Current Signal Transduction Therapy - Volume 4, Issue 1, 2009

Evasion of apoptosis (programmed cell death) is a hallmark of pancreatic cancer, one of the leading causes of cancer deaths in the western world. Resistance to apoptosis can promote the multistep process of tumorigenesis, since tissue homeostasis is disturbed by too little cell death. Further, defects in apoptosis programs can leads to treatment failure in pancreatic cancer, since intact apoptosis pathways are critical to mediat Read More

The dynamic cross-talk between bench-based research and clinical practice is the fundamental characteristic of modern oncology. Colorectal cancer, the second most common cause of cancer-related death in the Western world, is the paradigm of the revolutionary use of targeted sophisticated therapies. The continuous unraveling of the molecular identity of signaling pathways that govern sub-cellular decisions rev Read More

Leptin is a hormone whose central role is to regulate endocrine functions and to control energy expenditure. After the discovery that leptin can also have pro-inflammatory effects, several studies have tried to address - at the molecular level - the pathways involved in leptin-induced modulation of the immune functions in normal and pathologic conditions. The signaling events influenced by leptin after its binding to the leptin rece Read More

Hedgehog (Hh) proteins belong to a class of morphogens involved in many biological processes during embryonic development; they are relatively silent during normal adult life although they may be recruited postnatally in response to tissue injury. Three secreted proteins have been identified: Sonic hedgehog (Shh), Desert hedgehog and Indian hedgehog. The interaction of Hh ligand with its receptor Patched-1 triggers the activ Read More

Methionine oxidation by reactive oxygen species and reduction mediated by the methionine sulfoxide reductase (Msr) system may attenuate protein function in signal transduction pathways. This review will focus on two potential protein targets for methionine oxidation involved in signal transduction of the immune response: Ca2+/calmodulin-regulated phosphatase calcineurin (Cn) and inhibitor of kappa B-alpha (IkBα). T Read More

Cancer is a genetic disease which progresses from benign to malignant stages through the steady acquisition of genomic mutations in key cell-regulatory genes, namely oncogenes, tumor-suppressors, and stability genes. In many ways cancer is considered as a disease of de-regulated signal transduction. Oncogenic mutations frequently lead to overexpression and/or constitutive activation of signal transduction compon Read More

Cell movement and adhesion serve critical roles in a wide variety of physiological situations, and when dysregulated can contribute to the pathogenesis of many diseases. Recently, Lyn kinase has emerged as a crucial regulator of ‘inside-out’ integrin signaling in hematopoietic cells, that when dysregulated, can lead to the development of an “invasive cell” phenotype in a variety of pathological contexts ranging from leuke Read More

Cyclooxygenase (COX) and nitric oxide synthase (NOS) are two isoenzyme families that both implicated in the inflammatory process. Indeed, the activities of both enzymes are so important that two of the most important classic drugs, Aspirin and Nitroglycerin, are directly related to the COX pathway and NO pathway, respectively. Although Aspirin has been used as an anti-inflammatory drug since 1876, it was not until 1970s t Read More