CORTE , Giorgio

Presently, a large effort is being made worldwide to increase the sustainability of industrial development, while preserving not only the quality of the environment but also that of animal and human life. In this work, sea urchin early developmental stages were used as a model to test the effects of the organophosphate pesticide (diazinon) on...

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Six3, a homeodomain-containing transcriptional regulator belonging to the Six/so family, shows a defined spatiotemporal expression pattern in the developing murine telencephalon, suggesting that it may control the development of specific subsets of neural progenitors. We find that retrovirus-mediated misexpression of Six3 causes clonal...

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Platelet-derived growth factor B (PDGF-B) overexpression induces gliomas of different grades from murine embryonic neural progenitors. For the first time, we formally demonstrated that PDGF-B-induced neoplasms undergo progression from nontumorigenic low-grade tumors toward highly malignant forms. This result, showing that PDGF-B signaling alone...

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Glioblastoma, the most aggressive cerebral tumor, is invariably lethal. Glioblastoma cells express several genes typical of normal neural stem cells. One of them, SOX2, is a master gene involved in sustaining self-renewal of several stem cells, in particular neural stem cells. To investigate its role in the aberrant growth of glioblastoma, we...

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Glioblastoma (GBM) is the most common and aggressive neoplasia of the central nervous system in adults. Despite continued improvements in surgery, chemotherapy, and radiotherapy, clinical outcome is still dismal and better understanding of GBM biology is needed to develop novel therapies. Recent studies have demonstrated the existence of a...

BACKGROUND: Chronic lymphocytic leukemia cells are characterized by an apparent longevity in vivo which is lost when they are cultured in vitro. Cellular interactions and factors provided by the microenvironment appear essential to cell survival and may protect leukemic cells from the cytotoxicity of conventional therapies. Understanding the...

Altered EGFR activity is a causal factor for human tumor development, including malignant pleural mesotheliomas. The aim of the present study was the evaluation of the effects of Gefitinib on EGF-induced mesothelioma cell proliferation and the intracellular mechanisms involved. Cell proliferation, DNA synthesis and apoptosis were measured by...

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In this study, cancer cells were isolated from tumor specimens of nine glioblastoma patients. Glioblastoma cells, cultured under suitable culture conditions, displayed markers typical of neural stem cells, were capable of partial multilineage differentiation in vitro, and gave origin to infiltrating tumors when orthotopically injected in...

Because a subpopulation of cancer stem cells (tumor-initiating cells, TICs) is believed to be responsible for the development, progression, and recurrence of many tumors, we evaluated the in vitro sensitivity of human glioma TICs to epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) kinase nhibitors (erlotinib and gefitinib) and possible molecular...