Cold Spring Harbor perspectives in medicine最新文献

Rodent models of retinal degeneration are essential for the development of therapeutic strategies. In addition to living animal models, we here also discuss models based on rodent cell cultures, such as purified retinal ganglion cells and retinal explants. These ex vivo models extend the possibilities for investigating pathological mechanisms and assessing the neuroprotective effect of pharmacological agents by eliminating questions on drug pharmacokinetics and bioavailability. The number of living rodent models has greatly increased with the possibilities to achieve transgenic modifications in animals for knocking in and out genes and mutations. The Cre-lox system has further enabled investigators to target specific genes or mutations in specific cells at specific stages. However, chemically or physically induced models can provide alternatives to such targeted gene modifications. The increased diversity of rodent models has widened our possibility to address most ocular pathologies for providing initial proof of concept of innovative therapeutic strategies.

Rapidly proliferating cells, including cancer cells, adapt metabolism to meet the increased energetic and biosynthetic demands of cell growth and division. Many rapidly proliferating cells exhibit increased glucose consumption and fermentation regardless of oxygen availability, a phenotype termed aerobic glycolysis or the Warburg effect in cancer. Several explanations for why cells engage in aerobic glycolysis and how it supports proliferation have been proposed, but none can fully explain all conditions and data where aerobic glycolysis is observed. Nevertheless, there is convincing evidence that the Warburg effect is important for the proliferation of many cancers, and that inhibiting either glucose uptake or fermentation can impair tumor growth. Here, we discuss what is known about metabolism associated with aerobic glycolysis and the evidence supporting various explanations for why aerobic glycolysis may be important in cancer and other contexts.

Ovarian clear cell carcinoma (OCCC) is a histological subtype of epithelial ovarian cancer with distinct pathological features, molecular profiles, and biological functions. OCCC has high incidence rates in East Asia compared to the Western hemisphere and Europe and is associated with endometriosis. With its relative resistance to conventional treatment regimens and the worst stage-adjusted prognosis among ovarian cancer subtypes, there is an urgent need to optimize therapeutic options and to improve patient outcomes. To achieve this goal, better patient stratification strategies are required. These strategies could derive from comprehensive and in-depth multidimensional analysis of tumor heterogeneity. Understanding intertumor heterogeneity could assist us in stratifying OCCC patients based on features that are prognostic or predictive. Recent genomic, epigenomic, and transcriptomic profiling analyses allow us to provide an integrative perspective on the diverse heterogeneity in OCCC that could pave the way for novel translational research and clinical development in the future.

Fueled by technological and conceptual advancements over the past two decades, research in cancer metabolism has begun to answer questions dating back to the time of Otto Warburg. But, as with most fields, new discoveries lead to new questions. This review outlines the emerging challenges that we predict will drive the next few decades of cancer metabolism research. These include developing a more realistic understanding of how metabolic activities are compartmentalized within cells, tissues, and organs; how metabolic preferences in tumors evolve during cancer progression from nascent, premalignant lesions to advanced, metastatic disease; and, most importantly, how we can best translate basic observations from preclinical models into novel therapies that benefit patients with cancer. With modern tools and an incredible amount of talent focusing on these problems, the upcoming decades should bring transformative discoveries.

In type 1 diabetes (T1D), the immune system mistakenly attacks the pancreatic islet β cells resulting in the loss of insulin secretion. Insulin-replacement therapy developed more than a century ago provided means to manage the symptoms of diabetes without addressing the root cause of the disease-the faulty immune system. A healthy immune system has built-in mechanisms to limit unwanted, excessive immune activation and prevents damages to self-tissues. These immune self-tolerance mechanisms are often impaired in autoimmune patients including those with T1Ds. Understanding how immune self-tolerance is broken in patients with T1D can inform the design of new curative therapies that correct the immune defects. In this paper, we will summarize the mechanisms of immune tolerance, review their relevance to T1Ds, and discuss novel therapeutic approaches to rebalance the immune system for the treatment of T1Ds.

It is increasingly appreciated that cancer cells adapt their metabolic pathways to support rapid growth and proliferation as well as survival, often even under the poor nutrient conditions that characterize some tumors. Cancer cells can also rewire their metabolism to circumvent chemotherapeutics that inhibit core metabolic pathways, such as nucleotide synthesis. A critical approach to the study of cancer metabolism is metabolite profiling (metabolomics), the set of technologies, usually based on mass spectrometry, that allow for the detection and quantification of metabolites in cancer cells and their environments. Metabolomics is a burgeoning field, driven by technological innovations in mass spectrometers, as well as novel approaches to isolate cells, subcellular compartments, and rare fluids, such as the interstitial fluid of tumors. Here, we discuss three emerging metabolomic technologies: spatial metabolomics, single-cell metabolomics, and organellar metabolomics. The use of these technologies along with more established profiling methods, like single-cell transcriptomics and proteomics, is likely to underlie new discoveries and questions in cancer research.

In November 2022, teplizumab became the first drug approved to delay the course of any autoimmune disease and to change the course of type 1 diabetes (T1D) since the discovery of insulin. The path to its approval took more than 30 years with both successes and failures along the way that would have normally led to its abandonment in other circumstances. Development of the drug was based on studies in preclinical models and parallels efforts in transplantation. From a series of innovative adaptations in response to issues related to adverse events and immunogenicity, humanized Fc receptors (FcR) nonbinding antibodies were developed with improved clinical outcomes and safety as well as new mechanisms. Importantly, as a result of these developments, teplizumab has been able to achieve efficacy over extended periods of time without global immune suppression. The approval of teplizumab represents a significant first step toward achieving escape from T1D and, in the future, reversal of the disease.

Type 1 diabetes (T1D) is driven by an immunologically complex, diverse, and self-sustaining immune response directed against tissue autoantigens, leading to loss or dysfunction of β cells. To date, the single approved immune intervention in T1D is based on a strategy that is similar to that used in other related autoimmune diseases, namely, the attenuation of immune cell activation. As a next-generation approach that is more focused on underlying mechanisms of loss of tolerance, antigen-specific immunotherapy is designed to establish or restore bystander immunoregulation in a highly tissue- and target-specific fashion. Here, we describe the basis for this alternative approach, which could also have potential for complementarity if used in combination with more conventional immune modulators, and highlight recent advances, knowledge gaps, and next steps in clinical development.

A majority of cancer research is focused on defining the cellular and molecular basis of cancer cells and the signals that control oncogenic transformation; as a consequence, we know very little about the dynamic behavior of cancer cells in vivo. To begin to view and understand the mechanisms and interactions that control cancer initiation, growth, and metastatic progression and how these processes are influenced by the microenvironment and the signals derived from it, it is essential to develop strategies that allow imaging of the cancer cells in the context of the living microenvironment. Here, we discuss emerging work designed to visualize how cancer cells function within the microenvironment to discover how these interactions act coordinately to enable aberrant growth and to understand how they could be targeted to design new approaches to intercept the disease.

This is a brief history of the work by many investigators throughout the world to find genes and mutations causing inherited retinal diseases (IRDs). It largely covers 40 years, from the late-1980s through today. Perhaps the best reason to study history is to better understand the present. The "present" for IRDs is exceptionally complex. Mutations in hundreds of genes are known to cause IRDs; tens of thousands of disease-causing mutations have been reported; clinical consequences are highly variable, even within the same family; and genetic testing, counseling, and clinical care are highly advanced but technically challenging. The aim of this review is to account for how we have come to know and understand, at least partly, this complexity.