Microsome, thyroid and DNA tests on patients with generalized vitiligo vulgaris, with or without Sutton's leukoderma, show a high positive rate without thyroid diseases. A small, but not negligible, amount of IgG and C3 deposits in the basement-membrane zone and keratinocytes, has been frequently seen in these diseases by immunohistology and immuno-electron microscopy. This evidence strongly suggests an autoimmune character for these diseases.

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To examine the correlation between tumor metastasis and Ax actin in mouse melanoma and between tumor progression and A'.actin in human melanoma and further to investigate whether or not it is a generally existing principle, we studied the effects of reversion agents, which distinctly decrease metastatic ability of melanoma cells, on the appearance of Ax actin. Will an induced decrease in metastasis of established highly metastatic B16-F10 mouse melanoma cells cause the appearance of Ax actin? We also examined the appearance of A' actin in eight human benign pigment cell tumors and nine human malignant melanoma tissues or cells in relation to tumor progression. In vitro treatment of B16-F10 cells with each of these agents suppressed metastatic ability of the cells injected intravenously into syngenic mice; however, none of the treated cells represented Ax actin in vitro. These results suggest that the appearance of Ax actin may be a result of long-term tumor cell progression leading to changes in gene level, but because the treatments with these agents were only carried out over a short period, they could not effect changes in gene level; thus, Ax actin appearance remained unchanged. Appearance of A' actin was detected only in human benign pigment cell tumors such as nevus cell nevi, but not in malignant melanomas, which were also formed in a long period of tumor progression in vivo. These results suggest that A' actin is a clinically useful marker to determine the prognosis and level of tumor progression of human pigment cell tumors.

Abstracts iv7 NEURO-ONCOLOGY • OCTOBER 2016at D9, p=0.05 at D12), whereas the other antibodies did not slow down tumor growth significantly. If combined with radiotherapy, anti-VEGF-A showed no variations to the control arm. Unexpectedly, the combination of radiotherapy with anti-Ang-2/VEGF-A (p=0.01 at D15), and even more with anti-Ang-2 (p=0.04 at D9, p= 0.008 at D12, p=0.003 at D15) lead to an increased tumor diameter.In conclusion, vascular normalization was most effectively achieved by dual targeting of Ang-2 and VEGF-A, which resulted in improved response to chemotherapy, but attenuated effectiveness of radiotherapy. These findings are important for the development of novel antiangiogenic strategies, and planning of future clinical trials in glioblastoma. INTRODUCTION: High-grade gliomas (HGGs) is divided into 3 major subtypes based on core gene signatures; mesenchymal (MES), proneural (PN) and proliferative. Among them, HGGs profiled in the MES subtype tend to show worse prognosis than others. Recently, also as for glioma stem cells, two mutually exclusive subtypes with distinct dysregulated signaling and metabolic pathways has been identified; MES-GSC and PN-GSC. It is known that MES-GSC displays more aggressive phenotypes and is markedly resistant to radiation as compared with PN-GSC. Delta-aminolevurinic acid (ALA) is the first metabolite in the porphyrin synthesis and the exogenous administration of ALA increased the endogenous production of photosensitizer protoporphyrin-IX (PpIX) in HGG tumor cells. Recently, several reports have revealed that ALA has an ability to enhance the therapeutic efficacy of X-ray radiotherapy (XRT) for various malignant tumors in vitro and in vivo. The aim of the present study is to investigate whether ALA can decrease the radioresistance of GSCs.MATERIAL & METHODS: We used 3 MES-GSCs and 2 PN-GSCs established from surgical specimens of human malignant gliomas. We defined the above GSCs cultured in an adherent condition with FBS and without glutamine for more than 2 weeks as glioma "differentiated" cells (GDCs). Firstly, we quantified the intracellular PpIX in the GSCs and their corresponding GDCs by FACS and LC. Then, we assessed the in vitro therapeutic effect of ALA-XRT on them; MTT-assay, sphere-or colony-forming assay, and apoptosis assay were performed. We made an intracerebral glioma model using one MES-GSC to evaluate in vivo therapeutic effect of ALA-XRT; MES-GSC transplanted mice were randomly divided into 4 groups, ALA-XRT, XRT only, ALA only and control. Total 30 Gy in 3 Gy fractions of X-ray was irradiated to the mice in 1st and 2nd group. The intraperitoneal injection of 240 mg/kg ALA was done 6 hours prior to each irradiation for the mice in 1st and 3rd group. RESULTS: 1) All MES-GSCs showed significantly higher PpIX accumulation than their corresponding MES-GDCs. Meanwhile, two PN-GSCs showed lower intracellular PpIX level than their corresponding PN-GDCs. 2) All MES-GSCs showed higher resistance to X-ray than their corresponding MES-GDCs, but the radioresi...

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