Sebastian Di Cesare

The CXCR4/CXCL12 chemokine axis may play a critical role in guiding CXCR4+ circulating malignant cells to organ specific locations that actively secrete its ligand CXCL12 (SDF-1) such as bone, brain, liver, and lungs. We sought to characterize the presence of the CXCR4/CXCL12 axis in five uveal melanoma (UM) cell lines in vitro. The ability of TN14...

Purpose Fresh biopsied ocular tumor tissues are difficult to obtain for the purpose of performing microarray experiments on extracted nucleic acids. Present technology allows for extraction of total RNA from formalin-fixed paraffin embedded (FFPE) tissue analyzed by the cDNA mediated Annealing Sectioning and Ligation (DASL) method. We aimed to corr...

Stock market trends tend to precede the economic trends that are a traditional focus of public health research. Thus, stock markets are important leading indicators of public health trends. Few researchers have examined the historical linkages between broad stock market declines and heightened health risk; even fewer have sought to understand the u...

Current vaccine research is now heavily focused on improving the efficacy and potency of sub-unit peptide vaccines. Many successful vaccines developed in past decades have been able to sufficiently prime proper immune responses without the use of any specific adjuvant immune mediators. Due to the intrinsic nature of more immune-evading pathogens an...

Background Uveal melanoma (UM) cell lines, when exposed to blue light in vitro, show a significant increase in proliferation. In order to determine if similar effects could be seen in vivo, we investigated the effect of blue light exposure in a xenograft animal model of UM. Methods Twenty New Zealand albino rabbits were injected with 1.0 × 106 hum...

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the presence of Toxoplasmosis gondii in samples of peripheral blood from patients with varying etiologies of uveitis. Whole blood from patients with different forms of uveitis was tested for the presence of T. gondii using real-time PCR targeting the well-characterized 529 bp fragment. Extracted DNA was bot...

To determine the expression of breast metastasis suppressor 1 (BRMS1) in human uveal melanoma (UM) tissues and cell lines. In addition, we intend to establish a possible association between BRMS1 expression and the presence of metastatic disease. Thirty-one formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded tissues from enucleated eyes of patients with UM were immun...

PurposeOur aim was to evaluate the potential effect of imatinib mesylate (IM), a small molecule that specifically inhibits the tyrosine quinase receptors, on the proliferation and invasive abilities of two human retinoblastoma (Rb) cell lines. Furthermore, the ability of IM to radiosensitize Rb cells was evaluated. The potential targets of IM (C-ki...

: Evisceration and enucleation are 2 ophthalmic surgeries used to treat blind and painful eyes. The benefits of evisceration over enucleation are many but this procedure is contraindicated in cases of a suspected intra-ocular mass. Given the lack of such studies in the literature, our aim was to review a large sample of eviscerated specimens to doc...

Biologic agents targeting oncogenes have encourage researchs trying to correlate the role of tyrosine kinase in the pathogenesis of tumours. Osteosarcoma is a high grade aggressive neoplasm with poor survival. Our aim was to investigate c-kit immunoexpression, its prognostic relevance for patients with osteosarcoma, and the effect of imatinib mesyl...

Imatinib mesylate (IM) is a compound that inhibits both BCR-ABL tyrosine kinase and c-kit receptors. Tyrosine kinases are important in cellular signaling and mediate major cellular processes such as proliferation, differentiation, apoptosis, attachment, and migration. Twenty-six albino rabbits were injected with 1 × 10(6) human uveal melanoma (UM)...

Paracoccidioidomycosis (PCM) is the most prevalent systemic mycosis in immunocompetent individuals in Brazil. Ocular infection by PCM is rare; however, when infection does occur, the most common ocular sites involved are eyelid and conjunctiva. A 68-year-old white male presented with a 2-month history of a painless, ulcerated, infiltrative and diff...

Toxoplasmosis is the most common cause of posterior infectious uveitis worldwide. It is often impossible to determine its congenital or acquired nature. Interleukin-2 (IL-2) in peripheral blood has been described as a possible marker for acquired toxoplasmosis. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the histopathological characteristics of ocular...

Lysyl oxidase is a marker of poor prognosis in several malignancies and is hypothesized to promote a migratory phenotype in hypoxic breast carcinomas. This study aims to characterize the expression of the lysyl oxidase and lysyl oxidase-like proteins in human uveal melanoma cell lines and archival choroidal melanomas using immunohistochemistry. The...

Secreted protein acidic and rich in cysteine (SPARC) has been shown to play an integral role in the progression of numerous malignancies. The aim of this study was to investigate the expression of SPARC in uveal melanoma (UM). SPARC expression was assessed in UM cell lines using RT-PCR and immunocytochemistry. Small interfering RNA directed against...

The objective of this study was to investigate the expression of cyclooxygenase (COX)-2 in human choroidal neovascular membranes. Paraffin-embedded sections of choroidal neovascular membranes excised from 16 patients with wet age-related macular degeneration were used for this study. Sections were subjected to immunohistochemistry using a monoclona...

Uveal melanoma (UM) is the most common primary malignant intraocular tumour in adults. Forty-five percent of UM patients develop metastasis within 15 years of initial diagnosis. KISS1, a human metastasis suppressor gene, has been reported to play a role in various human malignancies. The purpose of this study was to investigate the expression of KI...

To evaluate the proliferation rates of five human uveal melanoma (UM) cell lines after treatment with amfenac, a cyclooxygenase (COX)-2 inhibitor, and subsequent radiation exposure. Five human UM cell lines (92.1, SP6.5, MKT-BR, OCM-1, and UW-1) and one human fibroblast cell line (BJ) were incubated with amfenac. Treated and non-treated cell lines...

Uveal melanoma arises from melanocytes located in the uveal tract of the eye and is the most common primary intraocular tumor in adults. Metastatic liver disease is the overwhelming cause of death in uveal melanoma patients, with almost 50% of patients developing liver metastases up to 15 years after diagnosis. Most of these patients do not present...

To examine the immunohistochemical profile of heat shock protein 90 (Hsp90) in uveal melanoma and the cytotoxicity of an Hsp90 inhibitor, 17-allylamino-17-demethoxygeldanamycin (17-AAG), in uveal melanoma cell lines. Hsp90 expression was determined by immunohistochemistry in 44 paraffin-embedded sections of primary human uveal melanoma and in five...

Ocular melanoma is easily treated by the removal of the eye or through plaque radiotherapy. However, after removal or control of the primary tumor, patients can develop fatal liver metastases up to 20 years later. It has been reported that difficulties in imaging single cells and the propensity for tumor cells to replicate rapidly in animal models...

Uveal melanoma (UM) is the most common intra-ocular tumor in adults. Despite advances in diagnosis and treatment, the survival rate of UM has not increased in the last several decades. Approximately 50% of patients will die as a consequence of metastatic disease with the majority of metastases localized to the liver. Due to the lack of lymphatics i...

The expression of cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2) has been reported as an indicator of poor prognosis in a wide variety of human tumors, including colon, breast and uveal melanoma (UM). COX-2 inhibitors have shown promise in controlling the malignancy of several types of tumors. Previous studies have demonstrated the efficacy of a COX-2 inhibitor on the p...

Purpose: To examine the immunohistochemical profile of Hsp90 in uveal melanoma and the effects of Hsp90 inhibitor 17‐AAG, in uveal melanoma cell lines. Methods: Hsp90 expression was studied in 44 sections of human uveal melanoma and in five uveal melanoma cell lines (92.1, OCM‐1, MKTBR, SP6.5 and UW‐1). Sulfurhodamine‐B based proliferation assay wa...

Purpose: We previouly demonstrated the feasibility of a human uveal melanoma GFP model in nude mice. We were able to monitor the preferential colonization of the liver by malignant cells during a 20‐day period. In this study we extended the observation period in order to observe disease progression and metastatic growth. Methods: Five hundred thous...

Purpose: Uveal melanoma (UM) cells lines, when exposed to blue light in vitro, show a significant increase in proliferation. In order to see if the same effect would be seen in vivo, we investigated the influence of blue‐light exposure in an animal model of UM. Methods: Twenty albino rabbits were injected with 1 million human UM cells (92.1) into t...

The aim of this study was to characterize the presence and roles of CXCL12, CXCL8, CXCL1, and HGF in five human uveal melanoma cell lines, using different methods, in order to ascertain their significance in this disease. Five human uveal melanoma cell lines (92.1, SP6.5, MKT-BR, OCM-1, and UW-1) of known proliferative, invasive, and metastatic pot...

Uveal melanoma (UM) is the most common primary intraocular malignant tumor in adults, and nearly 40% of UM will develop metastasis that will ultimately lead to death. The Epithelial Cell Adhesion Molecule (EpCAM) is a type I transmembrane glycoprotein expressed by carcinomas of head and neck, ovary, colon, breast, kidney and lung. Recently, antibod...

Many of the underlying genetic causes of Uveal Melanoma (UM) metastatic disease still remain to be elucidated. This particular cancer is the most common primary malignant intraocular tumor in adults, comprising approximately 5% of all diagnosed melanoma cases. Despite its rarity, approximately 50% of patients diagnosed with UM will develop metastat...