05, odds ratio 0.21 [confidence interval 0.09-0.50]). Renal artery stenting can stabilize or improve renal function in patients with severe renal dysfunction. Distal protection devices may be beneficial in patients who require renal artery stenting due to severely reduced renal function.”
“The ability of immunotherapy to evoke successful antitumor immune responses has been well documented over the past decade. Despite abundant

preclinical data, it is only with the recent approval by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) of the drugs such as sipuleucel-T and ip-ilimumab that immunotherapy is finally being recognized as a viable alternative to traditional MI-503 supplier therapies for treatment of various cancers. Despite the ability of immunotherapy to elicit successful antitumor immune responses, its efficacy is hindered by several factors. Among these are the paucity of tumor-associated antigens (TAA) that can be used as effective targets and the systemic toxicities that often lead to treatment interruption. Indeed, such adverse effects, which can be immunological and/or parenchymal, can be particularly severe and even fatal to some patients. A family of TAA called cancer-testis antigens

(CTA) has been identified and their encoding genes have been extensively investigated. CTA expression has been demonstrated in a variety of human cancer tissues, and at least 19 CTA have been found to S3I-201 research buy elicit humoral and/or cellular immune responses in cancer patients. Here

we discuss how CTA and immunotherapy will most Selleckchem A-1210477 likely play a major role in the cure of cancer in the light of cancer complexity.”
“Cytosine deaminase is used in combination with 5-fluorocytosine as an enzyme-prodrug combination for targeted genetic cancer treatment. This approach is limited by inefficient gene delivery and poor prodrug conversion activities. Previously, we reported individual point mutations within the substrate binding pocket of bacterial cytosine deaminase (bCD) that result in marginal improvements in the ability to sensitize cells to 5-fluorocytosine (5FC). Here, we describe an expanded random mutagenesis and selection experiment that yielded enzyme variants, which provide significant improvement in prodrug sensitization. Three of these mutants were evaluated using enzyme kinetic analyses and then assayed in three cancer cell lines for 5FC sensitization, bystander effects, and formation of 5-fluorouracil metabolites. All variants displayed 18- to 19-fold shifts in substrate preference toward 5FC, a significant reduction in IC(50) values and improved bystander effect compared with wild-type bCD. In a xenograft tumor model, the best enzyme mutant was shown to prevent tumor growth at much lower doses of 5FC than is observed when tumor cells express wild-type bCD.