The chemokine receptor CCR7 promotes mammary tumorigenesis through amplification of stem-like cells.

The chemokine receptor CCR7 is widely implicated in breast cancer pathobiology. Although recent reports correlated high CCR7 levels with more advanced tumor grade and poor prognosis, limited in vivo data are available regarding its specific function in mammary gland neoplasia and the underlying mechanisms involved. To address these questions we generated a bigenic mouse model of breast cancer combined with CCR7 deletion, which revealed that CCR7 ablation results in a considerable delay in tumor onset as well as significantly reduced tumor burden. Importantly, CCR7 was found to exert its function by regulating mammary cancer stem-like cells in both murine and human tumors. In vivo experiments showed that loss of CCR7 activity either through deletion or pharmacological antagonism significantly decreased functional pools of stem-like cells in mouse primary mammary tumors, providing a mechanistic explanation for the tumor-promoting role of this chemokine receptor. These data characterize the oncogenic properties of CCR7 in mammary epithelial neoplasia and point to a new route for therapeutic intervention to target evasive cancer stem cells.

[The prognosis for the development of gestoses taking into account the psychophysiological individuality of pregnant women]. / Prognozirovanie razvitiia gestozov s uchetom psikhofiziologicheskoi individual'nosti beremennykh.

Psychophysiological predictors of gestosis have been determined in pregnant women followed up at an antenatal clinic. They typically exhibited anxiety states with increased neuroticism, an introverted personality, impairment of brainstem-subcortical relations due to dysfunctions of nonspecific units of the visceral brain and their activating effects on the normal cortex, exaggerated cutaneous galvanic reflexes. A clinical follow-up of women at an increased risk showed the onset of edematous nephrotic gestosis in 62.8% and hypertensive gestosis in 37.2% of pregnancies, indicating a predictive value of the identified risk factors.

[Characteristics of the autonomic nervous system tests during group psychotherapy of patients with opioid dependence at the stage of induction of remission]. / Osobennosti vegetativnykh testov pri gruppovoi psikhoterapii bo'lnykh opiinoi narkomaniei v stadii formirovaniia remissii.

The time-course of changes in vegetative tests was studied in 47 men suffering from stage II opium dependence. The patients' age ranged from 18 to 28 years, with the dependence standing amounting to 1-10 years. Use was made of cardiointervalography to define the vegetative tone, as well as of the vagal and adrenaline tests to explore vegetative responsiveness. The orthostatic test was employed for studying vegetative maintenance of the activity. A group of patients (n = 22) was distinguished, with a positive attitude towards treatment and experienced in group psychotherapy, as was a group of patients (n = 25) with a negative attitude towards therapy and treated with medicaments. The results of the use of the vegetative tests indicate the normalization of the vegetative nervous system in the patients group with a positive attitude towards treatment and experienced in group psychotherapy and allow the conclusion about a greater efficacy of group psychotherapy as compared to the drug treatment in the management of patients suffering from opium dependence.

[Role of ethanol tolerance in determining a hereditary disposition to alcoholism]. / Rol' tolerantnosti k étanolu v realizatsii nasledstvennogo predraspolozheniia k alkogolizmu.

Genetic-correlative analysis of the tolerance level, amount of alcohol consumed (ml/kg for 1 year) as well as predisposition to the development of alcoholism permitted an assumption on existence of two different genetic factors one of which determined the tolerance level and the other one-predisposition to disease.