ABSTRACT
Despite the advances in research and treatment of human breast cancer, its incidence rate continues to increase by 0.5% per year, and the discovery of novel therapeutic strategies for specific subtypes of human breast cancer remains challenging. Traditional laboratory mouse models have contributed tremendously to human breast cancer research. However, mice do not develop tumors spontaneously; consequently, genetically engineered mouse models or patient-derived xenograft models are often relied upon for more sophisticated human breast cancer studies. Since human breast cancer develops spontaneously, there is a need for alternative, yet complementary, models that can better recapitulate the features of human breast cancer to better understand the molecular and clinical complexities of the disease in developing new therapeutic strategies. Canine mammary tumors are one such alternative model that share features with human breast cancer, including prevalence rate, subtype classification, treatment, and mutational profiles, all of which are described in this review.
ABSTRACT
The present study was undertaken to evaluate the growth response of Vetiveria zizanioides amended with organic amendments to arsenic [As] in contaminated soils and its ability to sequester As. The test results indicate that the plants exhibited high tolerance to As in the soils and their normal growth continued even though As concentration reached 500 mg/kg. However, when As concentrations in soils were in the range of 1000-2000 mg/kg the plants could not survive no matter whether the soils were amended. The accumulation of As in roots [185.4 mg/kg] was higher than that in shoots [100.6 mg/kg]. The As level in the contaminated soil was reduced from 500 mg/kg to 214 mg/kg after six months of As phytoextraction. Microbial population was not affected in the As contaminated soil amended with dairy sludge, mycorrhizae and Azotobacter