Citations

Monitoring activity of single cells has high significance for basic science and diagnostic applications.

Hidradenocarcinoma is a rare aggressive form of cutaneous adnexal skin carcinoma originating from the sweat gland. Due to its low incidence, prognostic and treatment strategies are still being explored both for primary and advanced disease. This tumor most often presents as either solid or cystic appearing subcutaneous nodules, which may be associated with pruritus or ulceration. To date the mainstay of treatment for local disease has been surgical excision; however, the paucity of historical data available has shown that these tumors often behave aggressively with high rates of local recurrence, metastasis, and poor overall outcomes. There are few case reports describing the utility of radiation therapy in the treatment of hidradenocarcinoma. Herein, we present a case of metastatic apocrine hidradenocarcinoma in a 32-year-old Caucasian male. The patient initially underwent excisional biopsy which confirmed the diagnosis of poorly differentiated, highly infiltrative, apocrine hidradenocarcinoma. He received systemic chemotherapy for metastatic disease, followed by radiation therapy to areas of grossly palpable adenopathy. Prior to radiation therapy the patient had an enlarged hypermetabolic conglomerate of lymph nodes in the right axilla, and borderline enlarged low activity nodes within the left axilla. He received 3 cycles of chemotherapy followed by tamoxifen and radiation therapy (50.4 Gy in 28 fractions) to areas of progressive disease in the bilateral axilla, lower neck, and axillary skin. Following treatment, the patient had complete resolution of skin nodules and improvement of his pruritus. While the role of radiation therapy in the treatment of hidradenocarcinoma has not been well established, this case report demonstrated the potential benefit of external beam radiotherapy in the management of this rare disease.

Abstract Acute lung injury (ALI) is an infrequently recognized complication of transfusion therapy. Although the role of passive transfer of leukoagglutinating antibodies has been acknowledged, there is little documentation of the relationship of these antibodies in transfused blood to the human leukocyte antigen (HLA) phenotype of the recipient. Recently, we observed 5 cases of transfusion-related ALI, and in all cases leukoagglutinating and lymphocytotoxic antibodies were found in serums of the transfused blood products. In 3 cases, the antibodies corresponded to the HLA antigens of the recipient. Multiparous blood donors whose plasma contains these antibodies represent a potential transfusion hazard. It is recommended that blood component usage from donors implicated in these reactions be restricted to frozen or washed red blood cells. The incidence of leukoagglutinin-associated ALI may be more frequent than previously appreciated. Current concepts of the mechanism of microvascular pulmonary injury are discussed in relation to these cases.

Fab binding to CD3 couples with weak antigen recognition to enhance T cell responses and immunotherapy.

ABSTRACT The Wnt/β-catenin pathway is implicated in left-right (LR) axis determination; however, the underlying mechanism remains elusive. Prompted by our recent discovery that Wnt signaling regulates ciliogenesis in the zebrafish Kupffer's vesicle (KV) via Foxj1a, a ciliogenic transcription factor, we decided to elucidate functions of Foxj1a in Wnt-regulated LR pattern formation. We showed that targeted injection of wnt8a mRNA into a single cell at the 128-cell stage is sufficient to induce ectopic foxj1a expression and ectopic cilia. By interrogating the transcription circuit of foxj1a regulation, we found that both Lef1 and Tcf7 bind to a consensus element in the foxj1a promoter region. Depletion of Lef1 and Tcf7 inhibits foxj1a transcription in the dorsal forerunner cells, downregulates cilia length and number in KV, and randomizes LR asymmetry. Targeted overexpression of a constitutively active form of Lef1 also induced an ectopic protrusion that contains ectopic transcripts for sox17, foxj1a, and charon, and ectopic monocilia. Further genetic studies using this ectopic expression platform revealed two distinct functions of Foxj1a; mediating Wnt-governed monocilia length elongation as well as charon transcription. The novel Foxj1a-charon regulation is conserved in KV, and importantly, it is independent of the canonical role of Foxj1a in the biosynthesis of motile cilia. Together with the known function of motile cilia movement in generating asymmetric expression of charon, our data put forward a hypothesis that Foxj1a confers both ciliary and non-ciliary functions of Wnt signaling, which converge on charon to regulate LR pattern formation.

Abstract Clinical trials have established the benefit of androgen deprivation therapy (ADT) combined with radiotherapy in prostate cancer. ADT sensitizes prostate cancer to radiotherapy-induced death at least in part through inhibition of DNA repair machinery, but for unknown reasons, adjuvant ADT provides further survival benefits. Here, we show that androgen receptor (AR) expression and activity are durably upregulated following radiotherapy in multiple human prostate cancer models in vitro and in vivo. Moreover, the degree of AR upregulation correlates with survival in vitro and time to tumor progression in animal models. We also provide evidence of AR pathway upregulation, measured by a rise in serum levels of AR-regulated hK2 protein, in nearly 20% of patients after radiotherapy. Furthermore, these men were three-fold more likely to experience subsequent biochemical failure. Collectively, these data demonstrate that radiotherapy can upregulate AR signaling after therapy to an extent that negatively affects disease progression and/or survival. Cancer Res; 75(22); 4688–96. ©2015 AACR.