Anticancer Therapies – Multimedia

The requirement for better in-vitro models that are compatible with high-throughput screening campaigns has led to the development of 3D cell cultures models, especially muliticellular spheroids, which retain many of the morphological and genetic traits of tumours.
Here we describe the formation of such spheroids by two methods: on ultra-low attachment plates and in semi-solid agarose. Both methods are compatible with 96- and 384-well microplate formats.

The objective of the present project is to develop transferrin coupled biodegradable nanoparticles (NPs) with high encapsulation efficiency (Doxorubicin). GALA (Glutamic acid-alanine-leucine alanine) a pH sensitive fusogenic endosomolytic peptide is added to the formulation to enhance the endosomal lysis that will further potentiate the delivery of anticancer drug inside tumor cell as well as prevent loss of drug via endosomes.

Colorectal cancer (CRC) is the second most frequent cause of cancer deaths in Australia. Even after resection up to 50% of patients relapse. In an attempt to prevent recurrences chemotherapy is administered to high risk patients. However, as few as 10-20% patients genuinely benefit because the clinical course for individuals with CRC remains difficult to predict, largely due to prognostically heterogeneous groups within same-stage tumour categories.

DNA mehtylation can lead to chemotherapy resistance in cancer. The aim of this study was to investigate the role of DNA methylation in docetaxel-resistant human breast cancer cells. Whereas the DNA methylation machinery is altered in docetaxel-resistant human breast cancer cells compared to docetaxel-sensitive human breast cancer cells, resistance to docetaxel could not be reversed using the DNA methylation inhibitor decitabine.

The SRB assay was implemented on a TECAN Genesis workstation by optimizing cell numbers and liquid handling parameters. Anticancer drugs vinblastine, doxorubicin and 5-fluorouracil were used for standardizing the assay with a DU-145 cell line. To screen the antiproliferative activities of a series of stilbene derivatives, altogether 121 different stilbene structures, a plate layout was designed on 96-well format.

3D QSAR studies have been carried out on a series of polyphenols for their antimalarial activity using CATALYST program. Hypothesis with three features namely hydrophobic (1), hydrogen bond donor (1) and hydrogen bond acceptor (1) was found to the best, which mapped well with the most active and least active compound of the test set. This model can be used to develop drugs for malarial chemotherapy.

RNA interference (RNAi) provides an experimental tool for functional genomics analysis. We screened a genome-wide RNAi library to identify new genes involved in lung cancer cell proliferation. 72 % from the 257 genes identified were involved in general gene expression processes, 16 % were of unknown function or unrelated to proliferation, and 12% consisted of uncharacterized genes. These last sets of genes provide potential novel targets for lung cancer treatment.

This study aims to identify protein profiles in breast cancer cells as predictors of chemoresistance by using two-dimensional gel electrophoresis and MALDI-TOF peptide mass fingerprinting. Our findings provide further insights into the complex mechanisms of chemoresistance, as well as representing an attractive starting point for the identification of potential protein biomarkers to predict response to chemotherapy in breast cancer in vivo.

This study aimed to find individual up/down-regulated genes associated with progression and metastatic potential of colorectal cancers using low-density oligonucleotide microarrays spotted with genes known to be involved in process of metastasis development. We suppose that focusing on a particular biological pathway may be more useful than genome-wide screening for our purposes.

To improve screening efficiency, we have developed a cell cycle analysis method that uses an Acumen Explorer fluorescence microplate cytometer to measure the DNA content of propidium iodide stained fixed cells in microplates. We demonstrate that paclitaxel and vinblastine arrested CHO cells in the expected phase of the cell cycle.