ABSTRACT
Currently, the success of targeted anticancer therapies largely depends on the correct understanding of the dormant state of cancer cells, since it is increasingly regarded to fuel tumor recurrence. The concept of cancer cell dormancy is often considered as an adaptive response of cancer cells to stress, and, therefore, is limited. It is possible that the cancer dormant state is not a privilege of cancer cells but the same reproductive survival strategy as diapause used by embryonic stem cells (ESCs). Recent advances reveal that high autophagy and mTOR pathway reduction are key mechanisms contributing to dormancy and diapause. ESCs, sharing their main features with cancer stem cells, have a delicate balance between the mTOR pathway and autophagy activity permissive for diapause induction. In this review, we discuss the functioning of the mTOR signaling and autophagy in ESCs in detail that allows us to deepen our understanding of the biology of cancer cell dormancy.
ABSTRACT
By means of EEG analysis the functional state of subjects with high and low levels of anxiety was studied in different periods preceding a cognitive task - a visual expression recognition. Several conditions were investigated: background/eyes closed; background/eyes opened; listening the instruction for the cognitive task; operative rest (time lapse between listening the instruction and the beginning of the task), as well as short intervals immediately preceding the exposition of target stimuli (stage of preparation) - pairs of faces pictures with identical or different emotional expressions. At all these pre-task stages high-anxiety subjects exhibited much lower amplitude values in alpha and theta bands (as compared with low-anxiety subjects). The most prominent differences were revealed in the phases of instruction listening and operative rest. These data could provide more precise electrophysiological markers of anxiety level in conditions preceeding cognitive task performance.
