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. 2009 Aug 21:4:27.
doi: 10.1186/1746-1596-4-27.

The human placenta releases substances that drive lung cancer into apoptosis

Sebastian Marwitz  1 , Tobias Zeiser, Holger Schultz, Daniel Kähler, Mahdi Abdullah, Hans-Peter Hauber, Peter Zabel, Ekkehard Vollmer, Torsten Goldmann
Affiliations

The human placenta releases substances that drive lung cancer into apoptosis

Sebastian Marwitz et al. Diagn Pathol. .

Abstract

Background: As there is no optimal treatment of non small cell lung cancer due to its resistance to common chemotherapeutics, we investigated the effect of human placenta-conditioned medium on tumor tissue. The human placenta constitutes a mixture of maternal and fetal origin and displays a variety of immunomodulatory aspects.

Methods: Freshly resected non small cell lung cancer tissues were incubated with placenta-conditioned medium in a short-term tissue culture model and A549 cells were challenged, respectively. Term placenta was used for producing conditioned medium and HOPE-fixed stimulated tumor tissue was analyzed for expression of caspase-3 and Ki67 via immunohistochemistry. The effects of conditioned medium on squamous cell carcinoma were further compared to physiological concentrations of Carboplat/Gemzar.

Results: Conditioned medium caused in 2 of 3 cases elevated expression of caspase-3 and reduced expression of Ki67 in 3 out of 3 cases, while the chemotherapeutic agents caused no comparable expression of caspase-3 or reduction of Ki67. In cell culture up to 50% of karyopyknosis was investigated and even sterile-filtrated medium caused widespread reduction of Ki67 on protein level.

Conclusion: Human placenta releases substances that mediate apoptosis and reduce proliferation in tumor tissue and cell culture. As even sterile-filtrated medium caused the mentioned effects we hypothesize one or more soluble mediators. The detailed way of promoting apoptosis and nature of these mediators need to be elucidated in further studies.

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Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Immunohistochemical detection of Caspase-3 (upper panel) and Ki67 (bottom panel). Squamous cell carcinoma tissue was incubated with placenta-conditioned medium (left column) and with RPMI (middle column) or Carboplat (right column).
Figure 2
Figure 2
Immunohistochemical detection of Ki67 on cytospin fixed A549 cells after incubation with sterile-filtrated placenta-conditioned medium.
Figure 3
Figure 3
A549 cell culture with sterile-filtrated placenta-conditioned medium (A, B and C) or RPMI (D).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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