Purpose:The extracellular matrix (ECM) molecule osteopontin is implicated in many pathologic processes, including inflammation, cell proliferation, ECM invasion, tumor progression, and metastasis. The present study evaluated the clinical and biological importance of osteopontin in human lung cancer. Experimental Design and Results: Tissue microarrays derived from non^small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients were analyzed immunohistochemically. Osteopontin protein expression was observed in 64.5% (205 of 318) of primary tumors and 75.5% (108 of 143) of lymph node metastases, but in only 27.9% (12 of 43) of normal-appearing bronchial epithelial and pulmonary tissues. Osteopontin expression was associated with tumor growth, tumor staging, and lymph node invasion. In vitro osteopontin enhanced ECM invasion of NSCLC cells, and an osteopontin antibody abolished this effect. We further analyzed osteopontin levels in circulating plasma derived from 158 patients with NSCLC, 54 patients of benign pulmonary disease, and 25 healthy donors, and found that the median osteopontin levels for the three groups were 319.1, 161.6, and 17.9 ng/mL, respectively. Conclusions: Overexpression of osteopontin is common in primary NSCLC and may be important in the development and progression of the cancer. Osteopontin levels in the plasma may serve as a biomarker for diagnosing or monitoring patients with NSCLC.Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer-related deaths in industrialized countries. It claims >150,000 lives each year in the U.S. alone, exceeding the combined mortality from breast, prostate, and colorectal cancer (1, 2). Despite recent advances in understanding lung cancer biology, the 5-year survival rate for the patients remains <15% (3). For the patients diagnosed with stage IV disease, this figure drops to a mere 1% due to local relapses and distant metastases. Predicting the metastatic behavior of the tumor and eradicating or controlling dissemination of the malignancy remain major clinical challenges to oncologists.Cancer progression depends on an accumulation of metastasis-supporting genetic modifications and physiologic alterations regulated by cell signaling molecules such as extracellular matrix (ECM) proteins. The latter contribute to interaction among cancer cells and endothelial cells, which play a critical role in the development of local invasion and distant metastasis (4, 5). One such ECM protein is osteopontin. Previous research suggests that osteopontin is up-regulated in a variety of cancers, such as breast, gastric, and colorectal cancers (6, 7). Reports also suggest that some highly metastatic cancer cell lines synthesize abundant osteopontin. For example, the metastatic cell Ca2-5-LT1 expresses osteopontin mRNA at a level nine times higher than that expressed by the nonmetastatic parental cell Rama 37 (8). These findings suggest that osteopontin is a key extracellular molecule involved in tumor development and progression. However, it has not been extensively evaluated as such in lung cancer. Evid...

Early stage lung cancer detection is the first step toward successful clinical therapy and increased patient survival. Clinicians monitor cancer progression by profiling tumor cell proteins in the blood plasma of afflicted patients. Blood plasma, however, is a difficult cancer protein assessment medium because it is rich in albumins and heterogeneous protein species. We report herein a method to detect the proteins released into the circulatory system by tumor cells. Initially we analyzed the protein components in the conditioned medium (CM) of lung cancer primary cell or organ cultures and in the adjacent normal bronchus using one-dimensional PAGE and nano-ESI-MS/MS. We identified 299 proteins involved in key cellular process such as cell growth, organogenesis, and signal transduction. We selected 13 interesting proteins from this list and analyzed them in 628 blood plasma samples using ELISA. We detected 11 of these 13 proteins in the plasma of lung cancer patients and non-patient controls. Our results showed that plasma matrix metalloproteinase 1 levels were elevated significantly in late stage lung cancer patients and that the plasma levels of 14-3-3 , ␤, and in the lung cancer patients were significantly lower than those in the control subjects. To our knowledge, this is the first time that fascin, ezrin, CD98, annexin A4, 14-3-3 , 14-3-3 ␤, and 14-3-3 proteins have been detected in human plasma by ELISA. The preliminary results showed that a combination of CD98, fascin, polymeric immunoglobulin receptor/secretory component and 14-3-3 had a higher sensitivity and specificity than any single marker. In conclusion, we report a method to detect proteins released into blood by lung cancer. This pilot approach may lead to the identification of novel protein markers in blood and provide a new method of identifying tumor biomarker profiles for guiding both early detection and

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Extremely low frequency (ELF) pulsed-gradient magnetic field (with the maximum intensity of 0.6-2.0 T, gradient of 10-100 T.M(-1), pulse width of 20-200 ms and frequency of 0.16-1.34 Hz treatment of mice can inhibit murine malignant tumour growth, as seen from analyses at different hierarchical levels, from organism, organ, to tissue, and down to cell and macromolecules. Such magnetic fields induce apoptosis of cancer cells, and arrest neoangiogenesis, preventing a supply developing to the tumour. The growth of sarcomas might be amenable to such new method of treatment.

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A series of plate-impact experiments were conducted to investigate the influences of impact stress and microstructure on the shock and spall behaviors of a high specific strength steel (HSSS). The HSSS shows a strong positive strain rate sensitivity on the yield strength. With increasing impact stress up to about 6 GPa, the spall strength is found to decrease significantly and then levels off with further increasing impact stress. This trend is proposed to be attributed to the accumulation damage within the target as the initial shock-induced compression wave propagates through the target. The microcracks are clearly observed to nucleate from the interfaces between γ-austenite and B2 phase and propagate along the interfaces or cut through the B2 phase in the HSSS during the spalling process. The Hugoniot elastic limit and the spall strength were found to be highly dependent on the microstructure. The spall strength was found to be higher when the density of the void nucleation sites is lower, indicating that the spall strength should be a microstructure parameter of the HSSS under impact tensile conditions depending on the density of phase interfaces. It was also found that there is a tradeoff between the specific yield strength and the spall strength for this HSSS; thus, the current findings should provide insights for achieving an optimal combination of both mechanical properties for impact-resistant applications by tailoring the microstructure.

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