Hsp27 is expressed at high levels after mild heat shock and contributes to making cells extremely resistant to subsequent treatments. The activity of the protein is regulated at the transcriptional level, but also by phosphorylation, which occurs rapidly during stress and is responsible for causing the dissociation of large 700-kDa Hsp27 oligomers into dimers. We investigated the mechanism by which phosphorylation and oligomerization modulate the protective activity of Chinese hamster Hsp27. In contrast to oligomer dissociation, which only required Ser 90

Treatment of glioblastoma with platinum compounds modestly improves progression-free survival and may cause toxic effects which prevent use at higher dose that would otherwise improve the antineoplastic effect. To reduce toxicity, we propose to encapsulate the platinum drug in a liposome. We have also tested three methods of drug administration (intra-venous, intra-arterial and intra-arterial combined with blood brain barrier disruption) to determine which one optimizes the tumor cell uptake, limits the toxicity and delivers the best concomitance effect with radiotherapy. Cisplatin, oxaliplatin, their respective liposomal formulations, Lipoplatin ™ and Lipoxal ™ , and carboplatin were assessed in F98 glioma, orthotopically implanted in Fischer rats. We found that the modest accumulation of drugs in tumor cells after intra-venous injection was significantly improved when the intra-arterial route was used and further increased after the transient opening of the blood brain barrier with mannitol. The liposomal formulations have largely reduced the toxicity and have allowed a better exploitation of the anti-cancer activity of platinum agent. Although the liposomes Lipoplatin ™ and Lipoxal ™ have shown a similar ability to CIHR Author ManuscriptCIHR Author Manuscript CIHR Author Manuscript that of carboplatin, to accumulate in brain tumors, the highest additive effect with radiotherapy was obtained with carboplatin. We conclude that the intra-arterial infusion of carboplatin or Lipoxal ™ in concomitance with radiation therapy leads to the best tumor control as measured by an increase of mean survival time in Fischer rats implanted with the F98 glioma with a benefit in survival time of 13.4 and 6.5 days respectively compared to intra-venous.

Among the five platinum compounds tested, carboplatin showed the best increase in survival when combined with radiation for treatment of glioma implanted in Fischer rats.

Furin, a member of the subtilisin-like pro-protein convertase family, is a type I membrane protein that undergoes ectodomain shedding. Metabolic labeling of cells stably expressing furin demonstrated that the shed form of furin is detected after 30 min. Moreover, sequence analysis revealed that speci¢c residues of the cysteine-rich region of furin aligned with those of tumor necrosis factor receptor, which is also shed. Introduction within furin's cysteine-rich region of mutations that impair TNFR1 shedding also abolished furin shedding. Our results show that shedding of furin occurs rapidly and further suggest that speci¢c cysteine residues may impart a conformation to the enzyme, thereby a¡ecting its susceptibility to proteolysis. ß 2002 Federation of European Biochemical Societies. Published by Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

Despite significant advances, the radiotherapy and chemotherapy protocols marginally improve the overall survival of patients with glioblastoma. Lipoplatin ™ , and Lipoxal ™ , the liposomal formulations of cisplatin and oxaliplatin respectively, were tested on the F98 glioma cells for their ability to improve the cell uptake and increase the synergic effect when combined with ionizing radiation. The cytotoxicity and synergic effect of platinum compounds were assessed by colony formation assay, while the cellular uptake was measured by Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometer (ICP-MS). After 4 h exposure with platinum compounds, cells were irradiated (1.5 to 6.6 Gy) with a 60 Co source. The liposomal formulations were compared to their liposome-free analogs and to carboplatin. The concomitant treatment of F98 cells with carboplatin and radiation produced the highest radiosensitizing effect (30-fold increase). Among the platinum compounds tested, Lipoplatin ™ produced the most promising results. This liposomal formulation of cisplatin improved the cell uptake by 3-fold, and its radiosensitizing potential was enhanced by 14-fold. Although Lipoxal ™ can potentially reduce the adverse effect of oxaliplatin, a synergic effect with radiation was measured only when incubated at a concentration higher than its IC50. Conversely, concomitant treatment with cisplatin did not result in a synergic effect, as in fact a radioprotective effect was measured on the F98 cells. In conclusion, among the five platinum compounds tested, carboplatin and Lipoplatin ™ showed the best radiosensitizing effect. Lipoplatin ™ seems the most promising since it led to the best cellular incorporation and has already been reported to be less neurotoxic than other platinum compounds.