Ropivacaine is a potent inhibitor of both NaV1.5 channel activity and metastatic colon cancer cell invasion, which may be beneficial during surgical colon cancer excision.

The CCN family of proteins comprises the members CCN1, CCN2, CCN3, CCN4, CCN5 and CCN6. They share four evolutionarily conserved functional domains, and usually interact with various cytokines to elicit different biological functions including cell proliferation, adhesion, invasion, migration, embryonic development, angiogenesis, wound healing, fibrosis and inflammation through a variety of signalling pathways. In the past two decades, emerging functions for the CCN proteins (CCNs) have been identified in various types of cancer. Perturbed expression of CCNs has been observed in a variety of malignancies. The aberrant expression of certain CCNs is associated with disease progression and poor prognosis. Insight into the detailed mechanisms involved in CCN-mediated regulation may be useful in understanding their roles and functions in tumorigenesis and cancer metastasis. In this review, we briefly introduced the functions of CCNs, especially in cancer.

Human CUB and Sushi multiple domains 1 (CSMD1) is a membrane-bound complement inhibitor suggested to act as a putative tumor suppressor gene, since allelic loss of this region encompassing 8p23 including CSMD1 characterizes various malignancies. Here, we assessed the role of CSMD1 as a tumor suppressor gene in the development of breast cancer in vitro and in vivo. We found that human breast tumor tissues expressed CSMD1 at lower levels compared to that in normal mammary tissues. The decreased expression of CSMD1 was linked to a shorter overall survival of breast cancer patients. We also revealed that expression of CSMD1 in human breast cancer cells BT-20 and MDA-MB-231 significantly inhibited their malignant phenotypes, including migration, adhesion and invasion. Conversely, stable silencing of CSMD1 expression in T47D cells enhanced cancer cell migratory, adherent and clonogenic abilities. Moreover, expression of CSMD1 in the highly invasive MDA-MB-231 cells diminished their signaling potential as well as their stem cell-like properties as assessed by measurement of aldehyde dehydrogenase activity. In a xenograft model, expression of CSMD1 blocked the ability of cancer cells to metastasize to secondary sites in vivo, likely via inhibiting local invasion but not the extravasation into distant tissues. Taken together, these findings demonstrate the role of CSMD1 as a tumor suppressor gene in breast cancer.

Abstract. Follistatin (FST) Follistatin (FST), which was first isolated from porcine and bovine follicular fluid (1, 2), was initially described as a protein involved in the regulation of the secretion of folliclestimulating hormone. This monomeric glycosylated polypeptide chain is encoded by a single gene located on the long arm chromosome 5q11.2 (3), which through alternative splicing may be transcribed into the mRNA precursors, FST317 and FST344. From these precursors, three major FST isoforms may be produced, namely FST288 (from pre-FST317), FST315 (from pre-FST344) and a third FST isoform, FST303, produced from the post-translational truncation of the FST315 C-terminus. These three main FST isoforms can also be glycosylated to yield six further FST isoforms that were previously identified in bovine (4) and porcine (5, 6) follicular fluid. At the core, all FST isoforms contain a 63 residue N-terminal domain and three follistatin domains, termed FSD1, FSD2 and FSD3. These domains comprise 73-77 amino acid residues and are characterised by an arrangement of 10 conserved cysteine residues (7). Both FST288 and FST315 are differentially expressed in human tissues (6-9). FST315 is the predominant isoform, whilst the FST288 isoform accounts for less than 5% of the encoded mRNA (10, 11). Some molecules such as activin, transforming growth factor-beta (TGFβ), forkhead domain transcription factor L2 (12, 13), gonadotropin-releasing hormone (14), zinc finger protein (GLI2) (15), dexamethasone (16), androgens (17), activators of winglessrelated integration site (WNT) signalling (18, 19) and 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D (20) have been shown to regulate the transcription of the FST gene. In addition, down-regulation of FST gene expression by peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor gamma (PPARγ) or the transcription factor epiprofin (21, 22) has been shown.As an antagonist of TGFβ superfamily member activin, FST seems to primarily function in relation to the role that activin plays. Along with FST, activin acts as a pleiotropic growth factor system, which is involved in proliferation, differentiation, and apoptosis of a number of cell types (23-28). As such, the functions of the FST isoforms are therefore linked to their binding affinity for activin (6,10,11,(29)(30)(31)(32)(33)(34)(35)(36)(37). In fact, this critical binding and neutralisation of activin, either partial or complete, is based on the order of at least two of the FST cysteine domains and its Nterminal (38), conferring a difference in affinities for activin between the FST isoforms. The binding complex between activin and FST generally occurs in a 1:2 ratio, where the two FST molecules, connected C-terminus to N-425