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Previous studies in murine models have shown that in vivo or in vitro treatment of tumor cells with mutagenic triazene compounds (TZC) lead to the appearance of novel drug-mediated tumor antigens (DMTA) capable of eliciting graft resistance in syngeneic hosts. This phenomenon, defined as 'chemical xenogenization' (CX), could be of potential value for immunochemotherapy of human neoplasias. It was also shown that TZC modulate NK sensitivity of murine tumor cells. Therefore, experiments were conducted to evaluate whether susceptibility of a human lung adenocarcinoma cell line (H125) to natural cytotoxic effectors could be affected by treatment with an in vitro active TZC. The results showed that drug treatment of H125 line leads to heritable increase of susceptibility to NK and LAK cells. Moreover, increased binding between effector and drug-treated target cells was observed. Additional studies on HLA antigens showed that changes in HLA-ABC molecule expression were probably not involved in TZC-induced increase of NK/LAK susceptibility. These results suggest that TZC treatment of a human tumor could result in increased expression of membrane structures recognized by natural cytotoxic effector cells. Further studies are required to explore whether these changes are generated by mutational events correlated with TZC-induced CX of human cancer cells.

One of the major goals of tumor immunology is the development of experimental procedures capable of enhancing responsiveness of the host to cancer.

Previous experimental evidence indicates that immunogenicity of mouse tumor cells can be increased by treatment with dacarbazine and other triazene compounds. The present studies have been conducted on the human cell lines H125 (lung cancer), 1246 (melanoma). X3 (EBV-immortalized B cells) subjected to in vitro treatment with 4(3-methyl-1—triazeno) benzoic acid potassium salt (MTBA). Untreated or drug-treated sublines were tested for susceptibility to allogeneic NK effector cells, either non-stimulated or pretreated with β-Interferon. In the case of X3 cell line and its MTBA-treated subline the expression of the EBV-associated antigens and the capability of eliciting autologous cytotoxic T lymphocytes (CTL) were also investigated. The results suggest that a modification of membrane antigenic pattern could be induced by MTBA treatment in terms of changes of cell susceptibility to cell-mediated lysis, expression of EBV-related antigens and capability to elicit autologous CTL.

Metsänhoitajien jatkokurssit 1938. 4.

Background: Premarital counseling equips couples with information about all aspects of sexuality and the related health issues. This study was aimed to assess the quality of premarital counseling services in health care centers in Tabriz. Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted on 236 randomly selected women from premarital counseling centers in Tabriz was carried out and a self-structured instrument including items on demographic characteristics, the quality of counseling condition and providers, family planning, genetic and thalassemia counseling and sexual health was used for data gathering. Results: The results showed that the viewpoint of clients about relationship with health care provider and condition of consultation was suitable in 75.8% and 85.2% of women, respectively. It was found that in 72.5%, 38.1% and 49.6% of clients the counseling areas were in moderate level respectively for counseling about importance of family planning, genetic counseling and thalassemia. It was indicated that 58.5% of participants expressed the sexual health aspect of the premarital classes as poor or completely poor. Conclusions: Our study results can provide suitable information for health policy providers to improve the quality of premarital counseling classes. In order to develop a relatively stable behavior in young couples, it is recommended that the quality of the classes would be overemphasized.

(51)Cr-prelabelled colon cancer cells (simulating 'circulating tumor cells', CTCs) were added to human peripheral blood and exposed to staurosporine (ST) to increase carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) expression. CTCs were captured with immunomagnetic beads coated with Ber-EP4 monoclonal antibody, recognizing the common epithelial antigen present in the majority of cancer cells of epithelial origin, with capture efficiency of more than 80%. Moreover, ST treatment increased CEA expression without compromising Ber-EP4 capture efficiency. In a pilot clinical study on 37 patients, CTCs were captured using Ber-EP4 beads, and recognized by RT-PCR set for CEA or cytokeratin-19 (CK) mRNA detection. The results showed that: (a) the percentage of CEA-positive CTCs (CTC(CEA), 54.1%) was lower than that of CK-positive CTCs (CTC(CK), 70.3%); (b) in vitro ST treatment converted a significant number of CTC(CEA)-negative into CTC(CEA)-positive cases. Therefore, immunomagnetic capture combined with exposure to ST provides a feasible and sensitive technique for the detection of functionally-active CTCs responsive to ST-mediated CEA up-regulation.

Lonidamine induces in murine and human tumor cells severe morphological damage of the mitochondria and other cytoplasmic structures both 'in vitro' and 'in vivo'. Biochemical studies have demonstrated that the drug decreases oxygen consumption and lactate production. The sensitivity of human tumor cells is not related to their histotype. Lonidamine's effects on mitochondria, glycolysis, pentose phosphate pathway, and aromatase activity are discussed.