scholarly journals Measuring the Metabolic Evolution of Glioblastoma throughout Tumor Development, Regression, and Recurrence with Hyperpolarized Magnetic Resonance

Cells ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (10) ◽  
pp. 2621
Author(s):  
Travis C. Salzillo ◽  
Vimbai Mawoneke ◽  
Joseph Weygand ◽  
Akaanksh Shetty ◽  
Joy Gumin ◽  
...  

Rapid diagnosis and therapeutic monitoring of aggressive diseases such as glioblastoma can improve patient survival by providing physicians the time to optimally deliver treatment. This research tested whether metabolic imaging with hyperpolarized MRI could detect changes in tumor progression faster than conventional anatomic MRI in patient-derived glioblastoma murine models. To capture the dynamic nature of cancer metabolism, hyperpolarized MRI, NMR spectroscopy, and immunohistochemistry were performed at several time-points during tumor development, regression, and recurrence. Hyperpolarized MRI detected significant changes of metabolism throughout tumor progression whereas conventional MRI was less sensitive. This was accompanied by aberrations in amino acid and phospholipid lipid metabolism and MCT1 expression. Hyperpolarized MRI can help address clinical challenges such as identifying malignant disease prior to aggressive growth, differentiating pseudoprogression from true progression, and predicting relapse. The individual evolution of these metabolic assays as well as their correlations with one another provides context for further academic research.

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Travis C Salzillo ◽  
Vimbai Mawoneke ◽  
Joseph Weygand ◽  
Akaanksh Shetty ◽  
Joy Gumin ◽  
...  

Rapid diagnosis and therapeutic monitoring of aggressive diseases such as glioblastoma can improve patient survival by providing physicians the time to optimally deliver treatment. This research tested whether metabolic imaging with hyperpolarized MRI could detect changes in tumor progression faster than conventional anatomic MRI in patient-derived glioblastoma murine models. To capture the dynamic nature of cancer metabolism, hyperpolarized MRI, NMR spectroscopy, and immunohistochemistry were performed at several time-points during tumor development, regression, and recurrence. Hyperpolarized MRI detected significant changes of metabolism throughout tumor progression whereas conventional MRI was less sensitive. This was accompanied by aberrations in amino acid and phospholipid lipid metabolism and MCT1 expression. Hyperpolarized MRI can help address clinical challenges such as identifying malignant disease prior to aggressive growth, differentiating pseudoprogression from true progression, and predicting relapse. The individual evolution of these metabolic assays as well as their correlations with one another provides context for further academic research.


Cells ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 340 ◽  
Author(s):  
Prasanta Dutta ◽  
Travis C. Salzillo ◽  
Shivanand Pudakalakatti ◽  
Seth T. Gammon ◽  
Benny A. Kaipparettu ◽  
...  

Precisely measuring tumor-associated alterations in metabolism clinically will enable the efficient assessment of therapeutic responses. Advances in imaging technologies can exploit the differences in cancer-associated cell metabolism as compared to normal tissue metabolism, linking changes in target metabolism to therapeutic efficacy. Metabolic imaging by Positron Emission Tomography (PET) employing 2-fluoro-deoxy-glucose ([18F]FDG) has been used as a routine diagnostic tool in the clinic. Recently developed hyperpolarized Magnetic Resonance (HP-MR), which radically increases the sensitivity of conventional MRI, has created a renewed interest in functional and metabolic imaging. The successful translation of this technique to the clinic was achieved recently with measurements of 13C-pyruvate metabolism. Here, we review the potential clinical roles for metabolic imaging with hyperpolarized MRI as applied in assessing therapeutic intervention in different cancer systems.


2021 ◽  
Vol 21 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katrin Jordan ◽  
Evan H. Stanton ◽  
Vladimir M. Milenkovic ◽  
Marianne Federlin ◽  
Konstantin Drexler ◽  
...  

: Brain tissue is known to have elevated citrate levels necessary to regulate ion chelation, neuron excitability, and the supply of necessary energy substrates to neurons. Importantly, citrate also acts as a central substrate in cancer metabolism. Recent studies have shown that extracellular citrate levels in the brain undergo significant changes during tumor development, and may play a dual role in tumor progression, as well as cancer cell aggressiveness. In the present article, we review available literature describing changes of citrate levels in brain tissue, blood, and cerebrospinal fluid, as well as intracellular alterations during tumor development before and after metastatic progression. Based on the available literature and our recent findings, we hypothesize that changes in extracellular citrate levels may be related to the increased consumption of this metabolite by cancer cells; interestingly, cancer-associated cells, including reactive astrocytes, might be a source of citrate. Extracellular citrate uptake mechanisms, as well as potential citrate synthesis and releasing by surrounding stroma, could provide novel targets for anti-cancer treatments of primary brain tumors and brain metastases.


Cancers ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (9) ◽  
pp. 2274
Author(s):  
Filippo Pelizzaro ◽  
Romilda Cardin ◽  
Barbara Penzo ◽  
Elisa Pinto ◽  
Alessandro Vitale ◽  
...  

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is one of the leading causes of cancer related death worldwide. Diagnostic, prognostic, and predictive biomarkers are urgently needed in order to improve patient survival. Indeed, the most widely used biomarkers, such as alpha-fetoprotein (AFP), have limited accuracy as both diagnostic and prognostic tests. Liver biopsy provides an insight on the biology of the tumor, but it is an invasive procedure, not routinely used, and not representative of the whole neoplasia due to the demonstrated intra-tumoral heterogeneity. In recent years, liquid biopsy, defined as the molecular analysis of cancer by-products, released by the tumor in the bloodstream, emerged as an appealing source of new biomarkers. Several studies focused on evaluating extracellular vesicles, circulating tumor cells, cell-free DNA and non-coding RNA as novel reliable biomarkers. In this review, we aimed to provide a comprehensive overview on the most relevant available evidence on novel circulating biomarkers for early diagnosis, prognostic stratification, and therapeutic monitoring. Liquid biopsy seems to be a very promising instrument and, in the near future, some of these new non-invasive tools will probably change the clinical management of HCC patients.


Author(s):  
Karel Werner

Among the popular misconceptions which still linger in the minds of many people who are interested in the study of different religious systems, who are personally involved in one of the growing Hindu- or Buddhist-based modern religious movements, or who even do academic research in the field of the history of religions, is the rather simplistic view that Hinduism teaches the existence of a transmigrating individual soul, but that Buddhism denies it. At the same time it is well known that Buddhism, like Hinduism, teaches the rebirth of the individual in successive lives, in combination with the doctrine of moral retribution for his deeds in this or the next life or in subsequent lives according to the laws of karma, whose operation can be summed up rather well by the use of the biblical saying: “as you have sown so you will reap”.


2015 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
pp. 3-15
Author(s):  
Judith Laister ◽  
Anna Lipphardt

Over the past decades, ‘participation’ has evolved as a key concept in a multitude of practice fields and discursive arenas, ranging from diverse political and economic contexts, through academic research, education and social work, urban planning and design, to arts institutions and artistic projects. While participation originally is a political concept and practice, it has long set out as a ‘travelling concept’ (Bal 2002). This special issue focuses on its travels between three fields of practice: the city, the arts and qualitative empirical research. Each of these practice fields over the past decades has yielded distinct understandings, objectives and methods in respect to participations, yet they also increasingly intersect, overlap and fuse with each other within specific practice contexts. What is more, many of the individual actors engaging in these initiatives on behalf of the city – from temporary projects to long-term collaborations – are not situated in one practice field only. Along with Jana König and Elisabeth Scheffel we understand them as ‘double agents’ (König and Scheffel 2013: 272–3) or even ‘multiple agents’, with simultaneous entanglements and commitments in more than one practice field.


2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Shangli Zhu ◽  
Ming Yi ◽  
Yuze Wu ◽  
Bing Dong ◽  
Kongming Wu

AbstractMacrophages are heterogeneous cells that present as different functional phenotypes due to their plasticity. They can be classified into two categories, namely M1- and M2-like macrophages, which are involved in processes as diverse as anti-tumor activity and immunosuppressive tumor promotion. Tumor-associated macrophages (TAMs) are defined as being of an M2-type and are considered as the active component in tumor microenvironment. TAMs are involved in multiple processes of tumor progression through the expression of cytokines, chemokines, growth factors, protein hydrolases and more, which lead to enhance tumor cell proliferation, angiogenesis, and immunosuppression, which in turn supports invasion and metastasis. It is assumed that the abundance of TAMs in major solid tumors is correlated to a negative patient prognosis. Because of the currently available data of the TAMs’ role in tumor development, these cells have emerged as a promising target for novel cancer treatment strategies. In this paper, we will briefly describe the origins and types of TAMs and will try to comprehensively show how TAMs contribute to tumorigenesis and disease progression. Finally, we will present the main TAM-based therapeutic strategies currently available.


2013 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Dalton Lopes Martins ◽  
Sueli Mara Soares Pinto Ferreira

Resumo O entendimento das causas e as principais razões que influenciam o modo como os pesquisadores se articulam e constroem suas redes de colaboração científica ainda é uma questão em aberto na pesquisa acadêmica. De fundamental importância para o desenvolvimento de novos indicadores e modos de avaliação da produção científica, o conceito de redes sociais permite operar novos planos de análise, contribuindo com seus aspectos estruturais e dinâmicos ao estudo dos mecanismos e gatilhos causais que levam à constituição dessas redes de colaboração científica. A obtenção de atributos individuais dos pesquisadores, de dados de constituição das redes ao longo do tempo e o modo de desambiguação dos nomes que compõem essas redes de colaboração têm se mostrado os principais desafios de estudos das redes. O objetivo deste artigo é descrever como concebemos uma maneira de estudar as redes de colaboração de uma universidade, com foco específico na Universidade de São Paulo, identificando suas principais estratégias de conectividade e mecanismos causais, além de encontrar as relações entre suas redes e diferentes níveis de produtividade científica de seus participantes. Vale frisar que o artigo apenas descreve as questões da pesquisa e o modo de tratá-las, ficando sua execução para os próximos passos deste trabalho de pesquisa. Para tanto, pretende utilizar como base de análise uma Biblioteca de Produção Científica Institucional em desenvolvimento pelo SiBi/USP, que coleta os artigos publicados por membros da universidade em bases de dados de indexação de revistas nacionais e internacionais, tais como Scielo, Web of Science e BioMed, além da utilização da base de dados institucional para obtenção dos atributos individuais dos pesquisadores participantes dessas redes de colaboração.Palavras-chave análise de redes sociais, indicadores, cientometria, modelos causais.Abstract The understanding of the causes that influence how researchers articulate and build their scientific collaboration networks is still an open question in academic research. Of fundamental importance for the development of new indicators and methods of evaluation of scientific literature, the concept of social networking helps operate new levels of analysis, contributing their structural and dynamic aspects to the study of causal mechanisms and triggers that lead to the formation of these networks of scientific collaboration. Obtaining attributes of individual researchers, data on the constitution of networks over time and mode of disambiguation of the names that make up these collaboration networks have been the main challenges in the area of research networks. The purpose of this article is to describe how we designed a way to study a university’s collaboration networks, focusing on the University of São Paulo, and identifying their key strategies, connectivity and causal mechanisms, as well as finding links between their networks and different levels of participants’ productivity. It should be noted that this article only describes the research questions and how to treat them, leaving their implementation to the next steps of this research. The database used for analysis was the Institutional Scientific Production being developed by Sibi/USP, which collects articles published by members of the university indexed in national and international databases such as Scielo, Web of Science and BioMed, as well as an institutional database to obtain the individual attributes of the researchers participating in these networks.Keywords social network analysis, indicators, scientometrics, causal model


2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. I-IV
Author(s):  
Sarah Geber ◽  
Tobias Frey ◽  
Thomas N. Friemel

Health and health-related behaviours are embedded in social contexts in various ways which comprise both risks and opportunities for health communication. We propose a research agenda on social aspects of health communication and introduce the articles of the present special issue. Owing to the complexity of individuals’ social contexts, the research agenda addresses questions lying at the individual, interpersonal, and societal levels. The issue’s articles cover different and highly relevant questions of this research agenda, ranging from stigmatisation to impression management to collective action and from experimental designs to qualitative interviews and netnography. In sum, the articles demonstrate not only the diversity but also the relevance of academic research on social aspects of health communication. We expect that this topic will continue gaining importance, given the ongoing digitalisation of the media environment and the increasing interconnectedness of producers and users, doctors and patients, and experts and laypersons.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (17) ◽  
pp. 9626
Author(s):  
Jasmina Saric ◽  
Fabian Käser ◽  
Jon-Andri Lys ◽  
Jürg Utzinger ◽  
Thomas Breu

Research that takes a pro-active role in bridging science and practice holds promise to accelerate progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals. While passing on best practices outside of academia, inspiration can be drawn from pressing global challenges. Using Swiss research institutions that maintain partnerships with low- and middle-income countries as a case study, the purpose of this study was to identify synergies between research and services for development (R&S4D). We mapped Swiss research institutions that host both types of activities and identified the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT) linked to their hybrid models. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with representatives from the identified institutions, and data were analysed using the Framework Method. Strengths of combining R&S4D were observed on four levels: (i) individual (i.e., high employability outside academia); (ii) project (i.e., higher quality and practical relevance); (iii) entity (i.e., flexibility regarding funders, resources, and partners); and (iv) sustainable development (i.e., more impactful work). The main weaknesses were named as a decrease in the scientific quality of research projects specifically and inefficiency/lack of feasibility of implementation services. A lack of career paths and positions for individuals who wish to pursue academic research alongside services was identified as a threat. The Universities of Applied Sciences account for the largest share of hybrid positions in Switzerland; increasing their currently limited funding for research and international activities represents an opportunity. Our reserch adds a unique viewpoint to the discussion on the role of academia in supporting society to move towards sustainable development. It does so by exploring whether and how the concept of multisectoriality can work as an integral part of academia at the individual and the institutional level.


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