JCI table of contents, February 9, 2006
...bited by the diabetes drug glibenclamide, a potent inhibitor of normal ROMK in kidney cells. The ROMK channels from Cftr-deficient mice also demonstrated an impaired response to a small energy molecule called ATP (adenosine triphosphate). These data suggest that the CFTR protein is a critical component of ROMK...New brain hormone puts brakes on reproduction
...s, but many had come to believe that such a direct inhibitor was unlikely in the complex cast of hormones and f...e combined evidence suggests that GnIH is a direct inhibitor of GnRH. Because the brain cells producing and secreting GnIH send their axons into many areas of th...Omega-6 fats cause prostate tumors to grow twice as fast
...hey added a non-steroidal antiflammatory or a PI3K inhibitor to the growth media, interrupting the signal pathway, the genes did not get turned on and increased tumor cell growth did not take place. Currently, Hughes-Fulford is conducting a study in which research animals are fed diets with different levels of...New cellular flaw found in some virulent breast cancers
...esn't work in all cases. Sicinski said that a CDK4 inhibitor might be used in combination with Herceptin to provide further benefit in these patients. If a drug to block CDK4 proved feasible, Sicinski said, it may be possible to test women's breast tumors for the presence of the overactive kinase, and then tre...UCLA scientists uncover mechanism of response to targeted therapy
... used to kill the cancer cells or the angiogenesis inhibitor could be administered to cut off the blood supply to the tumor, stopping the flow of oxygen and nutrients that the tumor needs to survive. Standard of care for kidney cancer is almost always removal of part or the entire kidney, so that tissue could ...Viral 'fitness' explains different resistance patterns to aids drugs
...berg said, "A non-nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitor (NNRTI), for example, can be taken one time by a p...rapy usually includes either one NNRTI or protease inhibitor (non-boosted or boosted with a small amount of another potent PI) and two different antiretrovirals ...Tumor cells that border normal tissue are told to leave
...sue." The tumors were generated by turning off an inhibitor of a major oncogene called Src (pronounced sarc), making the tumor cells high in Src oncogene activity. (An oncogene is a gene that increases the malignancy of a tumor cell.) This particular genetic change is common in human breast tumors. Boundary ...Nobelist discovers antidepressant protein in mouse brain
...epressants a tricyclic, a monoamine oxidase (MAO) inhibitor and electroconvulsive therapy (ECT). "These three different ways of treating depression all caused an increase in the amount of p11 in the brains of these mice," said Greengard. "They all work in totally different ways, but in all cases they caused...p53, tumor suppression and aging
...53 in order to curb tumor formation. Mdm2 is a key inhibitor of p53 and therefore an attractive target to modulate p53 activity in cells. However, conflicting evidence exists regarding whether or not p53-mediated tumor suppression comes at the cost of accelerated aging. To analyze the effects of reduced Mdm2 l...Natural compound from 'pond scum' shows potential activity against Alzheimer's
...compound, nostocarboline, was shown to be a potent inhibitor of cholinesterase -- a brain chemical thought to b...cy is comparable to galanthamine, a cholinesterase inhibitor already approved for the treatment of Alzheimer's, the researchers say. As with any promising struct...JCI table of contents: December 15, 2005
...nt an anti-tumor response By silencing a signaling inhibitor known as SOCS1 in dendritic cells, Baylor College ...Yi Chen and colleagues show that it is a signaling inhibitor SOCS1 that restricts the ability of dendritic cells to break self-tolerance and induce anti-tumor ...Mouse study: New muscle-building agent beats all previous ones
... effects from cancer treatment or AIDS. "This new inhibitor of myostatin, known as ACVR2B, is very potent and gives very dramatic effects in the mice," says Se-Jin Lee, M.D., Ph.D., a professor of molecular biology and genetics in Johns Hopkins' Institute for Basic Biomedical Sciences. "Its effects were large...Herceptin plus chemotherapy improves disease-free survival in early breast cancer
... other targeted therapies such as the angiogenesis inhibitor Avastin. That, Slamon said, may be the future of breast cancer therapy the elimination of chemotherapy. "In the future, we're likely to come up with therapies that are very much improved over what we have now and offer maximum efficacy with little ...Potential malaria drug target identified
... lasts about 30 seconds. By designing a specific inhibitor that impeded the ability to shed the sticky proteins, Blackman and his team interfered with the enzyme's normal functioning. A drug--yet to be designed--could possibly do the same, preventing the parasites from infecting blood cells....JCI table of contents: November 23 2005
...ol University identify a novel CaOx crystal growth inhibitor in normal human urine called human trefoil factor ...viduals. The results indicate that TFF1 is a novel inhibitor of CaOx crystal growth with a potential role in kidney stone formation. TITLE: Identification of h...AKT cancer cell pathway demonstrates unexpected function
...come a popular target in the development of cancer inhibitor drugs." Although cell migration is an essential feature of the invasive phenotype of cancer cells, relatively little information has been available on AKT's role in this key function. As a result, the discovery that this kinase actually blocks cance...The tumor suppressor protein phosphatase 2A offsets the BCR/ABL oncogenic kinase
... SET as a novel target of BCR/ABL. SET is a potent inhibitor of protein phosphatase 2A (PP2A), a phosphatase that is a known tumor suppressor. SET expression is enhanced during CML disease progression, resulting in a loss of PP2A activity during the blast crisis but not chronic phase of CML. Loss of PP2A funct...Genetic analysis of glioblastoma brain tumors can aid in treatment decisions, study shows
... expressed these proteins and who received an EGFR inhibitor went almost 5 times longer on average before their tumors progressed (243 days vs. 50 days) than those whose tumors did not express both of the proteins. In contrast, EGFR and HER2/neu activity had no effect on how tumors responded to these drugs. ...Early cardiac screening necessary for muscular dystrophy patients
...curred at 14-15 years, 31 boys were started on ACE inhibitor or beta blocker therapy. During the follow-up two patients remained stable with their dilated cardiomyopathy, eight showed improvement and 19 normalized both heart size and function. "This study also helped us realize that while some dystrophin-gene ...VCU Massey Cancer Center researchers find new agent inhibits Leukemia cell survival
...rrently in clinical trials in patients the kinase inhibitor BAY 43-9006 which was designed to disrupt the survival pathways of tumor cells. "This agent was originally designed to inhibit the Raf-1 pathway, which is frequently mutated in many types of cancers, including leukemia," said Steven Grant, M.D., Ma...