Molecular Medicine Reports Special Issues
Molecular and Immune Influences in the Progression of Gliomas
Lead Editor:
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Professor Gregory T. MacLennan
Case Western Reserve University
United States
Glioma is a leading cause of global mortality as the most common primary malignant brain tumor in adults, accounting for over 60% of all intracranial primary tumors. Glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) is known as the most lethal type of glioma with a poor prognosis, survival time between 12 and 14 months and five-year survival rate of 4-5%. The treatments for glioma are primarily surgical treatment combined with radiotherapy and chemotherapy. However, survival rates remain low due to difficulty of surgical resection. Furthermore, chemotherapy remains as ineffective as it typically has difficulties in crossing the blood-brain barrier. There are innate and acquired resistance to chemotherapy and/or targeted therapies. Therefore, understanding the molecular mechanisms which influence the progression of glioma is extremely important to better understand further advances in treatment and management. Molecular mechanisms of glioma remain complex, there are many aspects to consider which influence tumor progression. Long non-coding RNAs (lncRNA) are known to influence the biological processes of tumors such as cell proliferation, migration, invasion and apoptosis. Expression levels of lncRNAs have been studied to become dysregulated in gliomas and this has led lncRNAs to be potential diagnostic biomarkers. There have also been developments in identifying potential blood-based biomarkers to predict the development of glioma in people prior to clinical or radiological signs being presented. Immunotherapy is a developing field of research in oncology and there are studies focusing on the suppression of glioma cells via specific immune targets as a potential therapeutic approach to improving the treatment of gliomas. Studies have demonstrated T cells in GBM helps suppress anti-tumor immunity and the combined blockade of IL-12 and CTLA-4 acts on CD4 (+) cells which leads to increase in effector T cells and inhibits tumor growth. The goal of this special issue is to generate a discussion of the current research around molecular mechanisms and how it influences the progression of glioma and ultimately, the impact this has on patients, prognosis and survival rate.
Submission deadline: 17 November 2024
Molecular mechanism in occupational and environmental medicine
Lead Editor:
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Professor Caterina Ledda
University of Catania
Italy
Environmental and occupational health is influenced by chemical, physical, radiological, and biological agents in the air, water, and soil. Health risks involve injury, and exposure to radiation, carcinogenic and teratogenic agents, leading to cancer, lung and heart diseases. Environmental and occupational factors may cause in sudden death or long-term illness from hazardous environmental or working conditions. The environment impacts people from workplace settings to large-scale communities and getting global effects. The objective of the present Special Issue will be to give new scientific evidence on molecular mechanism in occupational and environmental medicine.
Submission deadline: 17 August 2024
Microenvironment and cell state, plasticity, and drug response in Hepatic and Biliary Cancer
Lead Editor:
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Professor Consolato Sergi
Chief, Anatomic Pathology Division, Pediatric Pathologist, Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario (CHEO) Full Professor of Pathology & Pediatrics, Univ. Alberta & Ottawa
Canada
Precision medicine is changing the approach to patients harboring neoplasms. The diversity of cancer in the gastrointestinal and hepatobiliary systems has evidenced that it can complicate the estimation of prognosis. The optimal timing and selection of treatment regimens for individual patients may be jeopardized. In colon-rectal cancer, pathological staging by tumor-node-metastasis (TNM), sidedness, and a few molecular markers, including mismatch repair (MMR), BRAF (B-Raf proto-oncogene serine/threonine kinase), and RAS (Kirsten rat sarcoma) mutation status, are usually used in clinical practice to identify patients for specific therapies. Recently, the BEACON drug regimen (encorafenib as BRAF-inhibitor, binimetinib as MAP2K-inhibitor or Mitogen-activated protein kinase kinase (also MEK), and cetuximab as anti-EGFR, anti-epithelial growth factor receptor) has been proposed to be effective for BRAF mutant metastatic colo-rectal cancer. The consensus molecular subtype (CMS) classification is a stratification strategy for colo-rectal cancer established because of differences in tumor biology rather than clinical outcomes. It captures the intrinsic biomolecular heterogeneity of colon-rectal cancer. It is based on differential gene expression in tumor tissue, encompassing both cancer cells as well as the microenvironment. Colon-rectal cancer can be divided into 4 subtypes (CMS1-4). CMS1 is the immunogenic subtype, enriched for MSI tumors and BRAF mutations. Epithelial characteristics with marked WNT (Wnt/β-Catenin signaling pathway) and MYC (Myelocytomatosis) signaling and high chromosomal instability (CIN) characterize CMS2. The CMS3 has epithelial features but less CIN. It is enriched for KRAS mutations, and occurs with evident metabolic dysregulation. Finally, the CMS4 is the mesenchymal subtype with prominent transforming growth factor beta (TGF-β) activation, stromal invasion, angiogenesis, and an inflammatory, immunosuppressive phenotype. Hepatocellular carcinoma can also be stratified into four distinct immune subtypes. Hepatocellular carcinoma with a high immune activation is characterized by high anti-tumor immunity accompanied with high cancer-related hallmark signatures. They include epithelial–mesenchymal transition, angiogenesis, and apoptosis. Autophagy-related proteins (Beclin-1, LAMP-1, LC3, and p62) and NanoString technology for gene expression have been used to pinpoint the microenvironment for the EBV-driven oncogenesis. The microenvironment of tumors is dynamic, with a variety of cell types and different molecular pathways at play, and studies may clearly warrant further investigation. In this special issue, we welcome papers addressing the tumor microenvironment and cell state, plasticity, and drug response in hepatic and biliary oncogenesis.
Submission deadline: 31 July 2024
Biological properties and potential biomedical applications of plant extracts, essential oils and secondary metabolites from natural products.
Lead Editor:
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Dr Antonella D'Anneo
University of Palermo. Dep of Biological, Chemical and Pharmaceutical Sciences and Technologies
Italy
In the last years a re-evaluation of essential oils, natural extracts as well as secondary metabolites derived from plants or their parts have attracted researchers attentions operating in the field of phyto-therapeutic medicine for their multifaceted abilities spacing from anti-oxidant, anti-inflammatory, anti-tumor, antimicrobial and anti-viral actions. Many investigations have been made with the aim to identify new potential lead compounds to apply, alone or in combination, as preventive or supportive therapy for the treatment of some human pathologies. Several studies have provided evidence that many essential oils or natural extracts derived from medicinal plants offer a plethora of effective antioxidants with potential in the prevention or in the treatment of inflammatory, degenerative or tumor diseases. Among the main antioxidant components present in plant or their parts (root, bark, flowers, leaves ect.), polyphenols represents a class of naturally-occurring phytochemicals, some of which are able to modulate many distinct physiological and molecular pathways involved in different pathological conditions. We invite investigators to contribute to this Special issue with an original paper on their recent findings or a review putting together experimental data and critical points of view on the biological properties and biomedical applications of phytochemicals, essentials oil or plant derived extracts.
Submission deadline: 21 July 2024
Liquid biopsy for cancer management
Lead Editor:
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Dr Tomasz Powrózek
Department of Human Physiology, Medical University in Lublin
Poland
One of the major advantage for analysis of circulating nucleic acids as cancer biomarkers is their remarkable stability in body fluids and significantly altered expression under the cancer conditions. They are both released to blood circulation from cancerous tissues (directly or within the exosomes) or from host tissues affected by tumor occurrence. Monitoring of circulating biomarkers, especially in blood circulation (plasma or serum) is more convenient and safer for patient than series of tissue biopsy. Liquid biosy allows to capture the entire heterogeneity of the tumor (primary/metastatic/recurrent) with minimally invasive manner. Liquid biopsy offers clinical applicability for cancer detection, prediction and prognosis. The aim of the special issue is summarizing the utility of circulating biomarkers (expression of ncRNAs, DNA methylation) with the use of liquid biopsy for cancer management.
Submission deadline: 07 July 2024
The regulation and function of gene transcription and protein post-translational modification on tumorigenesis, progression and drug resistance
Lead Editor:
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Dr Dejie Wang
mayo clinic
United States
Abnormal gene transcription often leads to human diseases, such as cancer. Moreover, dysregulation of the functions of transcription regulatory proteins by mechanisms such as phosphorylation, acetylation, ubiquitination, methylation, and protein-protein initiates and develops many types of cancers. Deep understanding of these processes will not only shed new light on the etiology of cancer but also may lead to identifying novel targets for diagnostics, prognostics and therapeutics for those lethal diseases.
Submission deadline: 30 June 2024
Clinical utility of liquid biopsies as diagnostic or prognostic tools for cancer
Lead Editor:
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Dr Emmanouil Karteris
Brunel University
United Kingdom
Liquid biopsies offer a promising alternative to tissue samples, providing non-invasive diagnostic approaches or serial monitoring of disease evolution. However, certain challenges remain, and the full potential of liquid biopsies has yet to be reached. In this Special Issue, we will invite clinical and basic scientists to showcase their latest research in this field.
Submission deadline: 23 June 2024
Pharmacologic Chaperone
Lead Editor:
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Professor Seong-Gon Kim
Gangneung-Wonju National University
Republic of Korea
Chaperone is used for alleviating stress from the environment. Chaperone can improve the survival rate of organism. Using chaperone, there have been many trials to treat the challenging diseases. This special issue aims to collect the articles about molecular mechanism of pharmacologic chaperone, target disease for pharmacologic chaperone, and clinical application of pharmacologic chaperone.
Submission deadline: 22 June 2024
Direct oral anticoagulants for cancer-associated venous thromboembolism in Japan
Lead Editor:
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Dr Yoshinori Imamura
Kobe University Hospital
Japan
Cancer-associated venous thromboembolism is a severe and potentially fatal event. Over the past few years, results from several randomized control trials have been published, and direct oral anticoagulants are becoming new standard care for this disease in addition to low molecular weight heparins. Although Japanese patients have seldom participated in these trials, direct oral anticoagulants are widely used in current practice, especially because low molecular weight heparins have not been approved for acute venous thromboembolism in Japan. Since the “East Asian paradox” meant a unique risk-benefit compromise, less anti-ischemic benefits and more risk of bleeding during antithrombotic therapies compared with Caucasian patients, direct extrapolation of Caucasian data to Japanese could be inappropriate. Polymorphisms among anticoagulant factors, cytochrome P450 metabolisms, and ATP-binding cassette transporters may be important biological factors to explain the ethnic disparity. This special issue will focus on the current evidence and future directions of direct oral anticoagulants for cancer-associated venous thromboembolism in Japanese patients.
Submission deadline: 22 June 2024
