Pancreatic cancer is a more aggressive and refractory malignancy. Resistance and toxicity limit drug efficacy. Herein, we report a lower toxic and higher effective miriplatin (MPt)-loaded liposome, LMPt, exhibiting totally different anti-cancer mechanism from previously reported platinum agents. Both in gemcitabine (GEM)-resistant/sensitive (GEM-R/S) pancreatic cancer cells, LMPt exhibits prominent anti-cancer activity, led by faster cellular entry-induced larger accumulation of MPt. The level of caveolin-1 (Cav-1) determines entry rate and switch of entry pathways of LMPt, indicating a novel role of Cav-1 in nanoparticle entry. After endosome-lysosome processing, in unchanged metabolite, MPt is released and targets mitochondria to enhance binding of mitochondria protease LONP1 with POLG and TFAM, to degrade POLG and TFAM. Then, via PINK1-Parkin axis, mitophagy is induced by POLG and TFAM degradation-initiated mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) replication blocking. Additionally, POLG and TFAM are identified as novel prognostic markers of pancreatic cancer, and mtDNA replication-induced mitophagy blocking mediates their pro-cancer activity. Our findings reveal that the target of this liposomal platinum agent is mitochondria but not DNA (target of most platinum agents), and totally distinct mechanism of MPt and other formulations of MPt. Self-assembly offers LMPt special efficacy and mechanisms. Prominent action and characteristic mechanism make LMPt a promising cancer candidate.

Pancreatic adenocarcinoma (PAAD) is one of the most lethal malignancies. Although gemcitabine (GEM) is a standard treatment for PAAD, resistance limits its application and therapy. Secoemestrin C (Sec C) is a natural compound from the endophytic fungus Emericella, and its anticancer activity has not been investigated since it was isolated. Our research is the first to indicate that Sec C is a broad-spectrum anticancer agent and could exhibit potently similar anticancer activity both in GEM-resistant and GEM-sensitive PAAD cells. Interestingly, Sec C exerted a rapid growth-inhibiting effect (80% death at 6 h), which might be beneficial for patients who need rapid tumor shrinkage before surgery. Liquid chromatography/mass spectrometry and N-acetyl-l-cysteine (NAC) reverse assays show that Sec C sulfates cysteines to disrupt disulfide-bonds formation in endoplasmic reticulum (ER) proteins to cause protein misfolding, leading to ER stress and disorder of lipid biosynthesis. Microarray data and subsequent assays show that ER stress-mediated ER-associated degradation (ERAD) ubiquitinates and downregulates YAP to enhance ER stress via destruction complex (YAP-Axin-GSK-βTrCP), which also elucidates a unique degrading style for YAP. Potent anticancer activity in GEM-resistant cells and low toxicity make Sec C a promising anti-PAAD candidate.

Taking 12-N-p-chlorobenzyl sophoridinol 2 as a lead, a series of novel sophoridinic derivatives with various 3'-substituents at the 11-side chain were synthesized and evaluated for their anticancer activity from sophoridine (1), a natural antitumor medicine. Among them, the sophoridinic ketones 5a-b, alkenes 7a-b and sophoridinic amines 14a-b displayed reasonable antiproliferative activity with IC50 values ranging from 3.8 to 5.4 μmol/L. Especially, compounds 5a and 7b exhibited an equipotency in both adriamycin (AMD)-susceptible and resistant MCF-7 breast carcinoma cells, indicating a different mechanism from AMD. The primary mechanism of action of 5a was to arrest the cell cycle at the G0/G1 phase, consistent with that of parent compound 1. Thus, we consider 12-chlorobenzyl sophoridinic derivatives with a tricyclic scaffold to be a new class of promising antitumor agents with an advantage of inhibiting drug-resistant cancer cells.

Retinoblastoma is the most common pediatric retinal tumor initiated by biallelic inactivation of the retinoblastoma gene ( RB1 ) , affecting roughly 1 in 15000 children with 1100 new cases each year.In China, RB remains a potentially devastating disease while lack of early diagnosis and aggressive treatment strategies.Moreover, RB patients individually show a variety of drug response to regular systemic chemotherapy since intensive chemotherapy and long-term follow-up are not as readily available.The majority of patients with advanced diseases require enucleation which affects the future quality of children life.Recent studies showed that alterations in genomics and epigenomics of RB play very important roles in RB progress and therapy.We thereby review current understanding changes of genomics and epigenomics in RB as potential prognostic and therapeutic targets.

With the recent understanding of cancer biology, physiopathology, and cancer genetics& genomics, new treatments and methodologies are constantly developed, including on the development and application of molecular targeted drugs for cancer therapy have been widespread concerned.Antibody-based drugs targeting over-expressed oncogenes or other functional proteins in cancer with its high specificity, less side-effects and significant clinical efficacy became rapidly the hot-spot of anti-tumor drug research.Currently, there are already more than 20 of anti-tumor antibody-based drugs approved for clinical application, and achieved remarkable results.This article summarizes the development and current situation of monoclonal antibody-based drug research for cancer therapy, as well as their anti-tumor mechanism of action.At the same time summarizes the new advances in cancer research in the field of monoclonal antibody drugs made,and its prospects as well as shortcomings were outlined.

Aim To investigate the relationship be-tween phosphoprotein EBP50 and the proliferation of breast cancer in MCF-7 cells. Methods The quali-fied recombinant plasmid sh-EBP50-pGPU6/Neo was transfected into MCF-7 cells with EBP50 knocking down. The expression of EBP50, c-myc, p-ERK1/2, and ERK1/2 was detected by Western blot. The prolif-eration ability of cells was detected by sulforhodamine B assay. Results The EBP50 knocking down plasmid was constructed successfully. MCF-7 cells with EBP50 knocking down had been established successfully. Knocking down of EBP50 increased the proliferation of MCF-7 significantly, and partially augmented the ex-pression of c-myc and phosphorylation of ERK1/2 . However, knocking down of EBP50 did not impact the expression of ERK1/2 . Conclusion EBP50 suppres-ses the proliferation of breast cancer cell through inhib-iting the activity of ERK1/2 in MCF-7 cell line.

Epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) refers to tne transition during which epithelial cells undergo the loss of apical-basal polarity, acquisition of migration capability and transformation into mesenchymal cells. EMT induces breast cancer in situ to developing into metastasis and associates with the drug resistence. The multiple elements including signal pathways, transcriptional factors and downstream genes orchestrate the transition. Among them, the transforming growth factor β (TGF-β) signaling pathway plays a key role in the regulation of EMT in breast cancer. And this paper reviews the development of TGF-β signaling pathway induced EMT in breast cancer.

In this study, N-terminal site-specific mono-PEGylation of the recombinant lidamycin apoprotein (rLDP) of lidamycin (LDM) was prepared using a polyethyleneglycol (PEG) derivative (M w 20 kDa) through a reactive terminal aldehyde group under weak acidic conditions (pH 5.5). The biochemical properties of mPEG-rLDP-AE, an enediyne-integrated conjugate, were analyzed by SDS-PAGE, RP-HPLC, SEC-HPLC and MALDI-TOF. Meanwhile, in vitro and in vivo antitumor activity of mPEG-rLDP-AE was evaluated by MTT assays and in xenograft model. The results indicated that mPEG-rLDP-AE showed significant antitumor activity both in vitro and in vivo. After PEGylation, mPEG-rLDP still retained the binding capability to the enediyne AE and presented the physicochemical characteristics similar to that of native LDP. It is of interest that the PEGylation did not diminish the antitumor efficacy of LDM, implying the possibility that this derivative may function as a payload to deliver novel tumor-targeted drugs.

For screening the potential drugs as anti-liver fibrosis candidates, we established a high- throughput drug screening cell model based on COL1A1 promoter. The activity of COL1A1 promoter and luciferase reporter gene can be elevated by TGF-β1, and inhibited by candidate drugs. We constructed a recombined plasmid with COL1A1 promoter and luciferase reporter gene pGL4.17, the activity of COL1A1 promoter was reflected by fluorescence intensity. COL1A1 promoter activity was detected by Dual-Luciferase Reporter Assay System, it came that the relative luciferase activity of COL1A1 promoter was 15.98 times higher than that of control group induced by TGF-β1, showing the recombined plasmid could be used in cell model. The recombined plasmid was transfected into human hepatic stellate cells LX2, detected the effect of potential drugs, and obtained a stable expression system through stable transfection and monoclonal cell culture. A sample which could reduce COL1A1 promoter activity signally by our cell model, decreased collagen I mRNA and protein expression detected by real-time RT-PCR and Western blotting. It indicates this novel cell model can be used in high-throughput drug screening of potential anti-liver fibrosis drugs.

This study aimed to investigate the synergistic effect of lidamycin (LDM) and rituximab on human B cell lymphoma Ramos cells. Cell proliferation was measured using MTS assay, cell apoptosis was analyzed by Annexin V-FITC/PI assay, the expression of apoptosis related proteins was analyzed by Western blotting, and the in vivo lymphoma inhibition was verified using BALB/c mice inoculated via tail vein using Ramos cells which stably expressed pEGFP-N1 plasmid. The results showed that, after the pretreatment with rituximab for 48 h, rituximab and LDM showed significantly synergistic effects on cell proliferation. Cells in combined treatment group had a higher apoptosis rate than that in LDM treatment group. Compared with the LDM treatment group, the expression of apoptosis-related proteins such as Cleaved caspase-3, Cleaved caspase-7, Cleaved caspase-9 and Cleaved PARP in combined treatment groups increased, and expression of cIAP-2 and Bcl-2 decreased. The result of in vivo experiment showed that, in the combined treatment group, the survival time of BALB/c mice was significantly longer than the mice in control group and LDM treatment group, and the degree of tumor accumulation and metastasis to lymph nodes and spleen was lower.