Mitotic percentage index: a new prognostic factor for childhood medulloblastoma

Herstatin inhibits heregulin-mediated breast cancer cell growth and overcomes tamoxifen resistance in breast cancer cells that overexpress HER-2

“…The ErbB family of receptor tyrosine kinases (RTKs), including the epidermal growth factor (EGF) receptor (EGFR; HER-1/erbB-1), human EGF receptor HER-2 (erbB-2), HER-3 (erbB-3), and HER-4 (erbB-4) are frequently implicated in human cancers (Hynes and Stern, 1994;Gilbertson et al, 1998). These receptors are activated by growth factor binding, dimerization, and tyrosine autophosphorylation of the cytoplasmic C-terminal domain (Heldin and Ostman, 1996;Schlessinger et al, 1988) providing docking sites for cytoplasmic effectors of intracellular signaling (van der Geer et al, 1994;Riese and Stern, 1998;Klapper et al, 2000;Sweeney et al, 2001).…”

Characterization of a naturally occurring ErbB4 isoform that does not bind or activate phosphatidyl inositol 3-kinase

“…It is a 180 kD transmembrane glycoprotein with the highest expression levels in heart, kidney and in neuronal tissues (Plowman et al, 1993;Elenius et al, 1997a). ErbB4 is expressed in high levels also in some mammary adenocarcinoma, neuroblastoma and pancreatic carcinoma cell lines (Plowman et al, 1993) and its overexpression along with that of ErbB2 in human medulloblastoma is an independent prognostic factor for patient survival (Gilbertson et al, 1997). Activation of ErbB4 by its ligands leads to interaction of speci®c signal transduction molecules, such as PI3-K and Shc, with phosphorylated tyrosines in the cytoplasmic tail of ErbB4, eventually resulting in cellular proliferation, chemotaxis, dierentiation and survival (Plowman et al, 1993;Culouscou et al, 1995;Dong et al, 1995;Cohen et al, 1996;Elenius et al, 1997b).…”

Cloning and characterization of the Drosophila homologue of the AP-2 transcription factor

“…Furthermore, there is a correlation between AP-2 expression and elevated levels of erbB2 protein in human breast cancer cells (Bosher et al, 1995). In addition, childhood medullablastoma tumors (also termed central cerebellar primitive neuroectodermal tumor) reveal an association between AP-2 expression and the expression of cerbB-2, c-erbB-3 and also c-erbB-4 (Gilbertson et al, 1997). However, recently it was shown that loss of AP-2 expression rather than overexpression might be a crucial event in the progression of human melanoma (Bar-Eli, 1997).…”