Background: Chemotherapy is one of the antitumor therapies used worldwide in spite of its serious side effects and unsatisfactory results. Many attempts have been made to increase its activity and reduce its toxicity. 5-Fluorouracil (5-FU) is still a widely-used chemotherapeutic agent, especially in combination with other chemotherapies. Combination therapy seems to be the best option for targeting tumor cells by different mechanisms. Virotherapy is a promising agent for fighting cancer because of its safety and selectivity. Newcastle disease virus is safe, and it selectively targets tumor cells. We previously demonstrated that Newcastle disease virus (NDV) could be used to augment other chemotherapeutic agents and reduce their toxicity by halving the administered dose and replacing the eliminated chemotherapeutic agents with the Newcastle disease virus; the same antitumor activity was maintained. Methods: In the current work, we tested this hypothesis on different tumor cell lines. We used the non-virulent LaSota strain of NDV in combination with 5-FU, and we measured the cytotoxicity effect. We evaluated this combination using Chou–Talalay analysis. Results: NDV was synergistic with 5-FU at low doses when used as a combination therapy on different cancer cells, and there were very mild effects on non-cancer cells. Conclusion: The combination of a virulent, non-pathogenic NDV–LaSota strain with a standard chemotherapeutic agent, 5-FU, has a synergistic effect on different tumor cells in vitro, suggesting this combination could be an important new adjuvant therapy for treating cancer.

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In the brain, there are hundreds of types of specialized neurons and to generate one type of them we need to have neural progenitors for differentiation to specific neuron type. Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) are easily isolated, cultured, manipulated ex vivo, showing great potential for therapeutic applications. The adult MSCs have the potential to produce progeny that differentiate into a variety of cell types such as neurons. This fact suggests that MSCs derived neurons are an important cell type and a deep understanding of the molecular characteristics of it would significantly enhance the advancement of cell therapy for neurological disorders. Therefore, in this study, we isolated, identified, and studied neural progenitors by measuring expression levels through neurogenesis pathway of three neural differentiation markers nestin (NES), neurofilament (NF-L), and microtubule association protein (MAP-2) from mouse bone marrow MSCs (mouse bmMSCs) by using butylated hydroxyanisole (BHA) and diethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) as neural inducers agents. The results of immunocytochemistry and Real Time-PCR showed that in contrast to MSCs, neural differentiated cells showed neural progenitor pattern by showing stable increase in NES gene expression through differentiation process with increasing the protein expression through different exposures times, while NF-L gene and protein expression start to increased after 48 h but not replaced the NES expression completely even when its expression passed NES levels. The maturation marker Map-2 expression was low during the duration of differentiation period in protein and gene expression, which prove that these cells are still progenitors and can be redirected into specific type of neurons by further treatments. * Corresponding authors. M. Mohammad et al.2

Background: Adipose derived-mesenchymal stem cells have been used as an alternative to bone marrow cells in this study. Objective: We investigated the in vitro isolation, identification, and differentiation of stem cells into neuron cells, in order to produce neuron cells via cell culture, which would be useful in nerve injury treatment. Method: Mouse adipose mesenchymal stem cells were dissected from the abdominal subcutaneous region. Neural differentiation was induced using β-mercaptoethanol. This study included two different neural stage markers, i.e. nestin and neurofilament light-chain, to detect immature and mature neurons, respectively. Results: The immunocytochemistry results showed that the use of β-mercaptoethanol resulted in the successful production of neuron cells. This was attributable to the increase and significant overexpression of the nestin protein during the early exposure period, which resulted in the expression of the highest levels of nestin. In comparison, the expression level of neurofilament light-chain protein also increased with time but less than nestin. Non-treated mesenchymal stem cells, considered as control showed very low expression for both markers. Conclusion: The results of this study indicate that adipose mesenchymal cells represent a good, easily obtainable source of bone marrow cells used to developing the differentiation process.

This study was aimed to know the inhibitory effect of the flavonoid extract of Silybum marianum seeds on two of the cancer cell lines , human brain cancinoma(AMGM), human cervix uteri epitheloid carcinoma (Hela ) and one normal cell line , Mouse embryonic fibroblast cell line (MEF). The concentration was (1000,500,250,125,62.5) µg/ml respectively with two exposure time (24 & 48) hours for the cancer cell lines and one exposure time (48) hr. for the normal one .The results showed that flavonoids extract has obvious inhibitory effect on (human brain carcinoma & Hela) with (P<0.05) significantly in high concentration (1000) µg/ml the cellular density (obsorption) of human brain carcinoma was (0.052) with inhibitory ratio (39%) compared with control , At 48 hours exposure the density was (0.051) with inhibitory ratio (94%) compared with control , whereas the density in Hela was (0.059, 0.06) with inhibitory ratio85.7% and 86% respectively at 24 and 48 hr. exposure .While the normal cell line showed no signification effect (P<0.05) for all brevious concentration except the high one (1000) µg/ml , whereas the density of MEF was (0.23), with inhibitory effect (34%) .The result of this study has indicated ahighest inhibitory activity of the cancer cell lines for both AMGM & Hela .