Porcine relaxin has been reported to stimulate various human sperm functions. In this paper we report that human recombinant relaxin binds to human sperm with a high affinity (Kd = 6.5 x 10(-10)). The bound 125I-relaxin was not displaced by insulin, or human chorionic gonadotropin, however, it was displaced by unlabeled relaxin. In sperm function studies, recombinant human relaxin stimulated sperm motility, zona-free hamster egg penetration, and the acrosome reaction.

Since the first in vitro fertilisation (IVF) pregnancy was delivered in 1978, this procedure has resulted in thousands of pregnancies and opened a vast new frontier of research and treatment for the infertile couple. Pregnancy rates with IVF improve as the number of high quality embryos available for transfer increases; therefore, ovarian stimulation agents to produce multiple oocysts for IVF are advantageous. Clomifene (clomiphene citrate), human menopausal gonadotrophin (hMG; menotropins), and subsequent generations of products are commonly used as stimulation agents. In conjunction with the stimulation agents, gonadotrophin-releasing hormone (GnRH) agonists and human chorionic gonadotrophin (hCG) serve as adjuvants for successful control of all events in the induction process. Clomifene, an estrogen agonists/antagonist, occupies the estrogen receptor for a longer period of time than estrogen (weeks versus hours). Because this signal is interpreted as low estrogen, GnRH is released, which produces a rise in circulating levels of follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH) and luteinising hormone (LH) and subsequent ovarian follicular development. Menotropins is collected by passing urine from menopausal donors over a Sepharose column, followed by removal of high molecular weight impurities by chromatography. The mixture of FSH and LH is biologically standardised. This product stimulates multiple ovarian follicular development. Urofollitrophin is produced using antibodies to hCG anchored to a separation column. LH then can be excluded from the eluate by binding to the hCG antibodies (LH immunoaffinity column). Highly purified FSH is obtained by passing menopausal urine over a column with monoclonal antibodies to FSH. The isolated FSH is then eluted from the column by a highly basic solution and crystallised. This product delivers FSH at a 90% purity and can be administered subcutaneously rather than intramuscularly. Dosage is standardised on a mg/kg basis. Recombinant human FSH is completely free of LH and offers the advantages of better batch consistency, greater purity, and absence of any human contaminants. It may be given both subcutaneously and intravenously. Genetically engineered FSH combines portions of the native protein with another protein (hCG) which enhances its potency and extends the half-life compared with wild-type FSH. Short, medium and ultra-long activity analogues of genetically engineered FSH may be used to tailor stimulation protocols in various clinical situations. Growth hormone is an adjuvant to ovarian stimulation which results in a decreased number of ampoules of menotropins being required to achieve ovulation in poor responders. Ovulation triggers include both hCG and GnRH agonists. Progesterone supplementation is generally used in the luteal phase of the IVF cycle and is administered by intramuscular injection or vaginal suppository. It appears that conscious sedation with midazolam, pethidine (meperidine) and fentanyl is nontoxic for oocyte recovery. If full anaesthesia is required for gamet...

Although lactic acidosis and other tumor microenvironmental stresses are prominent features in solid tumors, how they influence the phenotypes of cancer cells are not well understood. We compared the transcriptional response of breast cancer cells under three distinct tumor microenvironmental stresses – lactic acidosis, glucose deprivation and hypoxia. We found that lactic acidosis induced gene expression highly similar to glucose deprivation and triggered features of starvation response. In spite of their similar transcriptional response, lactic acidosis had opposite effects on the glucose uptake to glucose deprivation. This discrepancy guided the supervised analysis of expression data to identify TXNIP as the potential regulator for such divergent metabolic effects. TXNIP and its paralogue ARRDC4 were both induced under lactic acidosis and repressed with glucose deprivation. Their expression was also highly correlated with predicted lactic acidosis pathway activities and associated with favorable clinical outcomes in human cancers. These findings are due to the ability of TXNIP to inhibit the tumor glycolytic phenotypes and redirect energy generation toward aerobic respiration. The induction of TXNIP under lactic acidosis is caused by the activation of the glucose-sensing helix-loop-helix transcriptional complex MondoA: Mlx. Lactic acidosis activates the MondoA-TXNIP pathways and contributes to its “anti-Warburg” metabolic effects and anti-tumor properties of cancer cells. These findings illustrate the value of such integrative analysis of transcriptome and metabolic response under various tumor microenvironmental stresses and may lead to important insights on how they influence the phenotypic and metabolic adaptations in human cancers. Citation Format: {Authors}. {Abstract title} [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 101st Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2010 Apr 17-21; Washington, DC. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2010;70(8 Suppl):Abstract nr 2340.

Attempted surgical removal of advanced stage peritoneal cancers is mostly insufficient and often fails in areas affected by disseminated disease. But the successful elimination of peritoneal surface spread is known to have a significant impact on patient survival. However, standard therapies such as surgical cytoreduction and systemic chemotherapy combined with radiation have only shown limited-efficacy, accessibility, and nonspecific toxicity as well as frequent development of multidrug resistance (MDR). To overcome those limitations, we previously reported about the development of a mucoadhesive, chitosan-hybrid gel (CS(BCDDP)) embedded with cisplatin (CDDP) containing alginate beads for intraperitoneal administration (# 1948, AACR 2012). Here we report additional results illustrating CDDP release from CS(BCDDP) at different pH in vitro, CDDP accumulation to genomic DNA (gDNA) isolated from tissues as well as toxicity data in vivo. To determine the amount of CDDP released from CS (BCDDP) in vitro, B50μgCDDP, CDDP-chitosan (CS50μgCDDP) and CS (B50μgCDDP) pellets (8 mm ø, 1.5 mm thickness) were prepared and placed into a 6 well plate containing 2 ml/well PBS (pH 6, 7, 7.4 and 8). Multiple samples were collected during the 24 h incubation (37°C, 100rpm) period. The majority (75%) of CDDP was successfully released from CS(BCDDP) within the first 2 h at pH 7.4 showing the rate of drug release to be inversely correlated with pH yielding a more rapid release under acidic pH conditions. To assess CDDP accumulation to gDNA, inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) was performed with tissue samples obtained from the left peritoneal sidewall of female nu/nu mice 24 hours after treatment with CS50μgCDDP, CS(B50μgCDDP), intravenously (i.v.) CDDP(IV50μgCDDP) and intraperitoneal (i.p) CDDP (IP50μgCDDP), respectively. The results demonstrated a greater than three-time enhancement of CDDP-accumulation to the gDNA from CS(B50μgCDDP) when compared to CS50μgCDDP and IV50μgCDDP administration. In addition, CS(B50μgCDDP) showed similar levels of CDDP adduction compared to direct IP50μgCDDP administration. Moreover, assessment of CDDP accumulation in kidneys and blood 24 h following treatment with either IP50μgCDDP or CS(B50μgCDDP), demonstrated significantly decreased kidney toxicity from CS(B50μgCDDP) when compared to IP50μgCDDP. Our results, therefore strongly suggest that administration of this hybrid gel directly to mucosal surfaces such as the peritoneal cavity is feasible making it an advantageous, safe and non-toxic intraperitoneal drug delivery system for the treatment of disseminated peritoneal cancers such as advanced or recurrent ovarian cancer. Currently ongoing experiments are evaluating the efficacy and safety of our hybrid gel/CDDP in an orthotopic peritoneal cancer animal model. Citation Format: Sungpil Cho, Yongen Sun, Elke A. Jarboe, Andrew P. Soisson, Mark K. Dodson, David K. Gaffney, C.Mattew Peterson, Margit M. Janat-Amsbury. Tissue accumulation and toxicity of platinum released from a novel chitosan hybrid gel for intraperitoneal drug delivery. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 105th Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2014 Apr 5-9; San Diego, CA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2014;74(19 Suppl):Abstract nr 5402. doi:10.1158/1538-7445.AM2014-5402