Medicine and Health Sciences Commons^™

The Role Of The Yxxφ Motif In Cd82 Trafficking And Function, Mekel Marie Richardson

Theses and Dissertations (ETD)

CD82, a tetraspanin, is a tumor metastasis suppressor. Tetraspanins are membrane spanning proteins that play critical roles in diverse biological and pathological processes, e.g., the regulation of cancer metastasis. CD82 is ubiquitously expressed in various types of tissues, but its expression becomes down-regulated or lost in a majority of metastatic tumors. It inhibits tumor metastasis without affecting primary tumor growth. Cancer patients whose tumors contain CD82 exhibit minimal metastasis. We know that CD82 functions as a tumor metastasis suppressor but the mechanism by which this occurs is largely unknown. CD82 can be found on the plasma membrane as well as …

Inhibition Of Breast Cancer Angiogenesis And Metastasis Ay Targeting Hypoxia-Inducible Factor-1Α, Chikezie O. Madu

Theses and Dissertations (ETD)

The current clinical chemotherapy agents are not ideal for breast cancer as they are not curative, but only provide a modest extension of survival with sometimes a severely adverse effect on the patient’s quality of life. There is, therefore, an urgent need to search for new and more effective anti-breast cancer drugs. However, the existing screening system is inefficient and time-consuming despite the extremely large amount of small molecule compounds in database currently available, and thereby hindering the effort for selecting new and effective anti-cancer drugs.

The majority of locally advanced solid tumors contain regions of reduced oxygen availability. Hypoxia …

Discovery Of Dihydroartemisinin And Dasatinib Drug Combination To Cure Pooroutcome Bcr-Abl+ Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia, Harpreet Singh

Theses and Dissertations (ETD)

Oncogenic signaling by the Philadelphia chromosome-encoded BCR-ABL fusion kinase initiates and drives both Philadelphia chromosome-positive acute lymphoblastic leukemia (Ph+ ALL) and chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML). Food and Drug Administration (FDA)- approved BCR-ABL-specific kinase inhibitors (BCR-ABL–KIs) imatinib, dasatinib and nilotinib induce prolonged remissions in CML but poor leukemia-reduction and relapse-control in Ph+ ALL. The relative primary BCR-ABL–KI-resistance in Ph+ ALL patients carrying predominantly BCR-ABLWT disease cannot be attributed to drug-resistant BCR-ABL mutations (BCR-ABLMUTANTS), and remains poorly understood.

We established a cell-based platform to evaluate the modulation of anti-Ph+ ALL activity of drugs by both tumor-extrinsic cytokines normally present in the leukemia …