Francesco Saverio Ambesi-Impiombato

Thyroid cells in culture.

Publisher Summary Thyroid cell system consists of continuously growing epithelial cells derived from either experimentally induced, transplantable rat tumors of thyroid origin or normal rat thyroids. The thyroid is a peculiar endocrine gland whose main cellular type, the follicular cell, possesses unique morphological and functional properties. The thyroid follicle in vivo is practically a liquid-filled sphere walled by a monolayer of tightly linked cells. The establishment of thyroid cell lines is presented in this chapter: cell lines from tumors and cell lines from normal thyroids. Cultured cells offer many advantages over the animal system. In addition to a more controllable environment and to the homogeneity of the cell population, cultured cells can be modified, genetically manipulated, and selected for the desired mutants. New mammalian cells can be generated by modern, standard cell biology techniques, such as cell hybridization, enucleation, and cybridization. Cloned cells of tumor origins can also be injected in syngeneic animals to produce genetically homogeneous tumors for yielding large amounts of cells.

Analysis of Serum Sphingomyelin Species by Uflc-Ms/Ms in Patients Affected with Monoclonal Gammopathy

Cancer cells are hungry of cholesterol incorporated from serum with avidity and used to favour the expressions of proteins involved in cell proliferation such as RNA polymerase II, STAT3, PKCz and cyclin D1. Numerous studies have shown that exists a strong interaction between unesterified cholesterol and saturated fatty acid sphingomyelin which arises from the Van der Waals interaction. Since sphingomyelin and cholesterol association is responsible for the formation of membrane lipid raft involved in cell signalling, we studied the possible hyposphingomyelinemia associated to hypocholesterolemia in the patients with cancer. The blood of 23 patients with monoclonal gammopathy were analyzed for cholesterol, 12:0 sphingomyelin, 16:0 sphingomyelin and 18:1sphingomyelin content. The results demonstrated that only the patients with very low level of cholesterol (65-99 mg/dl) had low amount of sphingomyelin and, in particular, of saturated sphingomyelin specie (16:0 sphingomyelin). The possibility that the hypocholesterolemia in cancer was secondary to hyposphingomyelinemia was discussed.