Recent advances in arsenic trioxide encapsulated nanoparticles as drug delivery agents to solid cancers

Since arsenic trioxide was first approved as the front line therapy for acute promyelocytic leukemia 25 years ago,its anti-cancer properties for various malignancies have been under intense investigation.However,the clinical successes of arsenic trioxide in treating hematological cancers have not been translated to solid cancers.This is due to arsenic＇s rapid clearance by the body＇s immune system before reaching the tumor site.Several attempts have henceforth been made to increase its bioavailability toward solid cancers without increasing its dosage albeit without much success.This review summarizes the past and current utilization of arsenic trioxide in the medical field with primary focus on the implementation of nanotechnology for arsenic trioxide delivery to solid cancer cells.Different approaches that have been employed to increase arsenic＇s efficacy,specificity and bioavailability to solid cancer cells were evaluated and compared.The potential of combining different approaches or tailoring delivery vehicles to target specific types of solid cancers according to individual cancer characteristics and arsenic chemistry is proposed and discussed.

Modeling and validating three dimensional human normal cervix and cervical cancer tissues in vitro

The use of three dimensional in vitro systems in cancer research is a promising path for developing effective anticancer therapies.The aim of this study was to engineer a functional 3-D in vitro model of normal and cancerous cervical tissue.Normal epithelial and immortalized cervical epithelial carcinoma cell lines were used to construct 3-D artificial normal cervical and cervical cancerous tissues.De-epidermised dermis（DED） was used as a scaffold for both models.Morphological analyses were conducted by using hematoxylin and eosin staining and characteristics of the models were studied by analyzing the expression of different structural cytokeratins and differential protein marker MAX dimerisation protein 1（Mad1） using immunohistochemical technique.Haematoxylin and eosin staining results showed that normal cervical tissue had multi epithelial layers while cancerous cervical tissue showed dysplastic changes.Immunohistochemistry staining revealed that for normal cervix model cytokeratin 10 was expressed in the upper stratified layer of the epithelium while cytokeratin 5 was expressed mainly in the middle and basal layer.Cytokeratin 19 was weakly expressed in a few basal cells.Cervical cancer model showed cytokeratin 19 expression in different epithelial layers and weak or no expression for cytokeratin 5 and cytokeratin 10.Madl expression was detected in some suprabasal cells.The 3-D in vitro models showed stratified epithelial layers and expressed the same types and patterns of differentiation marker proteins as seen in corresponding in vivo tissue in either normal cervical or cervical cancerous tissue.These findings imply that they can serve as functional normal and cervical cancer models.