The role of the Toll receptor pathway in susceptibility to inflammatory bowel diseases.

The intestinal flora has long been thought to play a role either in initiating or in exacerbating the inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD). Host defenses, such as those mediated by the Toll-like receptors (TLR), are critical to the host/pathogen interaction and have been implicated in IBD pathophysiology. To explore the association of genetic variation in TLR pathways with susceptibility to IBD, we performed a replication study and pooled analyses of the putative IBD risk alleles in NFKB1 and TLR4, and we performed a haplotype-based screen for association to IBD in the TLR genes and a selection of their adaptor and signaling molecules. Our genotyping of 1539 cases of IBD and pooled analysis of 4805 cases of IBD validates the published association of a TLR4 allele with risk of IBD (odds ratio (OR): 1.30, 95% confidence interval (CI): 1.15-1.48; P=0.00017) and Crohn's disease (OR: 1.33, 95% CI: 1.16-1.54; P=0.000035) but not ulcerative colitis. We also describe novel suggestive evidence that TIRAP (OR: 1.16, 95% CI: 1.04-1.30; P=0.007) has a modest effect on risk of IBD. Our analysis, therefore, offers additional evidence that the TLR4 pathway - in this case, TLR4 and its signaling molecule TIRAP - plays a role in susceptibility to IBD.

Cell death in irradiated prostate epithelial cells: role of apoptotic and clonogenic cell kill.

Dose-escalated conformal radiotherapy is increasingly being used to radically treat prostate cancer with encouraging results and minimal long-term toxicity, yet little is known regarding the response of normal or malignant prostate cells to ionizing radiation (IR). To clarify the basis for cell killing during prostate cancer radiotherapy, we determined the IR-induced expression of several apoptotic- (bax, bcl-2, survivin and PARP) and G1-cell cycle checkpoint- (p53 and p21(WAF1/Cip1)) related proteins, in both normal (PrEC-epithelial and PrSC-stromal) and malignant (LNCaP, DU-145 and PC-3; all epithelial) prostate cells. For these experiments, we chose doses ranging from 2 to 10 Gy, to be representative of the 1.8-2 Gy daily clinical fractions given during curative radiotherapy and the 8-10 Gy single doses given in palliative radiotherapy. We observed that IR-induced bax and p21(WAF1/Cip1) protein expression were attenuated selectively in normal stromal and epithelial cell cultures, yet maintained their p53-dependency in malignant cell lines. For each cell culture, we also determined total apoptotic and overall radiation cell kill using a short-term nuclear morphologic assay and a long-term clonogenic survival assay, respectively. Clonogenic survival, as measured by the surviving fraction at 2 Gy (SF2), ranged from 0.05 (PrEC) to 0.55 (DU-145), suggesting that malignant prostate cells are more radioresistant than normal prostate cells, for this series. IR-induced apoptotic cell kill was minimal (less than 6% cell after a dose of 10 Gy at times of 24-96 h) and was not dose-dependent. Furthermore, apoptotic kill was not correlated with either molecular apoptotic response or clonogenic cell kill. Using a flow cytometric proliferation assay with the PrSC (stromal) and DU-145 (epithelial) representative cultures, we observed that a senescent-like phenotype (SLP) emerges within a sub-population of cells post-irradiation that is non-clonogenic. Terminal growth arrest was dose-responsive at 96 h following irradiation and associated with long-term expression of both p21(WAF1/Cip1) and p16(INK4a) genes. Future strategies for prostate radiotherapy prediction or novel treatments should additionally focus on terminal growth arrest as an important endpoint in prostate cancer therapy.