BackgroundAberrant expression of heparanase (Hpa) is associated with apoor prognosis in ovarian and cervical cancer patients. Inhibitors of Hpa can prevent the growth and metastasis of malignant tumor cells, and suramin may be such a compound that has strong anti-proliferative effects on several kinds of cancer cells. We have therefore tested whether the growth inhibiting effect of suramin on ovarian and cervical cancer cells is due to downregulation of Hpa expression.ResultsSuramin at 300–600 μg/ml significantly inhibited HO-8910 PM and HeLa cell growth at 24 h, in both a time-dependent and dose-dependent manner, with an IC50 of 320 μg/ml and 475 μg/ml, respectively. Suramin at 300 μg/ml significantly decreased the expression of Hpa mRNA (P < 0.005) and protein (P < 0.005) in both HO-8910 PM and HeLa cells at 48 h.ConclusionsThe inhibitory effect of suramin on Hpa enzyme may be due to downregulating of its expression in cancer cells. These findings confirm the importance of Hpa in tumor growth and the potential clinical application of Hpa inhibitors in the treatment of ovarian and cervical cancer.

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This is an open access article under the terms of the Creat ive Commo ns Attri butio n-NonCo mmerc ial-NoDerivs License, which permits use and distribution in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non-commercial and no modifications or adaptations are made. AbstractAs heterogeneous immune cells, macrophages mount effective responses to various internal and external changes during disease progression. Macrophage polarization, rather than macrophage heterogenization, is often used to describe the functional differences between macrophages. While macrophage polarization partially contrib-

Expression of mRNAs encoding the dopamine transporter (DAT) and tyrosine hydroxylase (TH) in dopaminergic neurons of the substantia nigra (SN) was examined in young and aged Fischer 344 rats by in situ hybridization. Quantitative analysis revealed a statistically significant decline in both DAT and TH mRNA expression in 24-month-old rats in comparison to 6-month-old rats. In addition, it was noted that DAT mRNA expression tended to decrease by 18 months, while TH mRNA reduction did not occur until 24 months. The age-related loss of DAT and TH mRNA expressions was accompanied by diminished expression of mRNA for a neuronal growth-associated protein GAP-43, but not for SCG10 or alpha 1-tubulin. The loss of GAP-43 mRNA became evident when both DAT and TH gene expression declined with advanced age. Our findings indicate that DAT may be a marker of atrophy in dopamine neurons during normal aging.