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Biomedical subjects

P Arnstein

Publications and source records attributed to P Arnstein.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

Meeting the needs of unpartnered elders: a peer training program involving elders with myocardial infarction.

Myocardia infarction (MI) is the leading cause of death in elderly adults. For those elderly who do recover, results are less than optimal when compared to those seen with younger patients. With a shortened length of stay in hospitals for elderly MI patients, and an increase in life expectancy that leads to an estimated 33 million elders in the U.S. population, there is a growing community-based population of elders who are recovering from MI. The use of elders as peer advisors has been demonstrated to be a cost-effective method of promoting health and enhancing recovery, with only a modest investment of the professional healthcare provider's time and money. An innovative, low-cost intervention matches recent MI elders who are unpartnered--and at higher risk for morbidity and mortality than partnered elders--to a peer advisor who has also survived acute MI in the past.

Aged

Phaeohyphomycosis caused by Exophiala dermatitidis following intra-articular steroid injection.

A patient with long-standing rheumatoid arthritis presented with a painful pigmented chronic nodule on the dorsum of the right hand, at the site of intra-articular steroid injections undertaken 5 years previously. Histology showed pigmented fungal elements consistent with phaeohyphomycosis. Cultures yielded black yeast-like colonies, identified as Exophiala dermatitidis and sensitive to itraconazole and amphotericin. A 1-month course of itraconazole resulted in marked clinical improvement but surgical excision and skin grafting were required for complete resolution. Phaeohyphomycosis has been related to inoculation injury but association with intra-articular steroid injection appears hitherto to be unreported.

Dermatomycoses

Stepwise immortalization and transformation of adult human prostate epithelial cells by a combination of HPV-18 and v-Ki-ras.

Recent investigations have shown the presence of ras gene mutations and human papillomavirus (HPV) DNA in prostate carcinomas. In the present study, secondary adult human prostatic epithelial cells, upon transfection with a plasmid containing the entire HPV-18 genome, acquired an indefinite life-span in culture but did not undergo malignant conversion. Subsequent infection of these immortalized cells with the Kirsten murine sarcoma virus, which contains an activated Ki-ras oncogene, induced morphological transformation that led to the acquisition of neoplastic properties. These findings demonstrate the malignant transformation of adult human prostate epithelial cells in culture by a combination of viral oncogenes and the successive roles of HPV infection and Ki-ras activation in a multistep process responsible for prostate carcinogenesis.

Adult

Characterization of a human Kaposi's sarcoma cell line that induces angiogenic tumors in animals.

OBJECTIVE: To characterize a Kaposi's sarcoma (KS) cell line established from a tumor biopsy from the oral mucosa of an iatrogenically immunosuppressed HIV-negative man. METHODS: Cells were placed in culture and evaluated by a variety of biologic, serologic, karyotypic, and immunologic procedures. Electron microscopic examination was performed. The ability to produce tumors in nude mice was evaluated, and the nature of the cells within the tumor determined. Assays for urokinase plasminogen activator type (uPA), plasminogen activator inhibitor-1 (PAI-1) and the urokinase receptor (uPAR) were conducted. RESULTS: The SLK cell line has an endothelial cell morphology with very little anaplasia. The karyotype indicates diploid phenotype of human origin. Immunohistochemical and electron microscopic examinations confirmed the endothelial nature of this cell line. No viruses were detected. The tumors induced in nude mice showed hypervascularization, with characteristics of KS. The cell line produces uPA and PAI-1, and also expresses uPAR. CONCLUSIONS: The SLK cell line is of endothelial cell origin and the first human cell line to induce KS-like tumors in recipient animals. The expression of urokinase and its receptor suggests a paracrine and autocrine interaction that may be important for the growth of the tumor. The SLK line should be valuable for studies of KS pathogenesis and therapeutic approaches to this malignancy.

Animals

Neoplastic transformation of a human prostate epithelial cell line by the v-Ki-ras oncogene.

Investigations of mechanisms of human prostate carcinogenesis are limited by the unavailability of a suitable in vitro model system. We have demonstrated that an immortal, but nontumorigenic, human epithelial cell line (267B1) established from fetal prostate tissue can be malignantly transformed by a biological carcinogen, and can serve as a useful model for investigations of the progression steps of carcinogenesis. Activated Ki-ras was introduced into 267B1 cells by infection with the Kirsten murine sarcoma virus. Morphological alterations and anchorage-independent growth were observed; when cells were injected into nude mice, poorly differentiated adenocarcinomas developed. These findings represent the first evidence of malignant transformation of human prostate epithelial cells in culture, and support a role for Ki-ras activation in a multistep process for prostate neoplastic transformation.

Cell Line

Neoplastic transformation of a human keratinocyte cell line by the v-fos oncogene.

To analyze the role of the fos oncogene in the growth of human epithelial cells, we have transfected a non-tumorigenic human epidermal keratinocyte line (RHEK-1) immortalized by the Ad12-SV40 hybrid virus with a plasmid carrying the v-fos gene together with plasmid pSV2-neo which confers resistance to neomycin. Individual neomycin-resistant clones were isolated and characterized with respect to morphological alteration. Of 16 independent clones analyzed, two appeared morphologically transformed and formed foci in culture. Only the two clones with a transformed phenotype were found by Southern blot hybridization analysis to contain the transfected v-fos gene. These clones formed colonies in soft agar and induced tumors when transplanted into nude mice. Analysis of fos specific mRNA and protein demonstrated that the transfected v-fos gene was expressed in these two clonal lines. These findings suggest that expression of the v-fos gene might facilitate the process of neoplastic transformation of human epithelial cells in culture. This appears to represent the first demonstration of the transforming potential of the v-fos gene in human cells.

Animals

Oncogenic potential of erbB-2 in human mammary epithelial cells.

Introduction of the normal erbB-2 gene into immortalized human mammary epithelial cells (184B5) by transfection conferred a growth advantage to these cells both in vitro and in vivo. The 184B5 cells overexpressing erbB-2 formed colonies in semi-solid medium, frequently induced transient nodules in athymic mice and produced progressive tumors in vivo at a low frequency. Those tumors which did arise from erbB-2-transfected cells displayed substantially higher levels of normal gp185erb-2 protein when compared to the original transfectants, consistent with their selection for increased erbB-2 expression. Introduction of genes encoding genetically altered erbB-2 molecules into 184B5 cells increased their colony-forming efficiency and converted the cells to a tumorigenic phenotype at a high frequency. When the biological and biochemical properties of human mammary carcinoma cell lines known to overexpress erbB-2 were compared to the transfected 184B5 lines, they behaved most like those overexpressing the normal erbB-2 protein. Results indicate that overexpression of normal erbB-2 may directly contribute to the transformation of human mammary epithelium if sufficient levels of erbB-2 protein are expressed or if the erbB-2 gene is genetically altered.

Animals

Postoperative joint replacement pain: description and opioid requirement.

The present research was designed to describe the character, severity, and factors associated with postoperative pain following total hip replacement (THR) and total knee replacement (TKR) surgery, and to identify amounts of opioid required to relieve that pain. It was the investigators' intention to investigate the impact of age on severity of pain and amount of opioid required after surgery. Complete data were obtained on 29 white subjects, 16 of whom were men. Subjects' ages ranged from 27 to 88 years (mean, 66). The mean age for the men was 61 years and the mean age for the women was 72 years. Twelve subjects underwent THR and 17 underwent TKR. Eight patients received general anesthesia and 21 received spinal anesthesia. Pain was described using the McGill Pain Questionnaire-Short Form and quantified using a visual analogue scale. Amount of opioid required to relieve pain over 24 hours was recorded using a patient-controlled analgesia pump. Data analysis indicated that most patients do not report their pain as being controlled when discharged from the PACU, and that patients who receive spinal anesthesia require more postoperative opioid to control pain than patients who receive general anesthesia. In general, patients who undergo TKR experience more pain than patients who undergo THR. Pain was described as moderate to severe aching. As age increases, patients self-administer less postoperative opioid, but they do not report less postoperative pain.

Adult

Physiological induction and reversal of focus formation and tumorigenicity in NIH 3T3 cells.

NIH 3T3 cells undergo morphological transformation in response to conditions of constrained growth, such as occur in low serum concentrations or at confluence. Transformation is expressed in a small fraction of the cells by the appearance of discrete foci of multiplying cells on a confluent monolayer of quiescent cells. We isolated and expanded cell populations from three dense and three light foci. Cells from each of these populations efficiently reproduced foci of the same morphotype when grown on a background of nontransformed NIH 3T3 cells. Using cultures derived from one of the dense foci (subline D/2), we found that the number of focus-forming units was stable and the cells remained tumorigenic when they were subjected to repeated thrice-weekly passage in 2% calf serum. However, equivalent passage in 10% calf serum eventually rendered the cells incapable of both focus production and tumor formation. The results show that the capacity to produce tumors as well as morphological transformation are produced as a response to physiological constraints of growth and/or metabolism in the absence of carcinogens and that both properties can be reversed by lifting the constraints. This behavior is typical of an adaptational response and, taken together with other supporting evidence, shows that tumorigenesis does not require conventional genetic alteration.

Animals

Generation of fibrosarcomas in vivo by a retrovirus that expresses the normal B chain of platelet-derived growth factor and mimics the alternative splice pattern of the v-sis oncogene.

A retrovirus containing the entire human platelet-derived growth factor B-chain (PDGF-B) gene was constructed in order to investigate the in vivo biological activity of its encoded growth factor. When this virus was introduced into newborn mice, it reproducibly generated fibrosarcomas at the site of inoculation. Proviruses in each fibrosarcoma analyzed had lost 149 nucleotides downstream of the PDGF-B coding region. This deletion originated from an alternative or aberrant splice event that occurred within exon 7 of the PDGF-B gene and mimicked the v-sis oncogene. Thus, deletion of this region may be necessary for efficient retrovirus replication or for more potent transforming function. Evidence that the normal growth factor coding sequence was unaltered derived from RNase protection studies and immunoprecipitation analysis. Tumors were generally polyclonal but demonstrated clonal subpopulations. Moreover, tumor-derived cell lines became monoclonal within a few tissue culture passages and rapidly formed tumors in vivo. These findings argue that overexpression of the normal human PDGF-B gene product under retrovirus control can induce the fully malignant phenotype.

Abelson murine leukemia virus

Cooperation of V-oncogenes in human epithelial cell transformation.

The development of tissue culture systems for propagation of human epithelial cells has aided the investigation of events that lead epithelial cells to become neoplastic. In the present study, nontumorigenic human epidermal keratinocytes, immortalized by Ad12-SV40 virus or pSv3-neo, were transformed by a variety of retroviruses containing bas, H-ras, fes, fms, erbB and src oncogenes. Such transformants showed morphological alterations and induced carcinomas when transplanted into nude mice. These findings demonstrate the malignant transformation of human primary epithelial cells in culture by the combined action of Ad12-SV40 virus and retroviral oncogenes and support a multistep process for neoplastic conversion. This in vitro system may be useful in studying the interaction of a variety of retroviral oncogenes and human epithelial cells.

Adenoviridae

Selection and adaptation for rapid growth in culture of cells from delayed sarcomas in nude mice.

More than 1000 cells of a spontaneously transformed line of BALB/3T3 cells are required to initiate tumors in half the nude mice inoculated s.c., although the cells clone with an efficiency approaching 100% in culture. The cells of two tumors with prolonged latent periods, initiated by 2 X 10(4) and 5 X 10(3) cells, were chosen for detailed clonal analysis in culture. The cells from the tumors grew very poorly in culture in the first passages, but with increasing speed and efficiency in later passages. Cells derived directly from the two tumors cloned in agar with an efficiency of 0.01 and 0.002%. The growth rates on plastic of the rare successful clones derived from agar were generally low but extremely varied. Some clones lost the capacity for multiplication in a few passages, while others persisted but fluctuated unpredictably in growth rate in the early passages. The graded increase in growth rate of the uncloned tumor cell populations was probably the result of selection of the more rapidly growing clones. One of the slower-growing clones was subcloned. About half of the subclones grew at a slower rate than the parental clone. These, however, increased progressively in growth rate over six successive weekly passages, suggesting the occurrence of a gradual physiological adaptation. We conclude that selection of fast-growing clones contributes a major part of the gradually improving growth of tumor cell populations in culture, but that a physiological adaptation extending over many cell generations makes a significant contribution. The mechanism in either case is unknown, and indeed there may not be a unique mechanism in the scientifically rigorous sense.

Animals

Neoplastic conversion of human keratinocytes by adenovirus 12-SV40 virus and chemical carcinogens.

Efforts to investigate the progression of events that lead human cells of epithelial origin to become neoplastic in response to carcinogenic agents have been aided by the development of tissue culture systems for propagation of epithelial cells. In the present study, nontumorigenic human epidermal keratinocytes immortalized by adenovirus 12 and simian virus 40 (Ad 12-SV40) were transformed by treatment with the chemical carcinogens N-methyl-N'-nitro-N-nitrosoguanidine or 4-nitroquinoline-1-oxide. Such transformants showed morphological alterations and induced carcinomas when transplanted into nude mice, whereas primary human epidermal keratinocytes treated with these chemical carcinogens failed to show any evidence of transformation. This in vitro system may be useful in assessing environmental carcinogens for human epithelial cells and in detecting new human oncogenes.

4-Nitroquinoline-1-oxide

Induction of tumorigenesis and chromosomal abnormalities in human amniocytes infected with simian virus 40 and Kirsten sarcoma virus.

Cell cultures of epithelial-like human amniocytes were infected with simian virus 40 (SV40) and Kirsten sarcoma virus (KSV) in various sequential orders, and tested for agar growth, chromosome abnormalities, and tumorigenesis in the nude mouse assay. We observed that regardless of the order in which the viruses were introduced, the doubly infected cells always exhibited the typical SV40 premalignantly transformed phenotype before changing to the malignant phenotype. All doubly transformed cells from different cell donors produced tumors in adult and suckling nude athymic mice, classified as poorly differentiated sarcomas. Infection with SV40 alone conferred extended life span and accelerated growth without the malignant capability of tumor production. Kirsten sarcoma virus alone produced only focal cell alterations with no change in cell longevity or tumorigenesis. Chromosome studies of the premalignant and malignant cells from one cell donor did not reveal any significant clonal development for marker chromosomes in either cell line. Chromosome 12, which carries the homologous cellular oncogene to KSV, had no increase in aberrations in the malignant cells. Chromosome 8 was most often involved in aberrations, and the most frequent aberration for both series was dicentric chromosomes due to telomere fusion. For other translocations the breakpoints were almost exclusively in the centromere regions. The vulnerability of telomere and centromere regions to the free virus present in these precrisis cells is discussed, and similarities in regard to types of aberrations in transfection experiments are noted.

Amnion

Tumor progression in nude mice and its representation in cell culture.

Varying dilutions containing from 10(6) to 10(3) spontaneously transformed Balb/3T3 cells were inoculated into nude mice [N:NIH(S)II]. Less than half the mice inoculated with 10(3) cells developed tumors. The higher concentrations of cells produced visible tumors in all mice within 2-3 weeks, and these tumors grew rapidly to large sizes. Some tumors initiated by the lower concentrations of cells arose quickly, but others were greatly delayed in onset, then grew slowly, if at all, for several weeks before a rapid acceleration. The delayed acceleration can be considered a form of tumor progression. When first explanted into culture, cells from the early tumors multiplied somewhat more slowly than the parental cells that initiated the tumors, but narrowed the gap in a few weekly passages. By contrast, only a small fraction (less than or equal to 0.001) of cells from the longest delayed tumors could sustain multiplication in culture, although flow cytometry revealed them to have been a rapidly multiplying population when explanted. A relatively large fraction of these explanted tumor cells incorporated a 1-hour pulse of [3H]thymidine into DNA, although at a low rate. The shift to culture apparently slowed progress through the S-period of the cell cycle. The multiplication rate of cell populations from the delayed tumors increased in successive passages in culture. There was great heterogeneity in growth capacity among clones of the tumor cells. The growth rates of some clones declined to the point of extinction, those of others remained constant for several weeks, while those of still others steadily increased in growth rate. The low initial cloning efficiency of cells from the delayed tumors and the heterogeneity of growth rates among the clonable cells indicate that selection plays a major role in the increase of the growth capacity of the cell population. The steady increase in growth rates within clones suggests that physiological adaptation also contributes to the progressive growth of the tumor populations in culture. The results constitute a rationale for using the progressive growth of cells in culture as a model system for discriminating the types of cellular changes that underlie tumor progression.

Animals

Dynamics of tumor growth and cellular adaptation after inoculation into nude mice of varying numbers of transformed 3T3 cells and of readaptation to culture of the tumor cells.

Decimal dilutions containing 5 X 10(5) to 5 X 10(1) cells were inoculated s.c. into nude mice and the course of tumor development was recorded. The highest concentration of cells produced rapidly growing poorly differentiated sarcomas within 2-3 weeks of their inoculation. Upon explantation the resultant tumors yielded cells which multiplied on plastic almost as rapidly as did their progenitors used to initiate the tumors, and had as high a colony forming efficiency in agar as long as tryptose phosphate broth was omitted from the agar medium. Tumors initiated by the lower concentrations of cells were disproportionately delayed in their appearance and tended to increase in size at a low rate. At least one tumor regressed and one which apparently regressed appeared again at a later time. These changes are characteristically described under the rubric of tumor regression. Host reactive cells such as neutrophils, eosinophils, macrophages, and fibroblasts were observed in some tumors. One of the tumors was a low grade hemangiosarcoma, another a well-differentiated fibrosarcoma, and the rest poorly differentiated sarcomas. Cells from two tumors initiated by 500 and 5000 cells multiplied slowly in early passages in culture, particularly when seeded at low densities at which they appeared to sustain cumulative damage even when multiplying. In later passages, the "low dose" tumor cells gained the capacity to multiply in culture after seeding at low densities, but it took up to 50 cell generations to reach this capacity. The loss of growth capacity on plastic of cells from the low dose tumors and its subsequent restoration by passaging in culture may provide a quantitative method for analyzing the type of cellular change which underlies tumor progression.

Adaptation, Physiological

Neoplastic transformation of human epidermal keratinocytes by AD12-SV40 and Kirsten sarcoma viruses.

Recent investigations have begun to dissect the number and nature of genetic alterations associated with cancer cells. In the present study, primary human epidermal keratinocytes acquired indefinite life-span in culture but did not undergo malignant conversion in response to infection with a hybrid of adenovirus 12 and simian virus 40. Addition of Kirsten murine sarcoma virus, which contains a K-ras oncogene, to these cells induced morphological alterations associated with the acquisition of neoplastic properties. These findings demonstrate the malignant transformation of human primary epithelial cells in culture and support a multiple-step process for neoplastic conversion.

Adenoviruses, Human