Self-expanding non-vascular metal stents (SEMS) is now a choice of treatment for tumor-induced obstructive symptoms of gastrointestinal tract. But in-growing tumor causes re-stenosis. Here, we studied a paclitaxel-eluting nanofiber-covered stent for palliative chemotherapy of gastrointestinal cancer and its related stenosis. In vivo and in vitro feasibility of nanofiber-covered nonvascular stent was evaluated in this study. Nanofiber-covered stent released paclitaxel (PTX) in controlled manner for 30 days. PTX-NFM significantly inhibited the growth of CT-26 colon cancer in comparison with PTX injection. PTX maintained higher tumor concentrations over 1.0 μg/ml for more than 14 days without systemic exposure. TUNEL and H&E staining proved locally concentrated PTX induced the higher apoptosis than PTX injection. In this way, PTX-eluting nanofiber-covered stent possibly inhibits in-growth of cancer and extends patency of stent. Clinical feasibility of PTX-eluting nanofiber nonvascular stent for cholangiocarcinoma and gastrointestinal cancers will be investigated in further studies.

The PC12 is the widely used cell line to study neuronal differentiation. We had extensively investigated the details of protein expression in differentiated PC12 cells by proteomic analysis. The cells were incubated at the presence of nerve growth factor. We had analyzed the expression changes in the differentiating PC12 cells by 2-dimensional electrophoresis and the identification of the proteins using MALDI-TOF MS. By comparing expression pattern in the time course, we identified the candidate genes which are associated with neuronal differentiation. Among these genes, we performed real-time PCR analysis to validate Idh3α expression by the time course. To identify the function of Idh3α in neuronal differentiation stage, the transfection of Idh3α to PC12 cells was performed. As a result, we proved that up-regulation of Idh3α causes reduction in neural differentiation of PC12 cells. Based on these data, we suggest that Idh3α plays a role to the neuronal differentiation. [BMB reports 2010; 43(5): 369-374]