Current Pharmaceutical Design - Volume 18, Issue 17, 2012

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Pancreatic cancer is one of the most fatal human malignancies. Though a relatively rare malignancy, it remains one of the deadliest tumors, with an extremely high mortality rate. The prognosis of patients with pancreatic cancer remains poor; only patients with small tumors and complete resection have a chance of a complete cure. Pancreatic cancer responds poorly to conventional therapies, including chemotherapy and Read More

Recent studies have demonstrated that the interaction between the cancer and the stroma, play a key role in the development of pancreatic cancer. The desmoplasia, which consists of fibroblasts, pancreatic stellate cells, lymphatic and vascular endothelial cells, immune cells, pathologic increased nerves, and the extracellular matrix (ECM), creates a complex tumor microenvironment that promotes pancreatic cancer dev Read More

Increasing evidence has shown that cytokines have a role in tumor biology. The role of chemokines in tumor biology is important because these peptides may influence tumor growth, invasion, angiogenesis, and metastasis. In this review, we demonstrated the role of cytokines (Interleukin-1α, hepatocyte growth factor, Interleukin-8, stromal cell-derived factor-1 and CXC-chemokines/CXCR2 biological axis) in pancreatic cancer a Read More

Tumor angiogenesis play a significant role in genesis, development and metastasis of pancreatic cancer though the process is different from angiogenesis in normal tissues. VEGF, one of the most important angiogenesis factors, is modulated by inflammation factors as well as transcriptional factors, such as members of Sp/KLF family. Recent research showed that VEGF related inflammation factors and Sp/KLF f Read More

Over the last decade it has been established that cancer-associated inflammation affects many aspects of malignancy and in particular endorses tumor cell survival, proliferation and distant spread. Chemokines and their receptors are major players of the cancerrelated inflammation. Our understanding of the chemokine role in tumor biology now ranges from their ability to recruit blood leukocytes within tumors, to direct e Read More

Pancreatic cancer (PC) is a leading cause of cancer related deaths in United States. The lack of early symptoms results in latestage detection and a high mortality rate. Currently, the only potentially curative approach for PC is surgical resection, which is often unsuccessful because the invasive and metastatic nature of the tumor masses makes their complete removal difficult. Consequently, patients suffer relapses from remaini Read More

Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) is an aggressive and devastating disease, which is characterized by invasiveness and dissemination to the lymphatic system and distant organs. In the absence of effective screening methods considerable efforts have thus been made to identify better systemic treatments than gemcitabine, the standard of care for advanced PDAC for well over a decade. However, until now only Read More

Pancreatic cancer is characterized by its intrinsic resistance to cytotoxic agents. But the underlying molecular mechanism is unclear. Studies demonstrate that angiogenesis, presence of highly resistant cancer stem cells (CSCs), dysregulation of cell cycle and apoptosis are main aspects of mechanisms of pancreatic cancer chemoresistance. Interestingly, recent investigations of Wnt/β-catenin signaling suggest roles for the Read More

The prognosis of pancreatic cancer (PC) patients is very poor with a five-year survival of less than 5%. One of the major challenges in developing new therapies for PC is the lack of expression of specific markers by pancreatic tumor cells. Mucins are heavily Oglycosylated proteins characterized by the presence of short stretches of amino acid sequences repeated several times in tandem. The expression of several Read More

Polycystic Ovary Syndrome (PCOS) is one of the common endocrine diseases that affects women in their reproductive age. PCOS has diverse clinical implications that include reproductive (infertility, hyperandrogenism, hirsutism), metabolic (insulin resistance, impaired glucose tolerance, type 2 diabetes mellitus, cardiovascular diseases) and psychological features (increased anxiety, depression and worsened quality of life Read More

Protein kinase C (PKC) is a family of serine/threonine kinases involved in the transduction of signals that control different cellular processes, such as cell death and proliferation. This family comprises at least 10 isoforms that regulate apoptosis in an isoformspecific manner. However, controversial data about the role of individual PKC isoforms in apoptosis regulation are frequently reported. The co-existence of several PKC isoforms Read More

Multimerization offers unique kinetic and thermodynamic properties to molecules. Multimeric ligands, characterized by multiple similar or different monomeric molecules tethered together, can bind several receptors simultaneously. Multimerization occurs also in nature. This process can be used to develop molecules with high diagnostic and therapeutic value. By altering parameters as linkers` length and flexibility, scaffold a Read More