CTLA-4: As an Immunosuppressive Immune Checkpoint in Breast Cancer.

Breast cancer (BC) is one of the prevalent diseases and causes of death in women, and its incidence rate is increasing in numerous developed and developing countries. The common approach to BC therapy is surgery, followed by radiation therapy or chemotherapy, which doesn't lead to acceptable outcomes in many patients. Therefore, developing innovative strategies for treating BC is essential for the most effective therapy. The immunotherapy of BC is a promising and attractive strategy that can increase the immune system's capacity to recognize and kill the tumor cells, inhibit the recurrence of the tumors, and develop new metastatic sites. The blockade of immune checkpoints is the most attractive and promising strategy for cancer immunotherapy. The cytotoxic T lymphocyte-associated antigen-4 (CTLA-4) is a cellsurface glycoprotein expressed by stimulated T cells and has pivotal roles in cell cycle modulation, cytokine generation, and regulation of T cell proliferation. Currently, anti- CTLA-4 agents such as monoclonal antibodies (Ipilimumab and tremelimumab) are broadly applied as therapeutic agents in clinical studies of different cancers. The anti- CTLA-4 antibodies, alone or combined with other therapeutic agents, remarkably increased the tumor-suppressive effects of the immune system and improved the prognosis of cancer. The immune checkpoint inhibitors may represent promising options for BC treatment as in monotherapy or in combination with other conventional treatments. In this review, we discuss the role of CTLA-4 and its therapeutic potential by inhibitors of immune checkpoints in BC therapeutics.

Comparative of in-vitro Evaluation between Erlotinib Loaded Nanostructured Lipid Carriers and Liposomes against A549 Lung Cancer Cell Line.

Erlotinib (ELT) as a small molecule with poor solubility, poor bioavailability, and instability in gastrointestinal environment, has been considered as a therapeutic agent for Non-Small-Cell Lung Cancer (NSCLC) therapy through oral administration. In the present study, ELT-liposome and ELT-NLCs were successfully prepared and characterized by assessment of the particle size, zeta potential (ZP), polydispersity index (PDI), encapsulation efficiency (EE), and drug loading (DL). DAPI staining and Flow cytometry techniques were employed to probe anticancer activities of the optimal formulations. The obtained results indicated that the average size of optimized ELT-NLCs was 109 ± 2 nm, while the optimal formulation of ELT-liposome was 130 ± 4 nm. In addition, the values of EE, DL, and cellular uptake were higher in ELT-NLCs than ELT-liposome. Moreover, the stability of ELT-NLCs and ELT-liposome were not significantly changed (P > 0.05) within storage time. The results of anti-cancer assessment indicated that ELT-NLCs caused more cell viability reduction than ELT-liposome and free ELT. According to the Flow cytometry and DAPI staining results, the exposed A549 cells with ELT-NLCs had more rates of apoptosis than ELT-liposome. The obtained data from this study clearly showed that ELT-NLCs had better anti-cancer activity than ELT-liposome, which may be related to the effective nano particle size, PDI, EE, and DL of ELT-NLCs.