Biomedical subjects
Publications and source records attributed to P Perocco.
A technique of an in vitro microculture system has been set up in order to standardize DNA repair in adult human lymphocytes after ultraviolet and gamma irradiation measuring tritiated thymidine uptake. The results obtained in DNA unscheduled synthesis were different if ultraviolet or gamma rays were employed.
Butyric acid has been shown in vitro to produce cytodifferentiation of a wide variety of neoplastic cells. The potential clinical use of this compound as a therapeutic agent is limited by its rapid metabolism. This has led to the examination, as potential antineoplastic agents, of compounds structurally correlated to butyrate, with longer biological half lives. In this study we investigated the effect in vitro of two butyrate analogues, tributyrin and butyramide, on inducing growth inhibition and expression of morphological and immunophenotypic properties, in human neuroblastoma cell lines. Treatment with tributyrin resulted in a strong inhibition of cell proliferation and in induction of extensive differentiation; on the contrary butyramide was scarcely effective or quite ineffective. These results demonstrate that tributyrin retains the effectiveness of butyrate and suggest that this analogue could have utility for cytodifferentiation therapy.