functions in wild-type and Nf1+/- mast cells.

p21(ras) (Ras) proteins and GTPase-activating proteins (GAPs) tightly modulate extracellular growth factor signals and control multiple cellular functions. The specific function of each Ras isoform (H, N, and K) in regulating distinct effector pathways, and the role of each GAP in negatively modulating the activity of each Ras isoform in myeloid cells and, particularly, mast cells is incompletely understood. In this study, we use murine models of K-ras- and Nf1-deficient mice to examine the role of K-ras in modulating mast cell functions and to identify the role of neurofibromin as a GAP for K-ras in this lineage.

K-Ras is essential for normal fetal liver erythropoiesis.

In vitro studies suggest that Ras activation is necessary for erythroid cell development. However, genetic inactivation of the Ras isoforms H-Ras, N-Ras, and K-Ras in mice reportedly did not affect adult or fetal erythropoiesis, though K-Ras(-/-) embryos were anemic. Given these discrepancies, we performed a more detailed analysis of fetal erythropoiesis in K-Ras(-/-) embryos.