Université de Fribourg

TGFBI modulates tumour hypoxia and promotes breast cancer metastasis

Fico, Flavia ; Santamaria‐Martínez, Albert

In: Molecular Oncology, 2020, vol. 14, no. 12, p. 3198–3210

Breast cancer metastasis is a complex process that depends not only on intrinsic characteristics of metastatic stem cells, but also on the particular microenvironment that supports their growth and modulates the plasticity of the system. In search for microenvironmental factors supporting cancer stem cell (CSC) growth and tumour progression to metastasis, we here investigated the role of the...

Université de Fribourg

Innate immune cells and their contribution to T-cell-based immunotherapy

Ginefra, Pierpaolo ; Lorusso, Girieca ; Vannini, Nicola

In: International Journal of Molecular Sciences, 2020, vol. 21, no. 12, p. 4441

In recent years, immunotherapy has become the most promising therapy for a variety of cancer types. The development of immune checkpoint blockade (ICB) therapies, the adoptive transfer of tumor-specific T cells (adoptive cell therapy (ACT)) or the generation of T cells engineered with chimeric antigen receptors (CAR) have been successfully applied to elicit durable immunological responses in...

Università della Svizzera italiana

Changes in breast cancer management during the Corona Virus Disease 19 pandemic : an international survey of the European Breast Cancer Research Association of Surgical Trialists (EUBREAST)

Gasparri, Maria Luisa ; Gentilini, Oreste Davide ; Lueftner, Diana ; Kuehn, Thorsten ; Kaidar-Person, Orit ; Poortmans, Philip

In: The breast, 2020, vol. 52, p. 110-115

Background: Corona Virus Disease 19 (COVID-19) had a worldwide negative impact on healthcare systems, which were not used to coping with such pandemic. Adaptation strategies prioritizing COVID-19 patients included triage of patients and reduction or re-allocation of other services. The aim of our survey was to provide a real time international snapshot of modifications of breast cancer...

Université de Fribourg

Magi1, a new potential tumor suppressor gene in estrogen receptor positive breast cancer

Alday-Parejo, Begoña ; Richard, François ; Wörthmüller, Janine ; Rau, Tilman ; Galván, José A. ; Desmedt, Christine ; Santamaria-Martinez, Albert ; Rüegg, Curzio

In: Cancers, 2020, vol. 12, no. 1, p. 223

Membrane-associated guanylate kinase (MAGUK) with inverted domain structure-1 (MAGI1) is an intracellular adaptor protein that stabilizes epithelial junctions consistent with a tumor suppressive function in several cancers of epithelial origin. Here we report, based on experimental results and human breast cancer (BC) patients’ gene expression data, that MAGI1 is highly expressed and acts...

Université de Fribourg

Detection of HER2+ breast cancer cells using bioinspired DNA-based signal amplification

Rafiee, Sarah D. ; Kocabey, Samet ; Mayer, Michael ; List, Jonathan ; Rüegg, Curzio

In: ChemMedChem, 2020, vol. 15, no. 8, p. 661-666

Circulating tumor cells (CTC) are promising biomarkers for metastatic cancer detection and monitoring progression. However, detection of CTCs remains challenging due to their low frequency and heterogeneity. Herein, we report a bioinspired approach to detect individual cancer cells, based on a signal amplification cascade using a programmable DNA hybridization chain reaction (HCR) circuit. We...

Université de Fribourg

3-Mercaptopyruvate sulfurtransferase supports endothelial cell angiogenesis and bioenergetics

Abdollahi Govar, Armita ; Törő, Gábor ; Szaniszlo, Peter ; Pavlidou, Athanasia ; Bibli, Sofia‐Iris ; Thanki, Ketan ; Resto, Vicente A. ; Chao, Celia ; Hellmich, Mark R. ; Szabo, Csaba ; Papapetropoulos, Andreas ; Módis, Katalin

In: British Journal of Pharmacology, 2020, vol. 177, no. 4, p. 866–883

During angiogenesis, quiescent endothelial cells (ECs) are activated by various stimuli to form new blood vessels from pre‐existing ones in physiological and pathological conditions. Many research groups have shown that hydrogen sulfide (H2S), the newest member of the gasotransmitter family, acts as a proangiogenic factor. To date, very little is known about the regulatory role of...