Endocrine Abstracts

Tumor heterogeneity affects diagnosis, prognosis and response to therapy. Heterogeneity is found in both normal and neoplastic human mammary gland. For example, luminal estrogen receptor (ER)-negative cells can give rise to various phenotypes, including ER-negative and ER-positive mammary tumors, suggesting that the cell-of-origin does not necessarily reflect the tumor type. Regarding ER status, heterogeneity can challenge endocrine therapies; elimination of responsive clones ...

Kinases represent a main therapeutic targets in cancer treatment as their impairing is related to tumor growth and progression. Despite the increasing evidence that tumor microenvironment (TME) signaling influences the behavior of surrounding cancer epithelial cells, still little is known about what changes in stromal cells influence tumor cells’ behavior. TNBC patients are still lacking an effective therapy, as not much is known about the biology of this BC tumor subtype...

Introduction: Broncho-Pulmonary Neoplasms (BP-NENs) are rare neoplasms arising from neuroendocrine cells of the respiratory epithelium. Since previous studies in our lab have demonstrated the efficacy ofEverolimus, approved for BP-NENs treatment, and Dinaciclib, a Cyclins and CdKs inhibitor, on monolayer system we have investigated if a more complex tumour system could generate a change in drugs effects and cell resistance. Therefore, through the use of 3D culture model, we ha...

Background: Pancreatic Neuroendocrine Neoplasms (pNENs) are malignancies arising from the endocrine pancreas. Past in vitro studies have led to a better comprehension and characterization of this malignancy under several points of view. However, effective medical therapies are still not available, therefore, it is essential to continue studying this malignancy in order to identify a successful approach. Due to tumour complexity, techniques such as 3D cultures, able to...

Introduction: LMTK3 is an oncogenic Receptor Tyrosine Kinase (RTK) implicated in resistance to endocrine therapy in breast cancer. Initially, LMTK3 was described as a regulator of Estrogen Receptor alpha (ERα) since it was found able to protect it from ubiquitin-mediated proteasomal degradation. In a cohort of breast cancer (BC) patients (n>600), LMTK3 protein levels and intronic polymorphisms were significantly associated with disease-free and overall surviv...

Background: Available medical treatments for Broncho-Pulmonary Neuroendocrine Neoplasm (BP-NENs) derived from clinical trials are not specific for the management of this malignancy. Sunitinib, a multi-receptor tyrosine-kinases (RTKs) inhibitor, mainly described as VEGFR inhibitor, has shown its efficacy in Pancreatic NENs but there are not available data about its action in BP-NENs. Our aim was to understand the effects of RTKs inhibition promoted by Sunitinib in order to eval...