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Nathan Goodyear

Cancer cells metabolically "fertilize" the tumor microenvironment with hydrogen peroxid... - 0 views

  • reducing oxidative stress with powerful antioxidants, is an important strategy for cancer prevention, as it would suppress one of the key early initiating steps where DNA damage and tumor-stroma metabolic-coupling begins. This would prevent cancer cells from acting as metabolic “parasites
  • Oxidative stress in cancer-associated fibroblasts triggers autophagy and mitophagy, resulting in compartmentalized cellular catabolism, loss of mitochondrial function, and the onset of aerobic glycolysis, in the tumor stroma. As such, cancer-associated fibroblasts produce high-energy nutrients (such as lactate and ketones) that fuel mitochondrial biogenesis and oxidative metabolism in cancer cells. We have termed this new energy-transfer mechanism the “reverse Warburg effect.
  • Then, oxidative stress, in cancer-associated fibroblasts, triggers the activation of two main transcription factors, NFκB and HIF-1α, leading to the onset of inflammation, autophagy, mitophagy and aerobic glycolysis in the tumor microenvironment
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  • oxidative stress and ROS, produced in cancer-associated fibroblasts, has a “bystander effect” on adjacent cancer cells, leading to DNA damage, genomic instability and aneuploidy, which appears to be driving tumor-stroma co-evolution
  • tumor cells produce and secrete hydrogen peroxide, thereby “fertilizing” the tumor microenvironment and driving the “reverse Warburg effect.”
  • This type of stromal metabolism then produces high-energy nutrients (lactate, ketones and glutamine), as well as recycled chemical building blocks (nucleotides, amino acids, fatty acids), to literally “feed” cancer cells
  • loss of stromal caveolin (Cav-1) is sufficient to drive mitochondrial dysfunction with increased glucose uptake in fibroblasts, mimicking the glycolytic phenotype of cancer-associated fibroblasts.
  • oxidative stress initiated in tumor cells is transferred to cancer-associated fibroblasts.
  • Then, cancer-associated fibroblasts show quantitative reductions in mitochondrial activity and compensatory increases in glucose uptake, as well as high ROS production
  • These findings may explain the prognostic value of a loss of stromal Cav-1 as a marker of a “lethal” tumor microenvironment
  • Interruption of this process, by addition of catalase (an enzyme that detoxifies hydrogen peroxide) to the tissue culture media, blocks ROS activity in cancer cells and leads to apoptotic cell death in cancer cells
  • our results may also explain the “field effect” in cancer biology,5 as hydrogen peroxide secreted by cancer cells, and the propagation of ROS production, from cancer cells to fibroblasts, would create an increasing “mutagenic field” of ROS production, due to the resulting DNA damage
  • aerobic glycolysis takes place in cancer-associated fibroblasts, rather than in tumor cells, as previously suspected.
  • In this new paradigm, cancer cells induce oxidative stress in neighboring cancer-associated fibroblasts
  • cancer-associated fibroblasts have the largest increases in glucose uptake
  • cancer cells secrete hydrogen peroxide, which induces ROS production in cancer-associated fibroblasts
  • Then, oxidative stress in cancer-associated fibroblast leads to decreases in functional mitochondrial activity, and a corresponding increase in glucose uptake, to fuel aerobic glycolysis
  • cancer cells show significant increases in mitochondrial activity, and decreases in glucose uptake
  • fibroblasts and cancer cells in co-culture become metabolically coupled, resulting in the development of a “symbiotic” or “parasitic” relationship.
  • cancer-associated fibroblasts undergo aerobic glycolysis (producing lactate), while cancer cells use oxidative mitochondrial metabolism.
  • We have previously shown that oxidative stress in cancer-associated fibroblasts drives a loss of stromal Cav-1, due to its destruction via autophagy/lysosomal degradation
  • a loss of stromal Cav-1 is sufficient to induce further oxidative stress, DNA damage and autophagy, essentially mimicking pseudo-hypoxia and driving mitochondrial dysfunction
  • loss of stromal Cav-1 is a powerful biomarker for identifying breast cancer patients with early tumor recurrence, lymph-node metastasis, drug-resistance and poor clinical outcome
  • this type of metabolism (aerobic glycolysis and autophagy in the tumor stroma) is characteristic of a lethal tumor micro-environment, as it fuels anabolic growth in cancer cells, via the production of high-energy nutrients (such as lactate, ketones and glutamine) and other chemical building blocks
  • the upstream tumor-initiating event appears to be the secretion of hydrogen peroxide
  • one such enzymatically-active protein anti-oxidant that may be of therapeutic use is catalase, as it detoxifies hydrogen peroxide to water
  • numerous studies show that “catalase therapy” in pre-clinical animal models is indeed sufficient to almost completely block tumor recurrence and metastasis
  • by eliminating oxidative stress in cancer cells and the tumor microenvironment,55 we may be able to effectively cut off the tumor's fuel supply, by blocking stromal autophagy and aerobic glycolysis
  • breast cancer patients show systemic evidence of increased oxidative stress and a decreased anti-oxidant defense, which increases with aging and tumor progression.68–70 Chemotherapy and radiation therapy then promote further oxidative stress.69 Unfortunately, “sub-lethal” doses of oxidative stress during cancer therapy may contribute to tumor recurrence and metastasis, via the activation of myofibroblasts.
  • a loss of stromal Cav-1 is associated with the increased expression of gene profiles associated with normal aging, oxidative stress, DNA damage, HIF1/hypoxia, NFκB/inflammation, glycolysis and mitochondrial dysfunction
  • cancer-associated fibroblasts show the largest increases in glucose uptake, while cancer cells show corresponding decreases in glucose uptake, under identical co-culture conditions
  • Thus, increased PET glucose avidity may actually be a surrogate marker for a loss of stromal Cav-1 in human tumors, allowing the rapid detection of a lethal tumor microenvironment.
  • it appears that astrocytes are actually the cell type responsible for the glucose avidity.
  • In the brain, astrocytes are glycolytic and undergo aerobic glycolysis. Thus, astrocytes take up and metabolically process glucose to lactate.7
  • Then, lactate is secreted via a mono-carboxylate transporter, namely MCT4. As a consequence, neurons use lactate as their preferred energy substrate
  • both astrocytes and cancer-associated fibroblasts express MCT4 (which extrudes lactate) and MCT4 is upregulated by oxidative stress in stromal fibroblasts.34
  • In accordance with the idea that cancer-associated fibroblasts take up the bulk of glucose, PET glucose avidity is also now routinely used to measure the extent of fibrosis in a number of human diseases, including interstitial pulmonary fibrosis, postsurgical scars, keloids, arthritis and a variety of collagen-vascular diseases.
  • PET glucose avidity and elevated serum inflammatory markers both correlate with poor prognosis in breast cancers.
  • PET signal over-estimates the actual anatomical size of the tumor, consistent with the idea that PET glucose avidity is really measuring fibrosis and inflammation in the tumor microenvironment.
  • human breast and lung cancer patients can be positively identified by examining their exhaled breath for the presence of hydrogen peroxide.
  • tumor cell production of hydrogen peroxide drives NFκB-activation in adjacent normal cells in culture6 and during metastasis,103 directly implicating the use of antioxidants, NFκB-inhibitors and anti-inflammatory agents, in the treatment of aggressive human cancers.
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    Good description of the communication between cancer cells and fibroblasts.  This theory is termed the "reverse Warburg effect".
Nathan Goodyear

Press-pulse: a novel therapeutic strategy for the metabolic management of cancer | Nutr... - 0 views

  • A “press” disturbance was considered a chronic environmental stress on all organisms in an ecological community
  • “pulse” disturbances were considered acute events that disrupted biological communities to produce high mortality
  • Neoplasia involving dysregulated cell growth is the biological endpoint of the disease
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  • Data from the American Cancer Society show that the rate of increase in cancer deaths/year (3.4%) was two-fold greater than the rate of increase in new cases/year (1.7%) from 2013 to 2017
  • cancer is predicted to overtake heart disease as the leading cause of death in Western societies
  • cancer can also be recognized as a metabolic disease.
  • glucose is first split into two molecules of pyruvate through the Embden–Meyerhof–Parnas glycolytic pathway in the cytosol
  • Aerobic fermentation, on the other hand, involves the production of lactic acid under normoxic conditions
  • persistent lactic acid production in the presence of adequate oxygen is indicative of abnormal respiration
  • Otto Warburg first proposed that all cancers arise from damage to cellular respiration
  • The Crabtree effect is an artifact of the in vitro environment and involves the glucose-induced suppression of respiration with a corresponding elevation of lactic acid production even under hyperoxic (pO2 = 120–160 mmHg) conditions associated with cell culture
  • the Warburg theory of insufficient aerobic respiration remains as the most credible explanation for the origin of tumor cells [2, 37, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57].
  • The main points of Warburg’s theory are; 1) insufficient respiration is the predisposing initiator of tumorigenesis and ultimately cancer, 2) energy through glycolysis gradually compensates for insufficient energy through respiration, 3) cancer cells continue to produce lactic acid in the presence of oxygen, and 4) respiratory insufficiency eventually becomes irreversible
  • Efraim Racker coined the term “Warburg effect”, which refers to the aerobic glycolysis that occurs in cancer cells
  • Warburg clearly demonstrated that aerobic fermentation (aerobic glycolysis) is an effect, and not the cause, of insufficient respiration
  • all tumor cells that have been examined to date contain abnormalities in the content or composition of cardiolipin
  • The evidence supporting Warburg’s original theory comes from a broad range of cancers and is now overwhelming
  • respiratory insufficiency, arising from any number mitochondrial defects, can contribute to the fermentation metabolism seen in tumor cells.
  • data from the nuclear and mitochondrial transfer experiments suggest that oncogene changes are effects, rather than causes, of tumorigenesis
  • Normal mitochondria can suppress tumorigenesis, whereas abnormal mitochondria can enhance tumorigenesis
  • In addition to glucose, cancer cells also rely heavily on glutamine for growth and survival
  • Glutamine is anapleurotic and can be rapidly metabolized to glutamate and then to α-ketoglutarate for entry into the TCA cycle
  • Glucose and glutamine act synergistically for driving rapid tumor cell growth
  • Glutamine metabolism can produce ATP from the TCA cycle under aerobic conditions
  • Amino acid fermentation can generate energy through TCA cycle substrate level phosphorylation under hypoxic conditions
  • Hif-1α stabilization enhances aerobic fermentation
  • targeting glucose and glutamine will deprive the microenvironment of fermentable fuels
  • Although Warburg’s hypothesis on the origin of cancer has created confusion and controversy [37, 38, 39, 40], his hypothesis has never been disproved
  • Warburg referred to the phenomenon of enhanced glycolysis in cancer cells as “aerobic fermentation” to highlight the abnormal production of lactic acid in the presence of oxygen
  • Emerging evidence indicates that macrophages, or their fusion hybridization with neoplastic stem cells, are the origin of metastatic cancer cells
  • Radiation therapy can enhance fusion hybridization that could increase risk for invasive and metastatic tumor cells
  • Kamphorst et al. in showing that pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma cells could obtain glutamine under nutrient poor conditions through lysosomal digestion of extracellular proteins
  • It will therefore become necessary to also target lysosomal digestion, under reduced glucose and glutamine conditions, to effectively manage those invasive and metastatic cancers that express cannibalism and phagocytosis.
  • Previous studies in yeast and mammalian cells show that disruption of aerobic respiration can cause mutations (loss of heterozygosity, chromosome instability, and epigenetic modifications etc.) in the nuclear genome
  • The somatic mutations and genomic instability seen in tumor cells thus arise from a protracted reliance on fermentation energy metabolism and a disruption of redox balance through excess oxidative stress.
  • According to the mitochondrial metabolic theory of cancer, the large genomic heterogeneity seen in tumor cells arises as a consequence, rather than as a cause, of mitochondrial dysfunction
  • A therapeutic strategy targeting the metabolic abnormality common to most tumor cells should therefore be more effective in managing cancer than would a strategy targeting genetic mutations that vary widely between tumors of the same histological grade and even within the same tumor
  • Tumor cells are more fit than normal cells to survive in the hypoxic niche of the tumor microenvironment
  • Hypoxic adaptation of tumor cells allows for them to avoid apoptosis due to their metabolic reprograming following a gradual loss of respiratory function
  • The high rates of tumor cell glycolysis and glutaminolysis will also make them resistant to apoptosis, ROS, and chemotherapy drugs
  • Despite having high levels of ROS, glutamate-derived from glutamine contributes to glutathione production that can protect tumor cells from ROS
    • Nathan Goodyear
       
      reason to eliminate glutamine in cancer patients and even GSH with cancer patients
  • It is clear that adaptability to environmental stress is greater in normal cells than in tumor cells, as normal cells can transition from the metabolism of glucose to the metabolism of ketone bodies when glucose becomes limiting
  • Mitochondrial respiratory chain defects will prevent tumor cells from using ketone bodies for energy
  • glycolysis-dependent tumor cells are less adaptable to metabolic stress than are the normal cells. This vulnerability can be exploited for targeting tumor cell energy metabolism
  • In contrast to dietary energy reduction, radiation and toxic drugs can damage the microenvironment and transform normal cells into tumor cells while also creating tumor cells that become highly resistant to drugs and radiation
  • Drug-resistant tumor cells arise in large part from the damage to respiration in bystander pre-cancerous cells
  • Because energy generated through substrate level phosphorylation is greater in tumor cells than in normal cells, tumor cells are more dependent than normal cells on the availability of fermentable fuels (glucose and glutamine)
  • Ketone bodies and fats are non-fermentable fuels
  • Although some tumor cells might appear to oxidize ketone bodies by the presence of ketolytic enzymes [181], it is not clear if ketone bodies and fats can provide sufficient energy for cell viability in the absence of glucose and glutamine
  • Apoptosis under energy stress is greater in tumor cells than in normal cells
  • A calorie restricted ketogenic diet or dietary energy reduction creates chronic metabolic stress in the body
  • . This energy stress acts as a press disturbance
  • Drugs that target availability of glucose and glutamine would act as pulse disturbances
  • Hyperbaric oxygen therapy can also be considered another pulse disturbance
  • The KD can more effectively reduce glucose and elevate blood ketone bodies than can CR alone making the KD potentially more therapeutic against tumors than CR
  • Campbell showed that tumor growth in rats is greater under high protein (>20%) than under low protein content (<10%) in the diet
  • Protein amino acids can be metabolized to glucose through the Cori cycle
  • The fats in KDs used clinically also contain more medium chain triglycerides
  • Calorie restriction, fasting, and restricted KDs are anti-angiogenic, anti-inflammatory, and pro-apoptotic and thus can target and eliminate tumor cells through multiple mechanisms
  • Ketogenic diets can also spare muscle protein, enhance immunity, and delay cancer cachexia, which is a major problem in managing metastatic cancer
  • GKI values of 1.0 or below are considered therapeutic
  • The GKI can therefore serve as a biomarker to assess the therapeutic efficacy of various diets in a broad range of cancers.
  • It is important to remember that insulin drives glycolysis through stimulation of the pyruvate dehydrogenase complex
  • The water-soluble ketone bodies (D-β-hydroxybutyrate and acetoacetate) are produced largely in the liver from adipocyte-derived fatty acids and ketogenic dietary fat. Ketone bodies bypass glycolysis and directly enter the mitochondria for metabolism to acetyl-CoA
  • Due to mitochondrial defects, tumor cells cannot exploit the therapeutic benefits of burning ketone bodies as normal cells would
  • Therapeutic ketosis with racemic ketone esters can also make it feasible to safely sustain hypoglycemia for inducing metabolic stress on cancer cells
    • Nathan Goodyear
       
      Ketones are much more than energy adaptabilit, but actually are therapeutic.
  • ketone bodies can inhibit histone deacetylases (HDAC) [229]. HDAC inhibitors play a role in targeting the cancer epigenome
  • Therapeutic ketosis reduces circulating inflammatory markers, and ketones directly inhibit the NLRP3 inflammasome, an important pro-inflammatory pathway linked to carcinogenesis and an important target for cancer treatment response
  • Chronic psychological stress is known to promote tumorigenesis through elevations of blood glucose, glucocorticoids, catecholamines, and insulin-like growth factor (IGF-1)
  • In addition to calorie-restricted ketogenic diets, psychological stress management involving exercise, yoga, music etc. also act as press disturbances that can help reduce fatigue, depression, and anxiety in cancer patients and in animal models
  • Ketone supplementation has also been shown to reduce anxiety behavior in animal models
  • This physiological state also enhances the efficacy of chemotherapy and radiation therapy, while reducing the side effects
  • lower dosages of chemotherapeutic drugs can be used when administered together with calorie restriction or restricted ketogenic diets (KD-R)
  • Besides 2-DG, a range of other glycolysis inhibitors might also produce similar therapeutic effects when combined with the KD-R including 3-bromopyruvate, oxaloacetate, and lonidamine
    • Nathan Goodyear
       
      oxaloacetate is a glycolytic inhibitor, as is doxycycline, and IVC.
  • A synergistic interaction of the KD diet plus radiation was seen
  • It is important to recognize, however, that the radiotherapy used in glioma patients can damage the respiration of normal cells and increase availability of glutamine in the microenvironment, which can increase risk of tumor recurrence especially when used together with the steroid drug dexamethasone
  • Poff and colleagues demonstrated that hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT) enhanced the ability of the KD to reduce tumor growth and metastasis
  • HBOT also increases oxidative stress and membrane lipid peroxidation of GBM cells in vitro
  • The effects of the KD and HBOT can be enhanced with administration of exogenous ketones, which further suppressed tumor growth and metastasis
  • Besides HBOT, intravenous vitamin C and dichloroacetate (DCA) can also be used with the KD to selectively increase oxidative stress in tumor cells
  • Recent evidence also shows that ketone supplementation may enhance or preserve overall physical and mental health
  • Some tumors use glucose as a prime fuel for growth, whereas other tumors use glutamine as a prime fuel [102, 186, 262, 263, 264]. Glutamine-dependent tumors are generally less detectable than glucose-dependent under FDG-PET imaging, but could be detected under glutamine-based PET imaging
  • GBM and use glutamine as a major fuel
  • Many of the current treatments used for cancer management are based on the view that cancer is a genetic disease
  • Emerging evidence indicates that cancer is a mitochondrial metabolic disease that depends on availability of fermentable fuels for tumor cell growth and survival
  • Glucose and glutamine are the most abundant fermentable fuels present in the circulation and in the tumor microenvironment
  • Low-carbohydrate, high fat-ketogenic diets coupled with glycolysis inhibitors will reduce metabolic flux through the glycolytic and pentose phosphate pathways needed for synthesis of ATP, lipids, glutathione, and nucleotides
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    Cancer is a mitochondrial disease? So says the well published Dr Seyfried. Glucose and glutamine drive cancer growth.
Nathan Goodyear

Induction of metastasis, cancer stem cell phenotype, and oncogenic metabolism in cancer... - 0 views

  • More than half of cancer patients are treated with IR at some point during their treatment
  • fractionation schedule is the delivery of 1.8–2.0 Gy per day, five days per week
  • Nuclear DNA is the primary target of IR; it causes DNA damage (genotoxic stress) by direct DNA ionization
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  • IR also indirectly induces DNA damage by stimulating reactive oxygen species (ROS) production
  • IR is known to induce EMT in vitro
  • p53 is activated in response to IR-induced DNA damage
  • IR paradoxically also promotes tumour recurrence and metastasis
  • DNA double-strand breaks (DSBs)
  • cancer cells undergoing EMT acquire invasive and metastatic properties
  • changes in the tumour microenvironment (TME)
  • IR seems to induce EMT and CSC phenotypes by regulating cellular metabolism
  • EMT, stemness, and oncogenic metabolism are known to be associated with resistance to radiotherapy and chemotherapy
  • Hanahan and Weinberg proposed ten hallmarks of cancer that alter cell physiology to enhance malignant growth: 1) sustained proliferation, 2) evasion of growth suppression, 3) cell death resistance, 4) replicative immortality, 5) evasion of immune destruction, 6) tumour-promoting inflammation, 7) activation of invasion and metastasis, 8) induction of angiogenesis, 9) genome instability, and 10) alteration of metabolism
  • EMT is a developmental process that plays critical roles in embryogenesis, wound healing, and organ fibrosis
  • IR is known to induce stemness and metabolic alterations in cancer cells
  • transforming growth factor-β [TGF-β], epidermal growth factor [EGF]) and their associated signalling proteins (Wnt, Notch, Hedgehog, nuclear-factor kappa B [NF-κB], extracellular signal-regulated kinase [ERK], and phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase [PI3K]/Akt
  • activate EMT-inducing transcription factors, including Snail/Slug, ZEB1/δEF1, ZEB2/SIP1, Twist1/2, and E12/E47
  • Loss of E-cadherin is considered a hallmark of EMT
  • IR has been shown to induce EMT to enhance the motility and invasiveness of several cancer cells, including those of breast, lung, and liver cancer, and glioma cells
  • IR may increase metastasis in both the primary tumour site and in normal tissues under some circumstance
  • sublethal doses of IR have been shown to enhance the migratory and invasive behaviours of glioma cells
  • ROS are known to play an important role in IR-induced EMT
  • High levels of ROS trigger cell death by causing irreversible damage to cellular components such as proteins, nucleic acids, and lipids, whereas low levels of ROS have been shown to promote tumour progression—including tumour growth, invasion, and metastasis
  • hypoxia-inducible factor-1 (HIF-1) is involved in IR-induced EMT
  • Treatment with the N-acetylcysteine (NAC), a general ROS scavenger, prevents IR-induced EMT, adhesive affinity, and invasion of breast cancer cells
    • Nathan Goodyear
       
      NAC for all patients receiving radiation therapy
  • Snail has been shown to play a crucial role in IR-induced EMT, migration, and invasion
  • IR activates the p38 MAPK pathway, which contributes to the induction of Snail expression to promote EMT and invasion
  • NF-κB signalling that promotes cell migration
  • ROS promote EMT to allow cancer cells to avoid hostile environments
  • HIF-1 is a heterodimer composed of an oxygen-sensitive α subunit and a constitutively expressed β subunit.
  • Under normoxia, HIF-1α is rapidly degraded, whereas hypoxia induces stabilisation and accumulation of HIF-1α
  • levels of HIF-1α mRNA are enhanced by activation of the PI3K/Akt/mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR)
  • IR is known to increase stabilisation and nuclear accumulation of HIF-1α, since hypoxia is a major condition for HIF-1 activation
  • IR induces vascular damage that causes hypoxia
  • ROS is implicated in IR-induced HIF-1 activation
  • IR causes the reoxygenation of hypoxic cancer cells to increase ROS production, which leads to the stabilisation and nuclear accumulation of HIF-1
  • IR increases glucose availability under reoxygenated conditions that promote HIF-1α translation by activating the Akt/mTOR pathway
  • The stabilised HIF-1α then translocates to the nucleus, dimerizes with HIF-1β, and increases gene expression— including the expression of essential EMT regulators such as Snail—to induce EMT, migration, and invasion
  • TGF-β signalling has been shown to play a crucial role in IR-induced EMT
  • AP-1 transcription factor is involved in IR-induced TGF-β1 expression
  • Wnt/β-catenin signalling is also implicated in IR-induced EMT
  • Notch signalling is known to be involved in IR-induced EMT
  • IR also increases Notch-1 expression [99]. Notch-1 is known to induce EMT by upregulating Snail
  • PAI-1 signalling is also implicated in IR-induced Akt activation that increases Snail levels to induce EMT
  • EGFR activation is known to be associated with IR-induced EMT, cell migration, and invasion by activating two downstream pathways: PI3K/Akt and Raf/MEK/ERK
  • ROS and RNS are also implicated in IR-induced EGFR activation
  • IR has also been shown to activate Hedgehog (Hh) signalling to induce EMT
  • IR has been shown to induce Akt activation through several signalling pathways (EGFR, C-X-C chemokine receptor type 4 [CXCR4]/C-X-C motif chemokine 12 [CXCL12], plasminogen activator inhibitor 1 [PAI-1]) and upstream regulators (Bmi1, PTEN) that promote EMT and invasion
  • CSCs possess a capacity for self-renewal, and they can persistently proliferate to initiate tumours upon serial transplantation, thus enabling them to maintain the whole tumour
  • Conventional cancer treatments kill most cancer cells, but CSCs survive due to their resistance to therapy, eventually leading to tumour relapse and metastasis
  • identification of CSCs, three types of markers are utilised: cell surface molecules, transcription factors, and signalling pathway molecules
  • CSCs express distinct and specific surface markers; commonly used ones are CD24, CD34, CD38, CD44, CD90, CD133, and ALDH
  • Transcription factors, including Oct4, Sox2, Nanog, c-Myc, and Klf4,
  • signalling pathways, including those of TGF-β, Wnt, Hedgehog, Notch, platelet-derived growth factor receptor (PDGFR), and JAK/STAT
  • microRNAs (miRNAs), including let-7, miR-22, miR-34a, miR-128, the miR-200 family, and miR-451
  • Non-CSCs can be reprogrammed to become CSCs by epigenetic and genetic changes
  • EMT-inducing transcription factors, such as Snail, ZEB1, and Twist1, are known to confer CSC properties
  • Signalling pathways involved in EMT, including those of TGF-β, Wnt, and Notch, have been shown to play important roles in inducing the CSC phenotype
  • TGF-β1 not only increases EMT markers (Slug, Twist1, β-catenin, N-cadherin), but also upregulates CSC markers (Oct4, Sox2, Nanog, Klf4) in breast and lung cancer cells
  • some CSC subpopulations arise independently of EMT
  • IR has been shown to induce the CSC phenotype in many cancers, including breast, lung, and prostate cancers, as well as melanoma
  • Genotoxic stress due to IR or chemotherapy promotes a CSC-like phenotype by increasing ROS production
  • IR has been shown to induce reprogramming of differentiated cancer cells into CSCs
  • In prostate cancer patients, radiotherapy increases the CD44+ cell population that exhibit CSC properties
  • IR also induces the re-expression of stem cell regulators, such as Sox2, Oct4, Nanog, and Klf4, to promote stemness in cancer cells
  • EMT-inducing transcription factors and signalling pathways, including Snail, STAT3, Notch signalling, the PI3K/Akt pathway, and the MAPK cascade, have been shown to play important roles in IR-induced CSC properties
  • STAT3 directly binds to the Snail promoter and increases Snail transcription, which induces the EMT and CSC phenotypes, in cisplatin-selected resistant cells
  • Other oncogenic metabolic pathways, including glutamine metabolism, the pentose phosphate pathway (PPP), and synthesis of fatty acids and cholesterol, are also enhanced in many cancers
  • metabolic reprogramming
  • HIF-1α, p53, and c-Myc, are known to contribute to oncogenic metabolism
  • metabolic reprogramming
  • tumour cells exhibit high mitochondrial metabolism as well as aerobic glycolysis
  • occurring within the same tumour
  • CSCs can be highly glycolytic-dependent or oxidative phosphorylation (OXPHOS)-dependen
  • mitochondrial function is crucial for maintaining CSC functionality
  • cancer cells depend on mitochondrial metabolism and increase mitochondrial production of ROS that cause pseudo-hypoxia
  • HIF-1 then enhances glycolysis
  • CAFs have defective mitochondria that lead to the cells exhibiting the Warburg effect; the cells take up glucose, and then secrete lactate to 'feed' adjacent cancer cells
  • lactate transporter, monocarboxylate transporter (MCT)
  • nutrient microenvironment
  • Epithelial cancer cells express MCT1, while CAFs express MCT4. MCT4-positive, hypoxic CAFs secrete lactate by aerobic glycolysis, and MCT1-expressing epithelial cancer cells then uptake and use that lactate as a substrate for the tricarboxylic acid (TCA) cycle
  • MCT4-positive cancer cells depend on glycolysis and then efflux lactate, while MCT1-positive cells uptake lactate and rely on OXPHOS
  • metabolic heterogeneity induces a lactate shuttle between hypoxic/glycolytic cells and oxidative/aerobic tumour cells
  • bulk tumour cells exhibit a glycolytic phenotype, with increased conversion of glucose to lactate (and enhanced lactate efflux through MCT4), CSC subsets depend on oxidative phosphorylation; most of the glucose entering the cells is converted to pyruvate to fuel the TCA cycle and the electron transport chain (ETC), thereby increasing mitochondrial ROS production
  • the major fraction of glucose is directed into the pentose phosphate pathway, to produce redox power through the generation of NADPH and ROS scavengers
  • HIF-1α, p53, and c-Myc, are known to contribute to oncogenic metabolism
  • regulatory molecules involved in EMT and CSCs, including Snail, Dlx-2, HIF-1, STAT3, TGF-β, Wnt, and Akt, are implicated in the metabolic reprogramming of cancer cells
  • HIF-1 induces the expression of glycolytic enzymes, including the glucose transporter GLUT, hexokinase, lactate dehydrogenase (LDH), and MCT, resulting in the glycolytic switch
  • HIF-1 represses the expression of pyruvate dehydrogenase kinase (PDK), which inhibits pyruvate dehydrogenase (PDH), thereby inhibiting mitochondrial activity
  • STAT3 has been implicated in EMT-induced metabolic changes as well
  • TGF-β and Wnt play important roles in the metabolic alteration of cancer cells
  • Akt is also implicated in the glycolytic switch and in promoting cancer cell invasiveness
  • EMT, invasion, metastasis, and stemness
  • pyruvate kinase M2 (PKM2), LDH, and pyruvate carboxylase (PC), are implicated in the induction of the EMT and CSC phenotypes
  • decreased activity of PKM2 is known to promote an overall shift in metabolism to aerobic glycolysis
  • LDH catalyses the bidirectional conversion of lactate to pyruvate
  • High levels of LDHA are positively correlated with the expression of EMT and CSC markers
  • IR has been shown to induce metabolic changes in cancer cells
  • IR enhances glycolysis by upregulating GAPDH (a glycolysis enzyme), and it increases lactate production by activating LDHA, which converts pyruvate to lactate
  • IR enhances glycolysis by upregulating GAPDH (a glycolysis enzyme), and it increases lactate production by activating LDHA, which converts pyruvate to lactate
  • IR also elevates MCT1 expression that exports lactate into the extracellular environment, leading to acidification of the tumour microenvironment
  • IR increases intracellular glucose, glucose 6-phosphate, fructose, and products of pyruvate (lactate and alanine), suggesting a role for IR in the upregulation of cytosolic aerobic glycolysis
  • Lactate can activate latent TGF-
  • lactate stimulates cell migration and enhances secretion of hyaluronan from CAF that promote tumour metastasis
  • promote tumour survival, growth, invasion, and metastasis; enhance the stiffness of the ECM; contribute to angiogenesis; and induce inflammation by releasing several growth factors and cytokines (TGF-β, VEGF, hepatocyte growth factor [HGF], PDGF, and stromal cell-derived factor 1 [SDF1]), as well as MMP
  • tumours recruit the host tissue’s blood vessel network to perform four mechanisms: angiogenesis (formation of new vessels), vasculogenesis (de novo formation of blood vessels from endothelial precursor cells), co-option, and modification of existing vessels within tissues.
  • immunosuppressive cells such as tumour-associated macrophages (TAM), MDSCs, and regulatory T cells, and the immunosuppressive cytokines, TGF-β and interleukin-10 (IL-10)
  • immunosuppressive cells such as tumour-associated macrophages (TAM), MDSCs, and regulatory T cells, and the immunosuppressive cytokines, TGF-β and interleukin-10 (IL-10)
  • intrinsic immunogenicity or induce tolerance
  • cancer immunoediting’
  • three phases: 1) elimination, 2) equilibrium, and 3) escape.
  • The third phase, tumour escape, is mediated by antigen loss, immunosuppressive cells (TAM, MDSCs, and regulatory T cells), and immunosuppressive cytokines (TGF-β and IL-10).
  • IR can elicit various changes in the TME, such as CAF activity-mediated ECM remodelling and fibrosis, cycling hypoxia, and an inflammatory response
  • IR activates CAFs to promote the release of growth factors and ECM modulators, including TGF-β and MMP
  • TGF-β directly influences tumour cells and CAFs, promotes tumour immune escape, and activates HIF-1 signalling
    • Nathan Goodyear
       
      And now the receipts
  • MMPs degrade ECM that facilitates angiogenesis, tumour cell invasion, and metastasis
    • Nathan Goodyear
       
      Receipts and mechanisms
  • IR also promotes MMP-2/9 activation in cancer cells to promote EMT, invasion, and metastasis
  • IR-induced Snail increases MMP-2 expression to promote EMT
  • Radiotherapy has the paradoxical side-effect of increasing tumour aggressiveness
  • IR promotes ROS production in cancer cells, which may induce the activation of oncogenes and the inactivation of tumour suppressors, which further promote oncogenic metabolism
  • Metabolic alterations
  • oncogenic metabolism
  • elicit various changes in the TME
  • Although IR activates an antitumour immune response, this signalling is frequently suppressed by tumour escape mechanisms
  •  
    Important review article.
Nathan Goodyear

Mitochondrial Fission Induces Glycolytic Reprogramming in Cancer-Associated Myofibrobla... - 0 views

  • L-lactate functions as an onco-metabolite, stimulating mitochondrial biogenesis and OXPHOS in adjacent cancer cells, directly providing energy for tumor growth
  • Oxidative stress in stromal fibroblasts then induces their metabolic conversion into cancer-associated fibroblasts. Such oxidative stress drives the onset of autophagy, mitophagy, and aerobic glycolysis in fibroblasts, resulting in the local production of high-energy mitochondrial fuels (such as L-lactate, ketone bodies, and glutamine). These recycled nutrients are then transferred to cancer cells, where they are efficiently burned via oxidative mitochondrial metabolism (OXPHOS)
  • stromal L-lactate serves as a high-energy mitochondrial “fuel” for cancer cells. We have termed this new model of cancer metabolism “Two-Compartment Tumor Metabolism”, where two opposing metabolic compartments co-exist, side-by-side, with stromal glycolysis fueling OXPHOS in cancer cells
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  • Two-Compartment Tumor Metabolism
  • Reverse Warburg Effect”, is that catabolic fibroblasts should promote tumor growth, without any increases in angiogenesis
  • when cancer cells use L-lactate as a mitochondrial fuel source, this metabolic phenotype is a predictor of lethal cancer metabolism
  • tumor microenvironment is intimately involved in tumor development and progression
  • mitochondrial dysregulation is likely the “root cause” of several human disease(s), and especially epithelial cancers
  • Both in vitro and in vivo studies have now provided convincing evidence that “activated” stromal fibroblasts, a.k.a., myofibroblasts, may play a critical role in initiating tumor recurrence, via paracrine interactions with adjacent tumor epithelial cells
  • A new hypothesis is that cancer is not a cell autonomous disease, but rather a disease of the tumor microenvironment
  • cancer cells behave as metabolic parasites, by inducing oxidative stress in adjacent normal fibroblasts
  • recent experimental evidence indicates that cancer-associated fibroblasts have a catabolic phenotype, and undergo autophagy and mitophagy, resulting in the onset of glycolytic metabolism, driving L-lactate production, and its release into the tumor microenvironment
  • oncogenic mutations in cancer cells lead to ROS production and the “secretion” of hydrogen peroxide species
  •  
    A good discussion of what is proposed the Reverse Warburg effect.  A process by which the local environment dictates tumor progression.  The cancer cells release ROS primarily in the form of H2O2 and this leads to Cancer Associated Fibroblasts (CAFs) in the stroma.  The altered stromal environment increases ROS further and promotes ocogenic metabolites through the classic Warburg effect.  This high lactate production from the CAFs then is used by the cancer cells via classic oxidative phosphorylation.  Complex, beautiful and still an the understanding is a work in progress.   This study/article points to the importance of oxidative stress in some cancer development through CAFs.
Nathan Goodyear

Promising role for Gc-MAF in cancer immunotherapy: from bench to bedside - 0 views

  • MAF precursor activity has also been lost or reduced after Gc-globulin treatment in some cancer cell lines
  • This appears to result from the deglycosylated ɑ-N-acetylgalactosaminidase (nagalase) secreted from cancerous cells
  • Nagalase has been detected in many cancer patients, but not in healthy individuals
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  • Studies have shown that the production of nagalase has a mutual relationship with Gc-MAF level and immunosuppression
  • It has been demonstrated that serum levels of nagalase are good prognosticators of some types of cancer
  • The nagalase level in serum correlates with tumor burden and it has been shown that Gc-MAF therapy progresses, nagalase activity decreases
  • It has been shown that Gc-MAF can inhibit the angiogenesis induced by pro-inflammatory prostaglandin E1
  • The effect of Gc-MAF on chemotaxis or activation of tumoricidal macrophages is likely the main mechanism against angiogenesis.
  • Administration of Gc-MAF stimulates immune-cell progenitors for extensive mitogenesis, activates macrophages and produces antibodies. “This indicates that Gc-MAF is a powerful adjuvant for immunization.”
  • Cancer cell lines do not develop into tumor genes in mouse models after Gc-MAF-primed immunization (29-31) and the effect of Gc-MAF has been approved for macrophage stimulation for angiogenesis, proliferation, migration and metastatic inhibition on tumors induced by MCF-7 human breast cancer cell line
  • The protocol included: "a high dose of second-generation Gc-MAF (0.5 ml) administered twice a week intramuscularly for a total of 21 injections.”
  • Yamamoto et al. showed that the administration of Gc-MAF to 16 patients with prostate cancer led to improvements in all patients without recurrence
  • Inui et al. reported that a 74-year-old man diagnosed with prostate cancer with multiple bone metastases was in complete remission nine months after initiation of GcMAF therapy simultaneously with hyper T/NK cell, high-dose vitamin C and alpha lipoic acid therapy
  • It has also been approved for non-neoplastic diseases such as autism (41), multiple sclerosis (42, 43), chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) (40), juvenile osteoporosis (44) and systemic lupus erythematous (45).
  • Gc-MAF has been verified for use in colon, thyroid (38), lung (39), liver, thymus (36), pancreatic (40), bladder and ovarian cancer and tongue squamous carcinoma
  • Prostate, breast, colon, liver, stomach, lung (including mesothelioma), kidney, bladder, uterus, ovarian, head/neck and brain cancers, fibrosarcomas and melanomas are the types of cancer tested thus far
  • weekly administration of 100 ng Gc-MAF to cancer at different stages and types showed curative effects at different follow-up times
  • this treatment has been suggested for non-anemic patients
  • Studies have shown that weekly administration of 100 ng Gc-MAF to cancer patients had curative effects on a variety of cancers
  • Because the half-life of the activated macrophages is approximately one week, it must be administered weekly
  • In vivo weekly intramuscular administration of Gc-MAF (100 ng) for 16-22 weeks was used to treat patients with breast cancer
  • individuals harboring different VDR genotypes had different responses to Gc-MAF and that some genotypes were more responsive than others
  • Administration of Gc-MAF for cancer patients exclusively activates macrophages as an important cell in adaptive immunity
  • Gc-MAF supports humoral immunity by producing, developing and releasing large quantities of antibodies against cancer. Clinical evidence from a human model of breast cancer patients supports this hypothesis
  • There is also evidence that confirms the tumoricidal role of Gc-MAF via Fc-receptor mediation
  • It is likely that the best therapeutic responses will be observed when the nutritional and inflammatory aspects are taken together with stimulation of the immune system
  • it should be noted that no harmful side effects of Gc-MAF treatment have been reported, even when it was successfully administered to autistic children
  • The natural activation mechanism of macrophages by Gc-MAF is so natural and it should not have any side effects on humans or animal models even in cell culture
  • Besides the Gc-MAF efficacy on macrophage activity, it can be a potential anti-angiogenic agent (28) and an inhibitor of the migration of cancerous cells in the absence of macrophages (47).
  • Activating or modifying natural killer cells, dendritic cells, DC, CTL, INF and IL-2 have all been recommended for cancer immunotherapy
  • It has been reported that nagalase cannot deglycosylate Gc-MAF as it has specificity for Gc globulin alone
  • inflammation-derived macrophage activation with the participation of B and T lymphocytes is the main mechanism
  • macrophages highly-activated by the addition of Gc-MAF can show tumoricidal activity
  • Previous clinical investigations have confirmed the efficacy of Gc-MAF. In addition to activating existing macrophages, Gc-MAF is a potent mitogenic factor that can stimulate the myeloid progenitor cells to increase systemic macrophage cell counts by 40-fold in four days
  •  
    great review on Gc-MAF in cancer.  An increase in nagalase blocks Gc-protein to Gc-MAF activity leaving the host immune system compromised.
Nathan Goodyear

Tumor regionalization after surgery: Roles of the tumor microenvironment and neutrophil... - 0 views

  • tumor surgery must be carefully considered because the risk of metastasis could be increased by the surgical procedure.
  • NETosis, which is the process of forming neutrophil extracellular traps (NETs)
  • surgery-induced metastasis
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  • surgery per se can promote cancer metastasis through a series of local and systemic events
  • surgery results in a serious wound that disrupts the structural barrier preventing the outspreading of cancer cells, change the properties of the cancer cells and stromal cells remaining in the tumor microenvironment, or impairs the host defense systems against cancers
    • Nathan Goodyear
       
      Key point; add to presentation on surgery and metastasis
  • After the primary tumor is surgically removed, the metastases can start to grow vigorously via neoangiogenesis because the circulating inhibitors disappear
  • infection and inflammation during the postoperative period have been reported to increase the risk of cancer recurrence in patients
  • Surgeons have long suspected that surgery, even if it is a necessary step in cancer treatment, facilitates cancer metastasis
  • Surgery-induced cancer metastasis has been well established in animal models
  • tumor cell dissemination, tumor-favoring immune responses, and neoangiogenesis
  • the surgical resection of primary tumors is beneficial is controversial
  • CTCs abruptly increase just after surgery
  • Even externally palpitating tumors for diagnosis could increase the numbers of CTCs in skin cancer and breast cancer
  • excessive glucocorticoids negatively modulate immune functions
  • immune surveillance against tumors is considered to be impaired by surgical stress
  • In addition to glucocorticoids, during stimulation of the HPA axis, the catecholamine hormones epinephrine and norepinephrine are released from the adrenal medulla
  • NK cell suppression may be attributed to increased levels of catecholamines as well as glucocorticoids
  • In mice bearing a primary tumor, it was observed that the removal of the primary tumor facilitated the growth of highly vascularized metastases
  • primary tumors may secrete angiogenic inhibitors as well as angiogenic activators
  • second phase of tumor recurrence and metastasis, which are newly acquired events, rather than just outcomes of incomplete treatment.
    • Nathan Goodyear
       
      Another key point
  • double-edged sword
  • HIF-1 in neutrophils plays a critical role in NETosis and bacteria-killing activity
  • neutrophils play various roles in the initiation and progression of cancer
  • NETosis
  • many inflammatory and neoplastic diseases
  • formation of neutrophil extracellular traps (NETs), which are large extracellular complexes composed of chromatin and cytoplasmic/granular proteins1
  • NETosis has been highlighted as an inflammatory event that promotes cancer metastasis
  • Once activated, neutrophils produce intracellular precursors by using DNA, histones, and granular and cytoplasmic proteins and then spread the mature form of NETs out around themselves
  • A series of these events is called NETosis.
  • neutrophil elastase, myeloperoxidase, cathepsin G, proteinase 3, lactoferrin, gelatinase, lysozyme C, calprotectin, neutrophil defensins, and cathelicidins
  • innate immune response against infection
  • Neutrophils are the most abundant type of granulocytes, comprising 40–70% of all white blood cells
  • two types of NEToses, suicidal (or lytic) NETosis and vital NETosis
  • Suicidal NETosis mainly depends on the production of reactive oxygen species (ROS)
  • Since neutrophils die during this process, it is called suicidal NETosis.
  • vital NETosis
  • vital NETosis occurs independently of ROS production
  • Vital NETosis can be induced by Gram-negative bacteria. LPS
  • NETs are present in a variety of cancers, such as lung cancer, colon cancer, ovarian cancer, and leukemia
  • neutrophils actively undergo NETosis in the tumor microenvironment
  • Hypoxia
  • NETosis plays a pivotal role in noninfectious autoimmune diseases,
  • cytokines
  • tumor-derived proteases
  • tumor exosomes
  • NETosis generally actively progresses in the tumor microenvironment.
  • the proliferative cytokines TGFβ and IL-10 and the angiogenic factor VEGF are representative of neutrophil-derived tissue repair proteins.
  • NETosis is a defense system to protect the body from invading pathogens
  • when neutrophils are excessively stimulated, they produce excess NETs, thereby leading to pathological consequences
  • plasma levels of NETosis markers are elevated after major surgeries
  • local invasion, intravasation into the blood or lymphatic vessels, escape from the immune system, anchoring to capillaries in target organs, extravasation into the organs, transformation from dormant cells to proliferating cells, colonization to micrometastases, and growth to macrometastases
  • NETs promote metastasis at multiple steps
  • NETs loosen the ECM and capillary wall to promote the intravasation of cancer cells
  • NETs and platelets wrap CTCs, which protects them from attack by immune cells and shearing force by blood flow
  • NETs promote the local invasion of cancer cells by degrading the extracellular matrix (ECM)
  • neutrophil elastase, matrix metalloproteinase 9, and cathepsin G
  • NETs also promote the intravasation of cancer cells
  • millions of tumor cells are released into the circulation every day,
  • NETs can wrap up CTCs with platelets
  • β1-integrin plays an important role in the interaction between CTCs and NETs
  • NET-platelet-CTC aggregates.
  • After metastasizing to distant tissues, tumor cells are often found to remain dormant for a period of time and unexpectedly regrow late
  • NETs are believed to participate in the reactivation of dormant cancer cells in metastatic regions
  • NET-associated proteases NE and MMP-9 were found to be responsible for the reactivation of dormant cancer cells
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    Surgery induced metastasis: it is real and steered by NETosis.
Nathan Goodyear

Role of maximum standardized uptake value in fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomog... - 0 views

  • 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography/computed tomography (FDG-PET/CT) is an effective and popular technique for evaluating patients before and after breast cancer surgery.
  • Quantitative FDG-PET/CT imaging is becoming prevalent in cancer treatment as it measures glucose metabolism that reflects the growth potential and metabolic activity of malignant tumors
  • The FDG-PET/CT findings of primary lesions in colorectal and lung cancers correlate with metastasis and prognosis because FDG reflects tumor viability
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  • The technique is valuable for predicting the prognosis of patients with recurrent breast cancer and for determining and predicting the outcomes of neoadjuvant chemotherapy
  • FDG-PET/CT is useful not only for evaluating metastasis but also for predicting the prognosis of recurrent breast cancer and measuring treatment effects
  • reports remain limited to small-scale clinical trials of about 100 patients.
  • MaxSUV, which is the most popular FDG-PET/CT value, can vary up to 30 % because of differences among PET/CT devices and among the operators who create the images
  • the degree of malignancy would increase with an increase in maxSUV when ER or HER-2 signaling is involved.
  • Factors that determine the rate of cancer progression include T-factor (tumor diameter) and N-factor (presence or absence/number of lymph node metastasis)
  • The prognostic factors applied in breast cancer can be broadly divided into those that determine staging and those that determine biological tumor characteristics
  • Prognosis was previously predicted based on T, N, and M staging, which indicates the degree of progression. However, prognosis is now predicted and treatment regimes are presently selected by also considering ER and HER-2 levels, which determine the nature of the tumor
  • maxSUV presently serves as an indicator of metabolic activity during cancer therapy. For instance, the maxSUV of primary lung and hematological cancer lesions correlates with metastasis and prognosis, whereas maxSUV also seems useful for predicting the prognosis of recurrent breast cancer and in determining and predicting the outcome of neoadjuvant chemotherapy
  • The maxSUV cut-off calculated from ROC curves for recurrence was 3.0
  • Factors that determine the nature of tumors also include ER, HER-2, Ki-67 labeling index, and nuclear grade
  • both ER status and maxSUV as independent prognostic factors
  • maxSUV has a closer correlation with prognosis
  • maxSUV, clinical T-factor and ER were significant prognostic factors
  • Our results showed that maxSUV has the potential to be a novel prognostic factor and that it can be used to determine future therapies
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    Retrospective, multi-facility finds maxSUV can be used in prognosis in cancer.  Others have shown benefit in recurrence risk.  MaxSUV was found to be an independent factor.
Nathan Goodyear

Oncotarget | NADH autofluorescence, a new metabolic biomarker for cancer stem cells: Id... - 0 views

  • Vitamin C was ~10 times more potent than 2-DG for the targeting of CSCs
  • Cancer stem-like cells (CSCs) are thought to be the root cause of chemotherapy-resistance and radio-resistance
  • ultimately leading to treatment failure in patients with advanced disease [1-3]. They have been directly implicated mechanistically in tumor recurrence and metastasis, resulting in poor patient survival
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  • mitochondrial biogenesis may be a key driver of the CSC phenotype
  • Our results indicate that increased mitochondrial oxidative stress and high NADH levels are both key characteristics of the CSC metabolic phenotype
  • high levels of NAD(P)H auto-fluorescence are known to be a surrogate marker for mitochondrial “power”, high OXPHOS capacity and increased ATP production
  • CSCs may be strictly dependent on NAD(P)H to maintain their enhanced mitochondrial function
  • an intact NAD+ salvage pathway is strictly required for mammosphere formation, supporting our results using NAD(P)H auto-fluorescence, which enriched CSC activity by more than 5-fold.
  • Since glycolysis is especially critical for maintaining the TCA cycle, OXPHOS and overall mitochondrial function, we next assessed the effects of known glycolytic inhibitors
  • we show that two other natural products that function as effective glycolysis inhibitors, also inhibited mammosphere formation. More specifically, vitamin C (ascorbic acid), which induces oxidative stress and inhibits the activity of GAPDH (a key glycolytic enzyme) [17], also inhibited mammosphere formation, with an IC-50 of 1 mM (Figure 7B). Therefore, vitamin C was ~10 times more potent than 2-DG at targeting CSC propagation
  • silibinin (the major active constituent of silymarin, an extract of milk thistle seeds) [18], which specifically functions as an inhibitor of glucose uptake, blocked mammosphere formation, with an IC-50 between 200 and 400 µM
  • caffeic acid phenyl ester (CAPE), a key component of honey-bee propolis, has potent anti-cancer properties
  • Propolis has a strong history of medicinal use, dating back more than 2,000 years
  • Because of it aromatic ring structure (Figure 8), we speculated that CAPE might function as a potent inhibitor of oxidative mitochondrial metabolism
  • CAPE quantitatively inhibits the mitochondrial oxygen consumption rate (OCR) and, in turn, induces the onset of aerobic glycolysis (ECAR)
  • CAPE shows a clear selectivity for targeting CSCs and adherent cancer cells, relative to normal fibroblasts.
  • CAPE functions as a “natural” mitochondrial OXPHOS inhibitor, that preferentially targets the CSC sub-population. This could explain CAPE’s known anti-cancer properties
  • Our data directly shows that a small fraction of the total cell population, characterized by increased PGC1α activity, high mitochondrial ROS/H2O2 and high NADH levels, has the ability to survive and grow under anchorage-independent conditions, driving mammosphere formation
  • We highlight the utility of certain natural products, such as Silibinin, Vitamin C and CAPE, that could be used to therapeutically target CSCs. Silibinin is the major active component of silymarin, which is an extract prepared from milk thistle seeds.
  • high NADH is a property that is conserved between normal and cancerous stem cells
  • Previous studies have also shown that when non-CSCs and CSCs are both fed mitochondrial fuels (such as L-lactate or ketone bodies), that CSCs quantitatively produce more NADH in response to this stimulus
  • CSCs may be strictly dependent on NADH to maintain their enhanced mitochondrial function
  • The Noble Prize winner, Linus Pauling, was among the first to describe and clinically test the efficacy of Vitamin C, as a relatively non-toxic anti-cancer agent
  • Vitamin C has two mechanisms of action. First, it is a potent pro-oxidant, that actively depletes the reduced glutathione pool, leading to cellular oxidative stress and apoptosis in cancer cells. Moreover, it also behaves as an inhibitor of glycolysis, by targeting the activity of GAPDH, a key glycolytic enzyme.
  • Here, we show that Vitamin C can also be used to target the CSC population, as it is an inhibitor of energy metabolism that feeds into the mitochondrial TCA cycle and OXPHOS
  • Vitamin C may prove to be promising agent for new clinical trials, aimed at testing its ability to reduce CSC activity in cancer patients, as an add-on to more conventional therapies, to prevent tumor recurrence, further disease progression and metastasis
  • Interestingly, a breast cancer based clinical study has already shown that the use of Vitamin C, concurrent with or within 6 months of chemotherapy, significantly reduces both tumor recurrence and patient mortality
  • CAPE quantitatively reduces mitochondrial oxygen consumption (OCR), while inducing a reactive increase in glycolysis (ECAR). As such, it potently inhibits mammosphere formation with an IC-50 of ~2.5 µM. Similarly, it also significantly inhibits cell migration
  • we also demonstrate that 7 different inhibitors of key energetic pathways can be used to effectively block CSC propagation, including three natural products (silibinin, ascorbic acid and CAPE). Future studies will be necessary to test their potential for clinical benefit in cancer patients.
  •  
    The future of cancer therapy is cancer stem cells.  Study finds that Vitamin C, silymarin, and bee propolis blocks mitochondrial energy pathways in cancer stem cells.  Vitamin C is a known glycolytic inhbitor. Vitamin C was found to inhibit glycolysis via GAPDH targeting to inhibit the energy pathways of the mitochondria in CSCs.  The authors propse that Vitamin C can be used as add on therapies for conventional therapies to specifically attack the CSCs and their contribution to recrurence, treatment resistance, and metastasis potential all in addition to the ability of vitamin C to reduce the side effects of chemotherapy.
Nathan Goodyear

Testosterone replacement therapy and the risk of prostate cancer - 0 views

  • When the level of circulating androgen is below normal, some androgen receptors are inactive, and the secondary downstream effects are decreased. Once androgen receptors within the prostate are saturated, however, increasing testosterone will no longer have an effect
  • the saturation point is thought to occur at low physiologic testosterone levels
  • Only the subset of individuals with pretreatment testosterone level <250 ng dl−1 had PSA level correlating with free and total testosterone level
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  • none of the men stopped testosterone supplementation due to prostate cancer recurrence, and none demonstrated cancer progression
  • PSA level did transiently rise in one patient; however, none exceeded a PSA of 1.5 ng ml−1 to raise concern for biochemical recurrence
  • after 19 months on TRT, 10 hypogonadal patients with a history of undergoing a radical retropubic prostatectomy for prostate cancer had no PSA recurrence and had statistically significant improvements in serum total testosterone and hypogonadal symptoms
  • Similarly, Kaufman and Graydon14 examined case records of seven hypogonadal men who had undergone curative RP with symptoms of hypogonadism and low serum testosterone levels treated with testosterone replacement. No biochemical or clinical evidence of cancer recurrence was noted
  • In a much larger case series, Khera et al.15 reviewed the records of 57 men who received TRT following RP. After an average of 36 months following RP, testosterone replacement was initiated and followed for an average of 13 months. Mean testosterone values rose significantly and once again, there was no increase in PSA values and, therefore, no diagnosed biochemical recurrence
  • Four of the patients in the treatment group were found to have cancer recurrence, compared with eight in the control group
  • All biochemical recurrences were seen in individuals with high-risk disease
  •  
    Good review of data on Testosterone therapy and prostate cancer risk: the take home is there is no increased risk.  Also, included is a discussion of the prostate saturation theory.
Nathan Goodyear

Role of Oxidative Stress and the Microenvironment in Breast Cancer Development and Prog... - 0 views

  • oxidative stress leads to HIF-1α accumulation
  • increased levels of hydrogen peroxide in exhaled breath condensate from patients with localized breast malignancy, associated with increased clinical severity
  • Oxidative stress generated by breast cancer cells activates HIF-1α and NFκB in fibroblasts, leading to autophagy and lysosomal degradation of Cav-1
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  • Comparing mitochondrial metabolic activity revealed a difference between stroma and epithelial cells
  • metalloproteinases (MMP) such as MMP-2, MMP-3, and MMP-9 increase extracellular matrix turnover and are themselves activated by oxidative stress
  • Overexpression of NOX4 in normal breast epithelial cells results in cellular senescence, resistance to apoptosis, and tumorigenic transformation, as well as increased aggressiveness of breast cancer cells
  • Lowered expression of Cav-1 not only leads to myofibroblast conversion and inflammation but also seems to impact aerobic glycolysis, leading to secretion of high energy metabolites such as pyruvate and lactate that drive mitochondrial oxidative phosphorylation in cancer cells
  • Reverse Warburg Effect
  • secreted transforming growth factor β (TGFβ), insulin-like growth factor (IGF), platelet-derived growth factor (PDGF), fibroblast growth factor 2, and stromal-derived factor 1 (SDF1) are able to activate fibroblasts and increase cancer cell proliferation
  • oxidative stress has an important role in the initiation and preservation of breast cancer progression
  • cancer preventive role of healthy mitochondria
  • the cancer cells produce hydrogen peroxide and by driving the “Reverse Warburg Effect” initiate oxidative stress in fibroblasts. As a result of this process, fibroblasts exhibited reduced mitochondrial activity, increased glucose uptake, ROS, and metabolite production.
  • Oxidative stress results from an imbalance between unstable reactive species lacking one or more unpaired electrons (superoxide anion, hydrogen peroxide, hydroxyl radical, reactive nitrogen species) and antioxidants
  • cancer cells are able to induce drivers of oxidative stress, autophagy and mitophagy: HIF-1α and NFκB in surrounding stroma fibro-blasts
  • Studies show that loss of Cav-1 in adjacent breast cancer stroma fibroblasts can be prevented by treatment with N-acetyl cysteine, quercetin, or metformin
  • However, diets rich in antioxidants have fallen short in sufficiently preventing cancer
  • obstructing oxidative stress in the tumor microenvironment can lead to mitophagy and promote breast cancer shutdown is a promising discovery for the development of future therapeutic interventions.
  • It is widely held that HIF-1α function is dependent upon its location within the tumor microenvironment. It acts as a tumor promoter in CAFs and as a tumor suppressor in cancer cells
  • It was reported that overexpression of recombinant (SOD2) (Trimmer et al., 2011) or injection of SOD, catalase, or their pegylated counterparts can block recurrence and metastasis in mice
  • hydrogen peroxide is one of the main factors that can push fibroblasts and cancer cells into senescence
  • Recent studies show that in the breast cancer microenvironment, oxidative stress causes mitochondrial dysfunction
  •  
    Really fascinating article on tumor signaling. The article points to a complex signaling between cancer cells and stromal fibroblasts that results in myofibroblast transformation that increases the microenvironment favorability of cancer. This article points to oxidative stress as the primary driving force.  
Nathan Goodyear

Oncotarget | Vitamin C and Doxycycline: A synthetic lethal combination therapy targetin... - 0 views

  • These eight distinct cancer types included: DCIS, breast (ER(+) and ER(-)), ovarian, prostate, lung, and pancreatic carcinomas, as well as melanoma and glioblastoma. Doxycycline was also effective in halting the propagation of primary cultures of CSCs from breast cancer patients, with advanced metastatic disease (isolated from ascites fluid and/or pleural effusions)
  • Doxycycline behaves as a strong radio-sensitizer, successfully overcoming radio-resistance in breast CSCs
  • cancer cells can indeed escape the effects of Doxycycline, by reverting to a purely glycolytic phenotype. Fortunately, the metabolic inflexibility conferred by this escape mechanism allows Doxycycline-resistant (DoxyR) CSCs to be more effectively targeted with many other metabolic inhibitors, including Vitamin C, which functionally blocks aerobic glycolysis
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  • Vitamin C inhibits GAPDH (a glycolytic enzyme) and depletes the cellular pool of glutathione, resulting in high ROS production and oxidative stress
  • DoxyR CSCs are between 4- to 10-fold more susceptible to the effects of Vitamin C
  • Doxycycline and Vitamin C may represent a new synthetic lethal drug combination for eradicating CSCs, by ultimately targeting both mitochondrial and glycolytic metabolism
  • inhibiting their propagation in the range of 100 to 250 µM
  • metabolic flexibility in cancer cells allows them to escape therapeutic eradication, leading to chemo- and radio-resistance
  • used doxycycline to pharmacologically induce metabolic inflexibility in CSCs, by chronically inhibiting mitochondrial biogenesis
  • This treatment resulted in a purely glycolytic population of surviving cancer cells
  • DoxyR cells are mainly glycolytic
  • MCF7 cells survive and develop Doxycycline-resistance, by adopting a purely glycolytic phenotype
  • Cancer stem cells (CSCs) are thought to be the “root cause” of tumor recurrence, distant metastasis and therapy-resistance
  • the conserved evolutionary similarities between aerobic bacteria and mitochondria, certain classes of antibiotics inhibit mitochondrial protein translation, as an off-target side-effect
  • Vitamin C was more potent than 2-DG; it inhibited DoxyR CSC propagation by > 90% at 250 µM and 100% at 500 µM
  • IC-50
  • DoxyR CSCs are between 4- to 10-fold more sensitive to Vitamin C than control MCF7 CSCs
  • Berberine, which is a naturally occurring antibiotic that also behaves as an OXPHOS inhibitor
  • treatment with Berberine effectively inhibited the propagation of the DoxyR CSCs by > 50% at 1 µM and > 80% at 10 µM.
  • Doxycycline, a clinically approved antibiotic, induces metabolic stress in cancer cells. This allows the remaining cancer cells to be synchronized towards a purely glycolytic phenotype, driving a form of metabolic inflexibility
  • Doxycycline-driven aerobic glycolysis
  • new synthetic lethal strategy for eradicating CSCs, by employing i) Doxycycline (to target mitochondria) and ii) Vitamin C (to target glycolysis)
  • Doxycycline inhibits mitochondrial biogenesis and OXPHOS,
  • hibits glycolytic metabolism by targeting and inhibiting the enzyme GAPDH
  • CSCs act as the main promoter of tumor recurrence and patient relapse
  • a metabolic shift from oxidative to glycolytic metabolism represents an escape mechanism for breast cancer cells chronically-treated with a mitochondrial stressor like Doxycycline, as mitochondrial dys-function leads to a stronger dependence on glucose
  • Vitamin C has been demonstrated to selectively kill cancer cells in vitro and to inhibit tumor growth in experimental mouse models
  • many of these actions have been attributed to the ability of Vitamin C to act as a glycolysis inhibitor, by targeting GAPDH and depleting the NAD pool
  • here we show that DoxyR CSCs are more vulnerable to the inhibitory effects of Vitamin C, at 4- to 10-fold lower concentrations, between 100 to 250 μM
  • concurrent use of Vitamin C, with standard chemotherapy, reduces tumor recurrence and patient mortality
  • after oral administration, Vitamin C plasma levels reach concentrations of ~70-220 μM
  • intravenous administration results in 30- to 70- fold higher plasma concentrations of Vitamin C
  • pro-oxidant activity results from Vitamin C’s action on metal ions, which generates free radicals and hydrogen peroxide, and is associated with cell toxicity
  • it has been shown that high-dose Vitamin C is more cytotoxic to cancer cells than to normal cells
  • This selectivity appears to be due to the higher catalase content observed in normal cells (~10-100 fold greater), as compared to tumor cells. Hence, Vitamin C may be regarded as a safe agent that selectively targets cancer cells
  • the concurrent use of Doxycycline and Vitamin C, in the context of this infectious disease, appeared to be highly synergistic in patients
  • Goc et al., 2016, showed that Doxycycline is synergistic in vitro with certain phytochemicals and micronutrients, including Vitamin C, in the in vitro killing of the vegetative spirochete form of Borrelia spp., the causative agent underlying Lyme disease
  • Doxycycline, an FDA-approved antibiotic, behaves as an inhibitor of mitochondrial protein translation
  • CSCs successfully escape from the anti-mitochondrial effects of Doxycycline, by assuming a purely glycolytic phenotype. Therefore, DoxyR CSCs are then more susceptible to other metabolic perturbations, because of their metabolic inflexibility
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    Not especially new, but IV vitamin C + daily doxycycline found to kill cancer stem cells.
Nathan Goodyear

Oncotarget | Preclinical evaluation of a nanoformulated antihelminthic, niclosamide, in... - 0 views

  • Ovarian cancer is the most lethal gynecologic malignancy in the world
  • paclitaxel represents a breakthrough in the treatment of ovarian cancer, the overall 5-year survival rate of patients with stage III disease is still approximately 40%
  • Targeting cancer stem cells is an emerging concept in cancer therapy
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  • Ovarian cancer stem cells play an important role in chemoresistance and cancer recurrence
  • Furthermore, recent studies indicate that niclosamide exhibits anticancer effects against various human cancer cells by acting on multiple cell signaling pathways and inducing mitochondrial uncoupling [16–21]
  • has low systemic bioavailability (~10%) when administered orally, which is beneficial for treating local parasitic infections of the intestines while minimizing systemic exposure
  • The nano-NI demonstrated significantly higher inhibitory effects on sphere formation than the original niclosamide did
  • the nano-NI formulation decreased the metabolic activity of ovarian cancer cells and caused a metabolic shift from oxidative phosphorylation to glycolysis
  • This toxicity evaluation showed that oral nano-NI had no toxic effect on either group of mice in terms of weight, plasma albumin levels, and blood cell counts, and revealed no adverse effects on vital organ function in the rodents, which suggests that nano-NI is safe for animals
  • niclosamide inhibits tumor cell growth by interrupting multiple pathways (Wnt, Notch, STAT3, NF-κB, and mTORc1) and the generation of reactive oxygen species in several cancer cells
  • The current standard therapy for ovarian cancer includes taxanes and platinum-based chemotherapy after cytoreductive surgery. Among treated patients, nearly 70 to 80% will experience disease recurrence
  •  
    nano-Niclosamide more effective than traditional Niclosamide in in vitro and in vivo ovarian cancer.
Nathan Goodyear

Dietary Insulin Load and Cancer Recurrence and Survival in Patients With Stage III Colo... - 0 views

  •  
    New prospective study of 1023 patients finds that high-insulogenic diet, also know as a traditional American diet, high glycemic, high sugar diet... is associated with an increased risk of cancer recurrence and mortality compared to low insulogenic diet.  The authors concluded that this would be beneficial for after surgical resection in people with stage III colon cancer. My question, is why wait on the development of cancer: use a low-insulogenic diet to prevent the cancer all together or when diagnosed implement immediately.  Why wait? Treat early! Prevent!
Nathan Goodyear

Vitamin C preferentially kills cancer stem cells in hepatocellular carcinoma via SVCT-2... - 0 views

  • Chen et al. have revealed that ascorbate at pharmacologic concentrations (0.3–20 mM) achieved only by intravenously (i.v.) administration selectively kills a variety of cancer cell lines in vitro, but has little cytotoxic effect on normal cells.
  • Ascorbic acid (the reduced form of vitamin C) is specifically transported into cells by sodium-dependent vitamin C transporters (SVCTs)
  • SVCT-1 is predominantly expressed in epithelial tissues
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  • whereas the expression of SVCT-2 is ubiquitous
  • differential sensitivity to VC may result from variations in VC flow into cells, which is dependent on SVCT-2 expression.
  • high-dose VC significantly impaired both the tumorspheres initiation (Fig. 4d, e) and the growth of established tumorspheres derived from HCC cells (Fig. 4f, g) in a time-dependent and dose-dependent manner.
  • Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC)
  • The antioxidant, N-acetyl-L-cysteine (NAC), preventing VC-induced ROS production (a ROS scavenger), completely restored the viability and colony formation among VC-treated cells
  • DNA double-strand damage was found following VC treatment
  • DNA damage was prevented by NAC
  • Interestingly, the combination of VC and cisplatin was even more effective in reducing tumor growth and weight
  • Consistent with the in vitro results, stemness-related genes expressions in tumor xenograft were remarkably reduced after VC or VC+cisplatin treatment, whereas conventional cisplatin therapy alone led to the increase of CSCs
  • VC is one of the numerous common hepatoprotectants.
  • Interestingly, at extracellular concentrations greater than 1 mM, VC induces strong cytotoxicity to cancer cells including liver cancer cells
  • we hypothesized that intravenous VC might reduce the risk of recurrence in HCC patients after curative liver resection.
  • Intriguingly, the 5-year disease-free survival (DFS) for patients who received intravenous VC was 24%, as opposed to 15% for no intravenous VC-treated patients
  • Median DFS time for VC users was 25.2 vs. 18 months for VC non-users
  • intravenous VC use is linked to improved DFS in HCC patients.
  • In this study, based on the elevated expression of SVCT-2, which is responsible for VC uptake, in liver CSCs, we revealed that clinically achievable concentrations of VC preferentially eradicated liver CSCs in vitro and in vivo
    • Nathan Goodyear
       
      the authors here made similar mistakes to the Mayo authors i.e. under doses here in this study.  They dosed at only 2 grams IVC.  A woefully low dose of IVC.
  • Additionally, we found that intravenous VC reduced the risk of post-surgical HCC progression in a retrospective cohort study.
    • Nathan Goodyear
       
      positive results despite a low dose used.
    • Nathan Goodyear
       
      Their comfort zone was 1mM.  They should have targeted 20-40 mM.
  • Three hundred thirty-nine participants (55.3%) received 2 g intravenous VC for 4 or more days after initial hepatectomy
  • As the key protein responsible for VC uptake in the liver, SVCT-2 played crucial roles in regulating the sensitivity to ascorbate-induced cytotoxicity
  • we also observed that SVCT-2 was highly expressed in human HCC samples and preferentially elevated in liver CSCs
  • SVCT-2 might serve as a potential CSC marker and therapeutic target in HCC
  • CSCs play critical roles in regulating tumor initiation, relapse, and chemoresistance
  • we revealed that VC treatment dramatically reduced the self-renewal ability, expression levels of CSC-associated genes, and percentages of CSCs in HCC, indicating that CSCs were more susceptible to VC-induced cell death
  • as a drug for eradicating CSCs, VC may represent a promising strategy for treatment of HCC, alone or particularly in combination with chemotherapeutic drugs
  • In HCC, we found that VC-generated ROS caused genotoxic stress (DNA damage) and metabolic stress (ATP depletion), which further activated the cyclin-dependent kinase inhibitor p21, leading to G2/M phase cell cycle arrest and caspase-dependent apoptosis in HCC cells
  • we demonstrated a synergistic effect of VC and chemotherapeutic drug cisplatin on killing HCC both in vitro and in vivo
  • Intravenous VC has also been reported to reduce chemotherapy-associated toxicity of carboplatin and paclitaxel in patients,38 but the specific mechanism needs further investigation
    • Nathan Goodyear
       
      so, exclude the benefit to patients until the exact mechanism of action, which will never be fully elicited?!?!?
  • Our retrospective cohort study also showed that intravenous VC use (2 g) was related to the improved DFS in HCC patients after initial hepatectomy
    • Nathan Goodyear
       
      Terribly inadequate dose.  Target is 20-40 mM which other studies have found occur with 50-75 grams of IVC.
  • several clinical trials of high-dose intravenous VC have been conducted in patients with advanced cancer and have revealed improved quality of life and prolonged OS
  • high-dose VC was not toxic to immune cells and major immune cell subpopulations in vivo
  • high recurrence rate and heterogeneity
  • tumor progression, metastasis, and chemotherapy-resistance
  • SVCT-2 was highly expressed in HCC samples in comparison to peri-tumor tissues
  • high expression (grade 2+/3+) of SVCT-2 was in agreement with poorer overall survival (OS) of HCC patients (Fig. 1c) and more aggressive tumor behavior
  • SVCT-2 is enriched in liver CSCs
  • these data suggest that SVCT-2 is preferentially expressed in liver CSCs and is required for the maintenance of liver CSCs.
  • pharmacologic concentrations of plasma VC higher than 0.3 mM are achievable only from i.v. administration
  • The viabilities of HCC cells were dramatically decreased after exposure to VC in dose-dependent manner
  • VC and cisplatin combination further caused cell apoptosis in tumor xenograft
  • These results verify that VC inhibits tumor growth in HCC PDX models and SVCT-2 expression level is associated with VC response
  • qPCR and IHC analysis demonstrated that expression levels of CSC-associated genes and percentages of CSCs in PDXs dramatically declined after VC treatment, confirming the inhibitory role of VC in liver CSCs
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    IV vitamin C in vitro and in vivo found to "preferentially" eradicate cancer stem cells.  In addition, IV vitamin C was found to be adjunctive to chemotherapy, found to be hepatoprotectant.  This study also looked at SVCT-2, which is the transport protein important in liver C uptake.
Nathan Goodyear

Testosterone Replacement Therapy in Patients with Prostate Cancer After Radical Prostat... - 0 views

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    One of the largest studies to date on Testosterone therapy in men post radical prostatectomy for prostate cancer.  This study supports the use of Testosterone therapy in this men with close f/u. A higher biochemical recurrence rate was found in the control group versus the treatment group, though there were 4 with biochemical recurrences in the treatment group.
Nathan Goodyear

Metabolic management of brain cancer - 0 views

  • Glutamine is a major metabolic fuel for both brain tumor cells and tumor-associated macrophages (TAMs)
  • the malignant phenotype of brain tumor cells that survive radiotherapy is often greater than that of the cells from the original tumor.
  • Conventional chemotherapy has faired little better than radiation therapy for the long-term management of malignant brain cancer
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  • most conventional radiation and brain cancer chemotherapies can enhance glioma energy metabolism and invasive properties, which would contribute to tumor recurrence and reduced patient survival [34].
  • We contend that all cancer regardless of tissue or cellular origin is a disease of abnormal energy metabolism
  • complex disease phenotypes can be managed through self-organizing networks that display system wide dynamics involving oxidative and non-oxidative (substrate level) phosphorylation
  • As long as brain tumors are provided a physiological environment conducive for their energy needs they will survive; when this environment is restricted or abruptly changed they will either grow slower, growth arrest, or perish [8] and [19]
  • New information also suggests that ketones are toxic to some human tumor cells and that ketones and ketogenic diets might restrict availability of glutamine to tumor cells [68], [69] and [70].
  • The success in dealing with environmental stress and disease is therefore dependent on the integrated action of all cells in the organism
  • Tumor cells survive in hypoxic environments not because they have inherited genes making them more fit or adaptable than normal cells, but because they have damaged mitochondria and have thus acquired the ability to derive energy largely through substrate level phosphorylation
  • Cancer cells survive and multiply only in physiological environments that provide fuels (mostly glucose and glutamine) subserving their requirement for substrate level phosphorylation
  • Integrity of the inner mitochondrial membrane is necessary for ketone body metabolism since β-hydroxybutyrate dehydrogenase, which catalyzes the first step in the metabolism of β-OHB to acetoacetate, interacts with cardiolipin and other phospholipids in the inner membrane
  • the mitochondria of many gliomas and most tumors for that matter are dysfunctional
  • Cardiolipin is essential for efficient oxidative energy production and mitochondrial function
  • Any genetic or environmental alteration in the content or composition of cardiolipin will compromise energy production through oxidative phosphorylation
  • The Crabtree effect involves the inhibition of respiration by high levels of glucose
  • the Warburg effect involves elevated glycolysis from impaired oxidative phosphorylation
  • the Crabtree effect can be reversible, the Warburg effect is largely irreversible because its origin is with permanently damaged mitochondria
  • The continued production of lactic acid in the presence of oxygen is the metabolic hallmark of most cancers and is referred to as aerobic glycolysis or the Warburg effect
  • We recently described how the retrograde signaling system could induce changes in oncogenes and tumor suppressor genes to facilitate tumor cell survival following mitochondrial damage [48].
  • In addition to glycolysis, glutamine can also increase ATP production under hypoxic conditions through substrate level phosphorylation in the TCA cycle after its metabolism to α-ketoglutarate
  • mitochondrial lipid abnormalities, which alter electron transport activities, can account in large part for the Warburg effect
  • targeting both glucose and glutamine metabolism could be effective for managing most cancers including brain cancer
  • The bulk of experimental evidence indicates that mitochondria are dysfunctional in tumors and incapable of generating sufficient ATP through oxidative phosphorylation
  • Cardiolipin defects in tumor cells are also associated with reduced activities of several enzymes of the mitochondrial electron transport chain making it unlikely that tumor cells with cardiolipin abnormalities can generate adequate energy through oxidative phosphorylation
  • The Crabtree effect involves the inhibition of respiration by high levels of glucose
  • Warburg effect involves elevated glycolysis from impaired oxidative phosphorylation
  • TCA cycle substrate level phosphorylation could therefore become another source of ATP production in tumor cells with impairments in oxidative phosphorylation
  • Caloric restriction, which lowers glucose and elevates ketone bodies [63] and [64], improves mitochondrial respiratory function and glutathione redox state in normal cells
  • DR naturally inhibits glycolysis and tumor growth by lowering circulating glucose levels, while at the same time, enhancing the health and vitality of normal cells and tissues through ketone body metabolism
  • DR is anti-angiogenic
  • DR also reduces angiogenesis in prostate and breast cancer
  • We suggest that apoptosis resistance arises largely from enhanced substrate level phosphorylation of tumor cells and to the genes associated with elevated glycolysis and glutaminolysis, e.g., c-Myc, Hif-1a, etc, which inhibit apoptosis
  • Modern medicine has not looked favorably on diet therapies for managing complex diseases especially when well-established procedures for acceptable clinical practice are available, regardless of how ineffective these procedures might be in managing the disease
  • More than 60 years of clinical research indicates that such approaches are largely ineffective in extending survival or improving quality of life
  • The process is rooted in the well-established scientific principle that tumor cells are largely dependent on substrate level phosphorylation for their survival and growth
  • Glucose and glutamine drive substrate level phosphorylation
  • targeting the glycolytically active tumor cells that produce pro-cachexia molecules, restricted diet therapies can potentially reduce tumor cachexia
  • It is important to recognize, however, that “more is not better” with respect to the ketogenic diet
  • Blood glucose ranges between 3.0 and 3.5 mM (55–65 mg/dl) and β-OHB ranges between 4 and 7 mM should be effective for tumor management
  •  
    Dr Seyfriend presents his metabolic approach to the treatment of brain cancer.
Nathan Goodyear

Testosterone replacement for hypogonadism after treatment of early prostate cancer with... - 0 views

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    Testosterone therapy post brachytherapy radiation found to have no recurrence and/or documented cancer progression in follow up out to 9 years.  Not all the men included in this study had none detectable psa levels.  PSA levels were all less than 1 ng/ml; 74.2% were none detectable, but 22% were detectable up to 0.5 ng/ml.  One of the patients had a transient rise in psa, but no recurrence or cancer progression was noted, and therapy was continued.
Nathan Goodyear

In vivo loss-of-function screens identify KPNB1 as a new druggable oncogene in epitheli... - 0 views

  • we functionally validated a potent EOC oncogene, KPNB1, and showed its clinical relevance to human EOC
  • a well-established antiparasitic drug, ivermectin, has antitumor effects on EOC through its inhibition of KPNB1
  • EOC has high intertumor and intratumor heterogeneity at the molecular and epigenetic levels
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  • the mortality rate of EOC has not been significantly changed for several decades
  • Sequencing revealed that almost all tumors (96%) had mutations in TP53, which serves as a major driver of this cancer
  • Low-prevalence but statistically significant mutations in nine other genes including NF1, BRCA1, BRCA2, RB1, and CDK12 were also identified, but the majority of genes were mutated at low frequency, making it difficult to distinguish between driver and passenger mutations
  • KPNB1 inhibition via any of three KPNB1 siRNAs or importazole treatment induced apoptosis in human EOC cell lines (Fig. 3 A–F and Fig. S4), and was accompanied by an increase in the expression levels of the proapoptotic proteins BAX and cleaved caspase-3
  • Stable overexpression of KPNB1 in SKOV3 and OVCAR3 (Fig. S6) significantly accelerated cell proliferation/survival (Fig. 5 A–C), confirming that KPNB1 functions as an oncogene in EOC
  • KPNB1 overexpression significantly decreased caspase-3/7 activity (Fig. 5D), in addition to the expression levels of cleaved caspase-3 and BAX proteins (Fig. 5E). KPNB1 overexpression also decreased p21 and p27 protein levels (Fig. 5E), as opposed to their increase by KPNB1 inhibition
  • KPNB1 functions as an antiapoptotic and proproliferative oncogene in EOC.
  • Patients with higher expression levels of KPNB1 showed earlier recurrence and worse prognosis than those with lower expression levels of KPNB1
  • KPNB1 acts as an oncogene in human EOC and represents a promising therapeutic target.
  • ivermectin treatment suppressed cell proliferation/viability in a dose-dependent manner (Fig. 7A), indicating that it exerts an antitumor effect on EOC
  • ivermectin also induced apoptosis
  • ivermectin increased the expression levels of BAX, and cleaved PARP, as well as p21 and p27
  • KPNB1 inhibition is responsible for the antitumor effect of ivermectin
  • we found that ivermectin synergistically reduced cell proliferation/viability in combination with paclitaxel in human EOC cells
  • Single treatment of ivermectin or paclitaxel reduced tumor growth in nude mice, but, notably, combination treatment of ivermectin and paclitaxel almost completely suppressed tumor growth
  • ERBB2, is amplified and overexpressed in many cancers, including breast (31), ovary (31), colon (32), bladder (33), non-small-cell lung (34), and gastric cancer (35), and is a poor prognostic factor in certain cancer types
  • KPNB1 was the second-highest-ranked gene identified in our screen
  • Increased KPNB1 protein levels have been reported in several cancers, including cervical cancer (42), hepatocellular carcinoma (43), and glioma (44), suggesting KPNB1’s oncogenic potential in these tumor types
  • our findings suggest that KPNB1 might serve as a master regulator of cell cycle by regulating several cell cycle-related proteins, including p21, p27, and APC/C family members
  • higher and/or more-frequent doses of ivermectin than currently approved for humans are well tolerated in humans
  • none of the mice in this study treated with the effective dosage of ivermectin for in vivo anticancer therapy showed severe adverse event
  • we found that the combination of ivermectin and paclitaxel produces a stronger antitumor effect on EOC cell lines than either drug alone
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    Ivermectin found to be pro-apoptotic for the epithelial ovarian cancer oncogene, KPNB1 in in Vivo study.  This effective anti-parasitic drug inhibits the KPNB1 oncogene.
Nathan Goodyear

Evolving landscape of human epidermal growth factor receptor 2-positive breast cancer t... - 0 views

  • 15%–20%
  • key mediator of cell growth, differentiation, and survival
  • of higher histological grade and are more likely to invade axillary lymph nodes
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  • shortened survival and an increased risk of disease recurrence and metastasis
  • Currently, four HER2-directed agents are approved for the treatment of patients with HER2+ breast cancer: trastuzumab, pertuzumab, lapatinib, and ado-trastuzumab emtansine (T-DM1)
  • biosimilars
  • trastuzumab may provide greater benefit when administered concurrently with chemotherapy rather than after, and this has become the standard approach
  • concurrent use of anthracyclines (ie, doxorubicin or epirubicin) and trastuzumab is not recommended because of an increased risk for cardiac toxicity
    • Nathan Goodyear
       
      avoid herceptin in conjuction with antracyclines i.e. doxorubicin
  • Sequential doxorubicin plus cyclophosphamide followed by concomitant paclitaxel or docetaxel and trastuzumab is recommended for most patients
    • Nathan Goodyear
       
      top recommended regimen combination
  • Guidelines also recommend trastuzumab in combination with paclitaxel, docetaxel and carboplatin, or docetaxel and cyclophosphamide, particularly for patients with increased risk for cardiac toxicity or those with small (≤1 cm), node-negative HER2+ tumors
    • Nathan Goodyear
       
      good alternative in patients with increased risk of cardiac toxicity.
  • guidelines recommend up to 1 year of adjuvant trastuzumab
  • Neoadjuvant chemotherapy with trastuzumab is associated with higher rates of pathologic complete response (pCR) than chemotherapy alone or in combination with lapatinib
  • the combination of trastuzumab, lapatinib, and chemotherapy is not recommended because it failed to demonstrate noninferiority versus trastuzumab and chemotherapy in the adjuvant setting
  • recommend the combination of trastuzumab, pertuzumab, and chemotherapy as neoadjuvant treatment for patients with locally advanced HER2+ breast cancer and for some patients (node-positive or tumor ≥2 cm) with early-stage disease
  • neoadjuvant chemotherapy in combination with pertuzumab and trastuzumab reduced the risk of progression or death by 31% and recurrence or death by 40% versus trastuzumab alone
  • Concurrent chemotherapy and HER2-directed therapy improves survival outcomes over chemotherapy alon
  • dual inhibition of HER2 with trastuzumab and pertuzumab in combination with paclitaxel reduced the risk of death or progression by approximately 40% compared with concurrent trastuzumab and paclitaxel
  • the combination of trastuzumab, pertuzumab, and taxane chemotherapy is the preferred first-line regimen
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    HER-2 + breast cancer = appx 15-20% of all breast cancers and is a marker of worse prognosis and an indication for targeted immunotherapy blockade.
Nathan Goodyear

The Contribution of Cytotoxic Chemotherapy to 5-year Survival in Adult Malignancies | C... - 0 views

  • In this group, the 5-year survivalrateduesolelytocytotoxicchemotherapywas14%
  • There is also no convincing evidence that usingregimens with newer and more expensive drugs are anymore beneficial than the regimens used in the 1970s
  • two systematic reviews of chemotherapy inrecurrent or metastatic breast cancer have not been able toshow any survival benefit
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  • The five most common adult malignancies (colorectal, breast, prostate, melanoma and lung cancer)
  • n breast cancer, the optimal regimen(s) for cytotoxicchemotherapy in recurrent/metastatic disease are still notdefined, despite over 30 years of ‘research’ and a plethora of RCTs since the original Cooper regimen was published in1969
  • The five most ‘chemo-sensitive’ cancers,namely testis, Hodgkin’s disease and non-Hodgkin’s lym- phoma, cervix and ovary
  • only 13 out of the 22 malignancies evaluated showed any improvement in 5-year survival, and theimprovement was greater than 10% in only three of those13 malignancies
  • the contribution of curative and adjuvant cytotoxic chemotherapy to 5-year survival in adults is 2.3% in Australia and 2.1% in the USA
  • a benefit of less than 2.5% is likely to be applicable in other developed countries
  •   Overview The Contribution o
  • the benefit of cytotoxic chemotherapy may have been overestimated for cancers of oesophagus, stomach,rectum and brain.
  • this reflects the presentation of results as a ‘reduction in risk’ rather than asan absolute survival benefit[89,90]and by exaggerating theresponse rates by including ‘stable disease’
  • recent studies have documented impaired cognitive function inwomen receiving adjuvant treatment for breast cancer
  • the 5-year survival rate due solely to cytotoxicchemotherapy was 1.6%
  • the value of palliative chemotherapy has beenquestioned
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    Incredibly low impact of cytotoxic chemotherapy despite its wide spread utilization.  This article referenced cost yet did not evaluate the cost of cytotoxic side effect.  The question to answer: is Cytotoxic chemotherapy a valid treatment, at all, for the majority of cancers.
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