Despite the success of current therapies for acute myocardial infarction (MI), many patients still develop adverse cardiac remodeling and heart failure. With the growing prevalence of heart failure, a new therapy is needed that can prevent remodeling and support tissue repair. Herein, we report on injectable recombinant human collagen type I (rHCI) and type III (rHCIII) matrices for treating MI. Injecting rHCI or rHCIII matrices in mice during the late proliferative phase post-MI restores the myocardium’s mechanical properties and reduces scar size, but only the rHCI matrix maintains remote wall thickness and prevents heart enlargement. rHCI treatment increases cardiomyocyte and capillary numbers in the border zone and the presence of pro-wound healing macrophages in the ischemic area, while reducing the overall recruitment of bone marrow monocytes. Our findings show functional recovery post-MI using rHCI by promoting a healing environment, cardiomyocyte survival, and less pathological remodeling of the myocardium.

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The aim of this study was to develop an MRI fluorocarbon oximetry technique using snapshot inversion recovery and compare it with fluorescence quenching fiber-optic probe oximetry (OxyLite) performed simultaneously in experimental mouse tumors. The oxygen reporter probe hexafluorobenzene (HFB) was injected directly into the tumors, along with the insertion of the OxyLite probe. Tumor oxygenation (pO 2 ) was modified using carbogen or lethal doses of the anesthetic gas. MRI pO 2 maps were generated in 1.

Despite improvements in chemotherapy and radical surgical debulking, peritoneal carcinomatosis (PC) remains among the most common causes of death from abdominal cancers. Immunotherapies have been effective for selected solid malignancies, but their potential in PC has been little explored. Here, we report that intraperitoneal injection of an infected cell vaccine (ICV), consisting of autologous tumor cells infected ex vivo with an oncolytic Maraba MG1 virus expressing IL12, promotes the migration of activated natural killer (NK) cells to the peritoneal cavity in response to the secretion of IFNγ-induced protein-10 (IP-10) from dendritic cells. The recruitment of cytotoxic, IFNγ-secreting NK cells was associated with reduced tumor burden and improved survival in a colon cancer model of PC. Even in mice with bulky PC (tumors > 8 mm), a complete radiologic response was demonstrated within 8 to14 weeks, associated with 100% long-term survival. The impact of MG1-IL12-ICV upon NK-cell recruitment and function observed in the murine system was recapitulated in human lymphocytes exposed to human tumor cell lines infected with MG1-IL12. These findings suggest that an MG1-IL12-ICV is a promising therapy that could provide benefit to the thousands of patients diagnosed with PC each year. Cancer Immunol Res; 5(3); 211–21. ©2017 AACR.

Both benign and malignant breast lesions may exhibit intense contrast enhancement when imaged using gadolinium-enhanced MRI. We propose a quantitative approach for fitting dynamic signal intensity (SI) data that may distinguish benign from malignant lesions. We studied 78 lesions in 75 women (18 malignancies, 16 fibroadenomas, and 44 other benign breast lesions) to determine the potential of this model for decreasing false-positive MR results. Twenty-eight lesions showed no enhancement; all were benign. One lesion showed a complex pattern not amenable to region-of-interest analysis and was considered a false positive. SI versus time data for the remaining 49 lesions were fit to the proposed model. We found that one parameter, M, the normalized slope of the SI enhancement profile evaluated at half the maximal signal intensity, seemed to be highly correlated with malignancy and offered improved discrimination between malignant and benign lesions compared to a previously published two-point slope method.