Indramani Nath

Non-human Prostate Cancer Cell Lines

Cell lines have always been a valuable tool to address a variety of questions related to prostate cancer. Due to the unavailability of many human prostate cancer cell line models, investigators have shown significant interest in developing or establishing different new nonhuman prostate cancer cell lines. Indeed, many animal cell line models have successfully recapitulated key events in human prostate cancer development. For instance, Dunning rat prostate cancer cell lines have created a system to represent the full spectrum of prostate cancer progression while canine cell lines like Leo and Ace-1 recapitulate bone metastasis model. The establishment of in vitro models of animal cell lines recapitulating human disease will aid in molecular and functional characterization of human prostate cancer.

Littered Cans—Death Trap of Snakes

To the Editor: Use of canned food and beverages has increased in recent times. The usefulness and consumer acceptability of these cans are beyond question, but lead soldering in cans has also created grave human health concerns and is now controlled or banned in many countries across the globe. We came across 3 cases in which carelessly discarded uncrushed empty cans became death traps for snakes. Similar incidents have been reported from several areas of the world. Although the danger of lead poisoning and the difficulty in solid waste management due to the nonbiodegradable nature of these containers was appreciated in the past, the effect of these cans upon our precious flora and fauna is generally overlooked. The littered cans provide shelter to small animals like toads, frogs, geckos, and so on. These are choice food for snakes. Snakes may insert their heads into cans in search of their prey or through their natural curiosity. We came across 3 cases in which the head of snakes were found stuck inside empty uncrushed cans. In 2 of these cases, the snakes were adult common cobras (Figure 1, A and B) and in 1 it was a nonvenomous rat snake (Figure 1D). All snakes were successfully set