Tumor-induced perturbations of cytokines and immune cell networks.

Until recently, the intrinsically high level of cross-talk between immune cells, the complexity of immune cell development, and the pleiotropic nature of cytokine signaling have hampered progress in understanding the mechanisms of immunosuppression by which tumor cells circumvent native and adaptive immune responses. One technology that has helped to shed light on this complex signaling network is the cytokine antibody array, which facilitates simultaneous screening of dozens to hundreds of secreted signal proteins in complex biological samples. The combined applications of traditional methods of molecular and cell biology with the high-content, high-throughput screening capabilities of cytokine antibody arrays and other multiplexed immunoassays have revealed a complex mechanism that involves multiple cytokine signals contributed not just by tumor cells but by stromal cells and a wide spectrum of immune cell types. This review will summarize the interactions among cancerous and immune cell types, as well as the key cytokine signals that are required for tumors to survive immunoediting in a dormant state or to grow and spread by escaping it. Additionally, it will present examples of how probing secreted cell-cell signal networks in the tumor microenvironment (TME) with cytokine screens have contributed to our current understanding of these processes and discuss the implications of this understanding to antitumor therapies.

[Relationship of TCM syndrome differentiation and manifestation of electrophysiology in patients with peripheral diabetic neuropathy].

OBJECTIVE: To study the relationship between TCM syndrome type and electrophysiological changes of nerves in patients with peripheral diabetic neuropathy (PDN). METHODS: TCM syndrome differentiation of 87 patients with PDN were performed, and the sensory nerve conduction velocity (SCV) of common peroneal nerve and the motor nerve conduction velocity (MCV) of sural nerve were measured as well using surface electrodes. RESULTS: Patients of yang-deficiency type showed the slowest MCV and SCV as well as the lowest compound muscular action potential (CMAP) and sensory nerve action potential (SNAP), with significant difference as compared with those in patients of qi-insufficiency type, heat type, and dampness type, respectively; also significant slower MCV and SCV and lower SNAP than those in patients with blood stasis type. Besides, the SCV and SNAP level in patients with yang-deficiency type were lower as compared with those in patients with yin-deficiency type (all P < 0.05). CONCLUSION: Obvious changes of MCV and SCV could be found in PDN patients of TCM yang-deficiency syndrome, so the abnormal velocity of nerve conduction could be taken as a referential index for diagnosis of patients belonging to that type.