Current Pharmaceutical Design - Volume 10, Issue 5, 2004

The testis is devoted to two important tasks: haploid cell production and sexual steroid synthesis. A number of highly sophisticated and unique strategies operate during spermatogenesis, a process crucial for reproduction, heredity and evolution. It is particularly important to decipher the underlying molecular mechanisms whose function can be perverted in pathological situations, such as infertility and testicular cancers, Read More

Genetic lesions causing human male infertility are manifold. Besides gross chromosomal aneuploidies and rearrangements, microdeletions and single gene defects can interfere with male fertility. Male fertility is not only dependent on genes controlling the male germ line but also on genes of the networks functional for male gonad development and male somatic development, respectively. It is popular to unravel these netweo Read More

Sex, that is, whether one is physically male or female, is the basic dichotomy of life. Sex is important not only for reproductive role, but also for physical attributes, personal identity and disease susceptibility. Sex determination is genetically controlled, with the key event in males being the transmission of a Y chromosome from father to offspring. The sex-determining gene on the Y chromosome, SRY, triggers the expression Read More

Prostate cancer develops from clones that are already present as early as thirty-five years of age, when circulating concentrations of androgens are high. The progression of the disease is low and the cancer is diagnosed at a more advanced age. Prostate cancer evolves from an androgen dependant stage to stage where it escapes from all antiandrogenic treatments. The patient usually dies within two years following the di Read More

Prostate cancer is the most frequently diagnosed disease in American men today and the second leading cause of death among them. Transformation and progression towards malignancy in prostate cancer is dependant on the inability of the prostatic epithelial cells to undergo apoptosis rather than on the regulation of proliferation. Molecular targeting of inadequacies in this process of suppression of apoptosis c Read More

Gene therapy is rapidly emerging as a viable clinical strategy to treat prostate cancer. New developments, such as targeted expression of therapeutic genes, and viruses that are designed to selectively replicate in prostate cancer cells have led to vectors with improved safety, even in elderly male patients. This review describes the various different viral and non-viral strategies employed to date, with a summary of curr Read More

Sexually transmissible diseases such as AIDS have renewed the attention paid to viruses capable of infecting the male genital tract. The presence of viruses at this level may not only lead to their transmission and spread via semen but may also impact on male fertility and / or represent a potential cause of genital organ cancers. This review summarizes the currently available data on the various viruses identified in the hu Read More