Iron Oxide nanoparticles suppress monocyte internalisation

A team at NTNU, Trondheim in Norway have shown that IONPs apparently inhibit LPS induced pro-inflammatory cytokine production. 

In one experimental procedure they used confocal microscopy (combining fluorescence and transmission) to detect impact on the internalisation of LPS by nanoparticles, using DRAQ5 as the nuclear counterstain in monocytes.  

One premise of this work is that co-stimulation of the normal human immune system is a common occurrence and therefore such observations should be of concern.

Reference:

Grosse, S., Stenvik, J., & Nilsen, A. M. (2016). 

Iron oxide nanoparticles modulate lipopolysaccharide-induced inflammatory responses in primary human monocytes. 

International Journal of Nanomedicine, 11, 4625.

doi: 10.2147/IJN.S113425

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New knowledge on oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC)

Researchers at King’s College, London have established new oral squamous cell carcinoma cell lines with the goal of expanding the knowledge on this disease. 

The laboratory of Prof. Fiona Watt has demonstrated the importance of loss of function mutations (in FAT1 and CASP8, for example) that play a role in reducing sensitivity to apoptosis, reducing adherence and increasing clonal growth that may point towards more aggressive tumour phenotypes. The authors performed detailed exome sequencing, phenotypic loss of function assays including colony formation and morphology, migration and apoptosis induction (staurosporine treatment; measuring Caspase 3 expression by immunostaining and DRAQ5 counterstaining, on the PerkinElmer Operetta) on the cell lines.

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Reference:

Hayes, T.F., et al. "Integrative genomic and functional analysis of human oral squamous cell carcinoma cell lines reveals synergistic effects of FAT1 and CASP8 inactivation." Cancer Letters 383.1 (2016): 106-114. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.canlet.2016.09.014

@KingsCollegeLon, @biostatus, fluorescence microscopy, cell-based assays, cancer biology, #DRAQ5