Vimentin, a major constituent of the intermediate filament (IF) family of proteins, is ubiquitously expressed in normal mesenchymal cells and is known to maintain cellular integrity and provide resistance against stress. Increased vimentin expression has been reported in various epithelial cancers including prostate cancer, gastrointestinal tumors, CNS tumors, breast cancer, malignant melanoma, lung cancer and other types of cancers. Vimentin's over-expression in cancer correlates well with increased tumor growth, invasion and poor prognosis; however, the role of vimentin in cancer progression remains obscure. In the recent years, vimentin has gained much importance as a marker for epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT). Although EMT is associated with a number of tumorigenic events, the role of vimentin in the underlying events mediating these processes remains unknown. Though majority of the literature findings indicate a future significance of vimentin as a biomarker for different cancers with clinical relevance, more research in to the molecular aspects will be crucial to particularly evaluate the function of vimentin in the process of tumorigenesis. By virtue of its over-expression in a large number of cancers and its role in mediating various tumorigenic events, vimentin serves as an attractive target for cancer therapy. Further, research directed toward elucidating the role of vimentin in various signaling pathways would open up new approaches for the development of promising therapeutic agents. This review summarizes the expression and functions of vimentin in cancers and also suggests some directions toward future cancer therapy utilizing vimentin as a potential target.

Despite the progress made in the clinical management of sepsis, sepsis morbidity and mortality rates remain high. The inflammatory pathogenesis and organ injury leading to death from sepsis are not fully understood for vital organs, especially the liver. Only recently has the role of the liver in sepsis begun to be revealed. Pre-existing liver dysfunction is a risk factor for the progression of infection to sepsis. Liver dysfunction after sepsis is an independent risk factor for multiple organ dysfunction and sepsis-induced death. The liver works as a lymphoid organ in response to sepsis. Acting as a double-edged sword in sepsis, the liver-mediated immune response is responsible for clearing bacteria and toxins but also causes inflammation, immunosuppression, and organ damage. Attenuating liver injury and restoring liver function lowers morbidity and mortality rates in patients with sepsis. This review summarizes the central role of liver in the host immune response to sepsis and in clinical outcomes.

Tumor relapse and metastasis are the primary causes of poor survival rates in patients with advanced cancer despite successful resection or chemotherapeutic treatment. A primary cause of relapse and metastasis is the persistence of cancer stem cells (CSCs), which are highly resistant to chemotherapy. Although highly efficacious drugs suppressing several subpopulations of CSCs in various tissue-specific cancers are available, recurrence is still common in patients. To find more suitable therapy for relapse, the mechanisms underlying metastasis and drug-resistance associated with relapse-initiating CSCs need to be identified. Recent studies in circulating tumor cells (CTCs) of some cancer patients manifest phenotypes of both CSCs and epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT). These patients are unresponsive to standard chemotherapies and have low progression free survival, suggesting that EMT-positive CTCs are related to co-occur with or transform into relapse-initiating CSCs. Furthermore, EMT programming in cancer cells enables in the remodeling of extracellular matrix to break the dormancy of relapse-initiating CSCs. In this review, we extensively discuss the association of the EMT program with CTCs and CSCs to characterize a subpopulation of patients prone to relapses. Identifying the mechanisms by which EMT-transformed CTCs and CSCs initiate relapse could facilitate the development of new or enhanced personalized therapeutic regimens.

Gene rearrangement during the ontogeny of T-and B-cells generates an enormous repertoire of T-cell receptor (TCR) and immunoglobulin (Ig) genes. Because of the error-prone nature of this rearrangement process, two-thirds of rearranged TCR and Ig genes are expected to be out-of-frame and thus contain premature terminations codons (ptcs). We performed sequence analysis of reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction products from fetal and adult thymus and found that newly transcribed TCR-␤ pre-mRNAs (intron-bearing) are frequently derived from ptc-bearing genes but such transcripts rarely accumulate as mature (fully spliced) TCR-␤ transcripts. Transfection studies in the SL12.4 T-cell line showed that the presence of a ptc in any of several TCR-␤ exons triggered a decrease in mRNA levels. Ptc-bearing TCR-␤ transcripts were selectively depressed in levels in a cell clone that contained both an in-frame and an out-of-frame gene, thus demonstrating the allelic specificity of this down-regulatory response. Protein synthesis inhibitors with different mechanism of action (anisomysin, cycloheximide, emetine, pactamycin, puromycin, and polio virus) all reversed the downregulatory response. Ptc-bearing transcripts were induced within 0.5 h after cycloheximide treatment. The reversal by protein synthesis inhibitors was not restricted to lymphoid cells, as shown with TCR-␤ and ␤-globin constructs transfected in HeLa cells. Collectively, the data suggest that the ptc-mediated mRNA decay pathway requires an unstable protein, a ribosome, or a ribosome-like entity. Protein synthesis inhibitors may be useful tools toward elucidating the molecular mechanism of ptc-mediated mRNA decay, an enigmatic response that can occur in the nuclear fraction of mammalian cells. T-cell receptor (TCR)1 and immunoglobulin (Ig) genes undergo programmed rearrangement events during lymphocyte ontogeny. During this process, variable (V) elements are juxtaposed to joining (J) elements to create functional genes (1, 2).In some TCR and Ig genes, diversity (D) elements are also included in this rearrangement process. The tremendous combinatorial possibilities afforded by this rearrangement mechanism permit the generation of a wide variety of antigen receptors. Additional variability is provided by the enzyme terminal transferase which introduces random nucleotides at the junctions between V, D, and, J elements (1, 2). Variability is also engendered by the low fidelity of the rearrangement event itself; the borders of each element are not fixed, sometimes leading to small deletions at the junctions between the V, D, and J elements. The collective result of these insertional and deletional events is that a large fraction of rearrangement events will generate out-of-frame (nonproductive) genes that contain premature termination codons (ptcs).Since out-of-frame TCR and Ig genes are commonly generated during normal lymphocyte development, there may exist a mechanism that diminishes the expression of these nonfunctional ptc-containing genes. Consistent with...