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Medical Sciences, Volume 6, Issue 1

2018 March - 25 articles

Cover Story: Over half of all melanoma tumors express a mutant BRAF protein. We hypothesized that polyamines are essential for tumor survival in mutant BRAF melanomas. Compared to normal cells, tumor cells have elevated levels of polyamines resulting from increased polyamine biosynthesis and polyamine transport system (PTS) activity. Here we show that PTS activity is significantly upregulated in mutant BRAFV600E melanoma cells compared to BRAFWT melanoma cells, resulting in greater sensitivity to a novel PTS-targeted, cytotoxic, polyamine-containing compound. Utilizing the PTS for delivery, this cytotoxic compound attacks melanoma cells via one of its key modes of survival. View the paper here.
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Articles (25)

  • Review
  • Open Access
17 Citations
5,638 Views
13 Pages

13 March 2018

Polyamine levels are elevated in breast tumors compared to those of adjacent normal tissues. The female sex hormone, estrogen is implicated in the origin and progression of breast cancer. Estrogens stimulate and antiestrogens suppress the expression...

  • Article
  • Open Access
13 Citations
5,271 Views
9 Pages

The Association between Body Mass Index and Health-Related Quality of Life in Treatment-Seeking Arab Adults with Obesity

  • Leila Itani,
  • Simona Calugi,
  • Riccardo Dalle Grave,
  • Dima Kreidieh,
  • Germine El Kassas,
  • Dana El Masri,
  • Hana Tannir,
  • Aya Harfoush and
  • Marwan El Ghoch

13 March 2018

Few studies have thus far been carried out on Health-Related Quality of Life (HRQoL) and obesity in Arab-speaking countries, an issue that we therefore set out to investigate in this study. HRQoL was assessed by the validated Arabic version of the OR...

  • Feature Paper
  • Review
  • Open Access
119 Citations
11,416 Views
19 Pages

Role of Polyamines in Immune Cell Functions

  • Rebecca S. Hesterberg,
  • John L. Cleveland and
  • Pearlie K. Epling-Burnette

The immune system is remarkably responsive to a myriad of invading microorganisms and provides continuous surveillance against tissue damage and developing tumor cells. To achieve these diverse functions, multiple soluble and cellular components must...

  • Article
  • Open Access
9 Citations
4,822 Views
12 Pages

Malignancy of cancer has been linked to distinct subsets of stem-like cells, the so-called cancer stem cells (CSCs), which persist during treatment and seem to lead to drug-resistant recurrence. Metastatic spread of cancer cells is one of the hallmar...

  • Article
  • Open Access
2 Citations
3,602 Views
9 Pages

Electrodermal Activity during Blood Pooling for Arterial Blood Gases Analysis in Sedated Adult Intensive Care Unit Patients

  • Theodoros Aslanidis,
  • Vasilios Grosomanidis,
  • Konstantinos Karakoulas and
  • Athanasios Chatzisotiriou

Electrodermal activity (EDA) is considered a measure of autonomous nervous system activity. This study performed an exploratory analysis of the EDA changes during blood pooling for arterial blood gas analysis in sedated adult critical care patients a...

  • Article
  • Open Access
21 Citations
5,448 Views
13 Pages

Synovial sarcoma is a high-grade soft tissue sarcoma that inflicts mostly children and young adults with high mortality rate; however, the risk factors that impact the outcomes remain incompletely understood. We have identified the synovial sarcoma c...

  • Review
  • Open Access
82 Citations
15,848 Views
10 Pages

Artemisinin and Its Synthetic Derivatives as a Possible Therapy for Cancer

  • Enrique Konstat-Korzenny,
  • Jorge Alberto Ascencio-Aragón,
  • Sebastian Niezen-Lugo and
  • Rosalino Vázquez-López

27 February 2018

To assess the possibility of using the antimalarial drug artemisinin and its synthetic derivatives as antineoplastic drugs. A Pubmed and Google Scholar (1983–2018) search was performed using the terms artemisinin, cancer, artesunate and Artemisia ann...

  • Article
  • Open Access
2 Citations
13,259 Views
7 Pages

23 February 2018

As part of a university-based quality improvement project, we aimed to evaluate child psychiatrists’ knowledge, skills, attitudes, and practices regarding assessment and treatment of pediatric sleep problems. We developed a nine-question survey of kn...

  • Review
  • Open Access
34 Citations
12,933 Views
16 Pages

15 February 2018

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is commonplace among pediatric patients and has a complex, but intimate relationship with psychiatric disease and disordered sleep. Understanding the factors that influence the risk for the development of TBI in pediatric...

  • Feature Paper
  • Review
  • Open Access
52 Citations
18,792 Views
10 Pages

15 February 2018

Narcolepsy and psychiatric disorders have a significant but unrecognized relationship, which is an area of evolving interest, but unfortunately, the association is poorly understood. It is not uncommon for the two to occur co-morbidly. However, narco...

  • Article
  • Open Access
2 Citations
4,346 Views
10 Pages

Diagnostic Utility of High Sensitivity Troponins for Echocardiographic Markers of Structural Heart Disease

  • Tom Kai Ming Wang,
  • Clementina Dugo,
  • Gillian Whalley,
  • Yvonne Wynne,
  • Heather Semple,
  • Kevin Smith,
  • Peter Cleave,
  • Jonathan Christiansen,
  • Andrew To and
  • Patrick Gladding
  • + 3 authors

15 February 2018

The conventional use of high-sensitivity troponins (hs-troponins) is for diagnosing myocardial infarction however they also have a role in chronic disease management. This pilot study assessed the relationship of hs-troponins with echocardiographic m...

  • Review
  • Open Access
39 Citations
11,529 Views
15 Pages

Skeletal Muscle Pathophysiology: The Emerging Role of Spermine Oxidase and Spermidine

  • Manuela Cervelli,
  • Alessia Leonetti,
  • Guglielmo Duranti,
  • Stefania Sabatini,
  • Roberta Ceci and
  • Paolo Mariottini

14 February 2018

Skeletal muscle comprises approximately 40% of the total body mass. Preserving muscle health and function is essential for the entire body in order to counteract chronic diseases such as type II diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, and cancer. Prolonge...

  • Review
  • Open Access
8 Citations
7,094 Views
8 Pages

8 February 2018

This review summarizes the available literature on the intersection of adolescent cannabis use and sleep disturbances, along with interventions for adolescent cannabis users who suffer sleep impairments. Adolescents are susceptible to various sleep d...

  • Review
  • Open Access
61 Citations
12,247 Views
17 Pages

8 February 2018

The fluorinated ornithine analog α-difluoromethylornithine (DFMO, eflornithine, ornidyl) is an irreversible suicide inhibitor of ornithine decarboxylase (ODC), the first and rate-limiting enzyme of polyamine biosynthesis. The ubiquitous and essential...

  • Article
  • Open Access
1 Citations
3,099 Views
6 Pages

6 February 2018

Central nervous system (CNS) abnormalities are often isolated but can accompany various genetic syndromes. In this study, we evaluated conventional karyotype results and associated findings of fetuses that were diagnosed with CNS abnormalities. Cases...

  • Editorial
  • Open Access
10,480 Views
3 Pages

2 February 2018

At the European Gynecological Oncology Congress (ESGO) 2017, held in Vienna, a symposium on immunotherapy took place: A New Strategy for the Treatment of Cervical Cancer, sponsored by Advaxis, Inc.

  • Feature Paper
  • Article
  • Open Access
14 Citations
6,192 Views
18 Pages

The Role of Cadaverine Synthesis on Pneumococcal Capsule and Protein Expression

  • Mary F. Nakamya,
  • Moses B. Ayoola,
  • Seongbin Park,
  • Leslie A. Shack,
  • Edwin Swiatlo and
  • Bindu Nanduri

19 January 2018

Invasive infections caused by Streptococcus pneumoniae, a commensal in the nasopharynx, pose significant risk to human health. Limited serotype coverage by the available polysaccharide-based conjugate vaccines coupled with increasing incidence of ant...

  • Viewpoint
  • Open Access
83 Citations
7,399 Views
6 Pages

18 January 2018

Antibiotic combinations are preferred for the treatment of periodontal diseases, with the aim of hitting the bacterial flora, according to its characteristics—aerobic, anaerobic, gram-negative, and gram-positive—with certain antibiotics that act on c...

  • Article
  • Open Access
30 Citations
4,912 Views
14 Pages

Acute Traumatic Endotheliopathy in Isolated Severe Brain Injury and Its Impact on Clinical Outcome

  • Venencia Albert,
  • Arulselvi Subramanian,
  • Deepak Agrawal,
  • Hara Prasad Pati,
  • Siddhartha Datta Gupta and
  • Asok Kumar Mukhopadhyay

16 January 2018

Study design: Prospective observational cohort. Objective: To investigate the difference in plasma levels of syndecan-1 (due to glycocalyx degradation) and soluble thrombomodulin (due to endothelial damage) in isolated severe traumatic brain injury (...

  • Article
  • Open Access
21 Citations
6,381 Views
12 Pages

A Novel Polyamine-Targeted Therapy for BRAF Mutant Melanoma Tumors

  • Molly C. Peters,
  • Allyson Minton,
  • Otto Phanstiel IV and
  • Susan K. Gilmour

5 January 2018

Mutant serine/threonine protein kinase B-Raf (BRAF) protein is expressed in over half of all melanoma tumors. Although BRAF inhibitors (BRAFi) elicit rapid anti-tumor responses in the majority of patients with mutant BRAF melanoma, the tumors inevita...

  • Article
  • Open Access
1 Citations
4,279 Views
9 Pages

22 December 2017

It has been hypothesized that both the 3′-untranslated region (3′UTR) and the 5′-untranslated region (5′UTR) of the ornithine decarboxylase (ODC) mRNA influence the expression of the ODC protein. Here, we use luciferase expression constructs to exami...

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Med. Sci. - ISSN 2076-3271