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Osteosarcoma is an aggressive bone cancer found in children and adolescents. The combined treatment strategy includes the surgical removal of tumour and subsequent chemotherapy to prevent the reoccurrence has been a widely accepted approach. However, the drug resistance developed by tumour cells causes recurrence of cancer. It is imperative to understand the molecular mechanism involved in the development of drug resistance and tumour progression for developing potential therapy. Tumour microenvironment and cellular cross-talk via activation of various signalling pathways are responsible for tumour progression and metastasis. The comprehensive reviews are already available on the tumour microenvironment, signalling cascades responsible for tumour progression, and cellular crosstalk between malignant cells and immune cells. Therefore, we intend to provide comprehend review postulating the importance of mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) in osteosarcoma progression and metastasis. This paper is aimed to provide information sequentially includes: tumour microenvironment, MSCs role in osteosarcoma progression, the hypoxic environment in MSCs recruitment at the tumour site and the importance of exosomes in tumorigenesis, progression and metastasis. Overall, this review may enlighten the research on the role of MSCs and MSCs derived exosome in osteosarcoma progression and drug resistance. This possibly may result in developing novel therapeutic approaches to combat the osteosarcoma effectively and contributes for the development of prognosis tools for early diagnosis.

Acute lymphocytic leukemia (ALL) is an outrageous disease worldwide. l-Asparagine (l-Asn) and l-Glutamine (l-Gln) deamination play a crucial role in ALL treatment. Role of Elspar® (l-asparaginase from Escherichia coli) in regulation of l-Asn and l-Gln has been confirmed by the other researchers through experimental studies. Therapeutic research against ALL remained elusive with the lack of information on molecular interactions of Elspar® with amino acid substrates. In the present study, using different docking tools binding cavities, key residues in binding and ligand binding mechanisms were identified. For the apo state enzyme and ligand bound state complexes, MD simulations were performed. Trajectory analysis for 30 ns run confirmed the kinship of l-Asn with l-asparaginase enzyme in the dynamic system with less stability in comparison to l-Gln docked complex. Overall findings strongly supported the bi-functional nature of the enzyme drug. A good number of conformational changes were observed with 1NNS structure due to ligand binding. Results of present study give much more information on structural and functional aspects of E. coli l-asparaginase upon the interaction with its ligands which may be useful in designing effective therapeutics for ALL.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s13205-015-0339-9) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

L-glutaminase has versatile applications in pharma and food industries. In pharmaceutical industry, L-glutaminase can be used as anti-oxidant and anti-cancer agent to treat Acute Lymphocytic Leukaemia (ALL). Whereas, in the food industry, L-glutaminase is used for acrylamide degradation, theanine production, flavour enhancer, soy sauce and many. The other applications include nitrogen metabolism and its use as biosensor in hybridoma technology. Both intra-cellular and extra-cellular L-glutaminases from wide range of sources were identified. Because of its diverse applications, there is a need to improve the production of L-glutaminase by enzyme engineering technology. Effect of recombination on L-glutaminase production was also reported. Researchers also confirmed the antitumor properties of L-glutaminase by conducting in vitro, in vivo and in silico studies. Bacillus sps. and Aspergillus sps. are the commercial producers of L-glutaminase. In this review, the applications, different sources of Lglutaminase, anti-cancer properties were discussed.

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