Expected and unexpected imaging features after oesophageal cancer treatment

From Antimicrobial to Anticancer Peptides: The Transformation of Peptides

BACKGROUND

Antimicrobial peptides play an important role in the innate immune system. Possessing broad-spectrum antibacterial activity, antimicrobial peptides can quickly treat and kill various targets, including gram-negative bacteria, gram-positive bacteria, fungi, and tumor cells.

OBJECTIVE

An overview of the state of play with regard to the research trend of antimicrobial peptides in recent years and the situation of targeting tumor cells, and to make statistical analysis of the patents related to anticancer peptides published in recent years, is important both from toxicological and medical tumor therapy point of view.

METHODS

Based on the Science Citation Index Expanded version, the Derwent Innovation Index and Innography as data sources, the relevant literature and patents concerning antimicrobial peptides and anticancer peptides were analyzed through the Thomson Data Analyzer. Results of toxicologic and pharmacologic studies that brought to the development of patents for methods to novel tumor drugs were analyzed and sub-divided according to the specific synthesis of anticancer peptides.

RESULTS

The literature and patent search data show that the research and development of global antimicrobial peptides and anticancer peptides has been in an incremental mode. Growing patent evidence indicate that bioinformatics technology is a valuable strategy to modify, synthesize or recombine existing antimicrobial peptides to obtain tumor drugs with high activity, low toxicity and multiple targets.

CONCLUSION

These findings may have important clinical implications for cancer treatment, especially in patients with conditions that are not currently treatable by other drugs, or that are resistant to existing cancer drugs.

In vitro construction and in vivo regeneration of esophageal bilamellar muscle tissue

In order to induce esophageal muscle cells’ orientation, the silicon wafer with prototype 1 and prototype 2 was designed. Prototype 1 has micro-channels of 200 µm width and 30 µm depth with 30 µm wide wall as the interval. Prototype 2 has channels of 100 µm width and 30 µm depth with a discontinuous wall which has 30 µm gap for each 100 µm channel. The poly(ester urethane) scaffolds with pattern prototype 1 and prototype 2 were fabricated using solution casting method and abbreviated as PU1 and PU2, respectively. Silk fibroin was grafted individually on PU1 and PU2 surface (PU1-SF, PU2-SF) using our previous protocol, aiming at improving scaffolds’ biocompatibility. The primary esophageal smooth muscle cell was seeded to evaluate the scaffolds’ cytocompatibility in vitro. Characterizations like MTT assay, immunocytochemistry, scanning electron microscope, and Western blotting were applied. After that, poly(ester urethane) scaffolds with double patterns, prototype 1 on the exterior, and prototype 2 in the lumen were implanted into the rabbit esophagous to test the regeneration of the muscle tissue. Results from these preliminary tests showed that the growth and differentiation of primary smooth muscle cells were promoted, but also the muscle tissue with endocircular and exolongitudinal architecture was in regenerating, against non-constitution in the animals without the patterned scaffold or with poly(ester urethane) plane membrane at the defaulted sites. This micro-channel pattern together with silk fibroin grafting and vascular endothelial growth factor coating greatly promoted the regeneration of esophageal muscle with normal histological structure.