Furthermore, current AEDs do not prevent the development and progression of epilepsy. Thus, there is an urgent need to develop new Protein Tyrosine Kinase inhibitor therapies for AED-resistant patients, for prevention of epilepsy in patients at risk and for disease modification. Cell replacement and gene therapies have
been proposed to offer potential approaches for improvements in therapy, but are such approaches really more promising than new pharmacological strategies? Here we critically review and discuss data from epilepsy models and human tissue studies indicating that cell and gene therapies might provide alternative therapeutic approaches for AED-resistant focal epilepsies and might have antiepileptogenic or disease-modifying potential. However, several crucial issues remain to be resolved to develop cell and gene therapies into effective and safe therapies.”
“BACKGROUND: Anaplastic pleomorphic xanthoastrocytoma is an aggressively
growing, malignant, and eventually fatal tumor of the central nervous system. Testing chemotherapeutic drug sensitivity under in vitro conditions would be a useful strategy to determine sensitive or resistant drugs for fatal brain cancers.
OBJECTIVE: To establish primary cell cultures of excised tumor tissue from pleomorphic xanthoastrocytoma-bearing patients and to test BAY 1895344 order their sensitivity against various anticancer chemotherapy drugs.
METHODS: Prepared suspensions of the excised tumor tissue from a patient who had a recurrent grade 3 pleomorphic xanthoastrocytoma was cultured in culture dishes until cells began to grow. Immunofluorescent and immunohistochemical visualizations were performed using confocal and light microscopy. MTT (3-(4,5-dimethylthiazol-2-yl)-2,5-diphenyltetrazolium bromide) assay in comparison with 3 H-thymidine incorporation assay was used to test cellular toxicity of several anticancer drugs.
RESULTS: We established
vigorously growing primary cells E7080 in vivo of the tumor. Drug sensitivity testing was conducted successfully.
CONCLUSION: Primary cell cultures of surgically removed tumor tissues may be useful in studies of cancer biology and chemotherapeutic drug sensitivity for recurrent malignant brain tumors, particularly for anaplastic pleomorphic xanthoastrocytoma.”
“An accumulating body of evidences point to the significance of neuroinflammation and immunogenetics in schizophrenia, characterized by increased serum concentration of several pro-inflammatory cytokines. In the central nervous system (CNS), the microglial cells are the major immunocompetent cells which release pro-inflammatory cytokines, nitric oxide (NO) and reactive oxygen species to mediate the inflammatory process. In the present study, we investigated whether or not atypical antipsychotics, namely perospirone, quetiapine and ziprasidone, would have anti-inflammatory effects on the activated microglia which may potentiate neuroprotection.