Role in Cancer
Recent studies indicate significant HB-EGF gene expression elevation in a number of human cancers as well as cancer-derived cell lines. Evidence indicates that HB-EGF plays a significant role in the development of malignant phenotypes contributing to the metastatic and invasive behaviors of tumors. The proliferative and chemotactic effects of HB-EGF results from the target influence on particular cells including fibroblasts, smooth muscles cells, and keratinocytes. For numerous cell types such as breast and ovarian tumor cells, human epithelial cells and keratinocytes HB-EGF is a potent mitogen resulting in evidenced upregulation of HB-EGF in such specimens. Both in vivo and in vitro studies of tumor formation in cancer dervived cell lines indicate that expression of HB-EGF is essential for tumor development. As a result studies implementing the use of specific HB-EGF inhibitors and monoclonal antibodies against HB-EGF show the potential for the development of novel therapies for treating cancers by targeting HB-EGF expression.
Read more about this topic: Heparin-binding EGF-like Growth Factor
Famous quotes containing the words role in, role and/or cancer:
“Language makes it possible for a child to incorporate his parents’ verbal prohibitions, to make them part of himself....We don’t speak of a conscience yet in the child who is just acquiring language, but we can see very clearly how language plays an indispensable role in the formation of conscience. In fact, the moral achievement of man, the whole complex of factors that go into the organization of conscience is very largely based upon language.”
—Selma H. Fraiberg (20th century)
“Whether or not you have children yourself, you are a parent to the next generation. If we can only stop thinking of children as individual property and think of them as the next generation, then we can realize we all have a role to play.”
—Charlotte Davis Kasl (20th century)
“I wish more and more that health were studied half as much as disease is. Why, with all the endowment of research against cancer is no study made of those who are free from cancer? Why not inquire what foods they eat, what habits of body and mind they cultivate? And why never study animals in health and natural surroundings? why always sickened and in an environment of strangeness and artificiality?”
—Sarah N. Cleghorn (1976–1959)