Current Drug Targets - Volume 16, Issue 2, 2015

This contribution gives an overview of recent insights and emerging strategies for individualized therapeutic approaches based on genomic and cancer molecular profiles in patients with a morphological diagnosis of renal, bladder and prostate tumors. Significant advances have been made in molecular biology technologies, such as next-generation sequencing and whole-exome sequencing. The rise of such novel techniques ha Read More

Prostate cancer is the most common and second most lethal cancer in men. The majority of prostate cancers are histologically similar to acinar adenocarcinomas and rely on androgen-dependent signaling for their development and progression. Androgen deprivation therapy is a mainstay of treatment regimens and we discuss the recent advancements in androgen-deprivation therapy. Recent advances in defining the genetic Read More

Several molecular and genetic studies have provided new perspectives on the histologic classification of bladder tumors. Recent developments in the field of molecular mutational pathway analyses based on next generation sequencing technology together with classic data derived from the description of mutations in the FGFR3 (fibroblast growth factor receptor 3) gene, mutations on TP53 gene, and cDNA technology profilin Read More

Renal cell cancer is a heterogeneous group of cancers with different histologic subtypes. The majority of renal tumors in adults are clear cell renal cell carcinomas, which are characterized by von Hippel- Lindau (VHL) gene alterations. Recent advances in defining the genetic landscape of renal cancer has shown the genetic heterogeneity of clear cell renal cell carcinomas (ccRCC) and the presence of at least 3 additional ccRCC t Read More

Drug nanocrystals have been studied since the 1990s and there are already six therapeutic nanocrystal products on market and many more in clinical trials. Nanocrystals are encapsulating-carrier free nanoparticles wherein 100% drug loading could be achieved. This signifies that nanocrystals, among other nanoparticulate products, could be more easily manufactured even at the initial formulation development st Read More

The APJ is a class A, rhodopsin-like G protein-coupled receptor (GPCR) with high sequence similarity to the angiotensin receptor AT1. APJ has been shown to be widely expressed in humans tissues, including the central nervous system, cardiovascular system, adipocytes and others. APJ plays an important role in the occurrence and development of cardiovascular and metabolic diseases including atherosclerosis (AS), coronary he Read More

ATP citrate lyase (ACLY), an important enzyme involved in lipid biogenesis linked with glucose metabolism, catalyzes the conversion of citrate to oxaloacetic acid (OAA) and acetyl-CoA. The obtained acetyl-CoA is required for lipid synthesis during membrane biogenesis, as well as for histone acetylation reactions to regulate the expression of certain proteins in aberrantly proliferating cancer cells. Studies have shown a role for Read More

Despite the improvement in progression-free survival and response rates, none of the five anti- VEGF/VEGFR agents used for treatment of metastatic renal cell carcinoma (mRCC) reported a significant increase in patients’ survival. This analysis aims to investigate their effect on overall survival (OS), performing a meta-analysis of the available studies. MEDLINE/PubMed and the Cochrane Library were searched for rando Read More

The humanized monoclonal anti-IgE antibody omalizumab is currently the only biologic drug approved for asthma treatment. Omalizumab inhibits allergic responses by binding to serum immunoglobulins E (IgE), thus preventing their interactions with cellular IgE receptors. Omalizumab is also capable of down-regulating the expression of high affinity IgE receptors on inflammatory cells, as well as the numbers of eosinophils in b Read More