| actinomycetes |
Any of various filamentous, mostly anaerobic bacteria. |
| antiangiogenic |
Impact of any compound that works to prevent angiogenesis (ie, formation and development of new blood vessels). Because angiogenesis is required for malignant tumors to grow and spread, antiangiogenic compounds act by starving cancerous tumors of the blood supply (ie, new blood vessels) tumors need to survive and grow. |
| bacterium, bacteria |
A large group of microscopic organisms with round, rod-like, spiral, or filamentous unicellular or noncellular bodies. Bacteria often aggregate into colonies. They are enclosed by a cell wall or membrane and lack fully differentiated nuclei. |
| bioavailable, bioavailability |
Being or the degree to which or rate to which a drug or other substance is absorbed or otherwise becomes available for physiological activity after administration. |
| chronic |
A continuous or persistent condition that is not easily or quickly resolved. |
| Cremophor® |
Trade name for a castor oil-based solvent used to dissolve compounds that are water insoluble. |
| cytotoxic |
A chemical, drug, or molecule that is poisonous to cells. Chemotherapeutic drugs are cytotoxic to cancer cells and to some normal, rapidly dividing cells. |
| depolymerization |
The dismantling of a polymer, eg, a polypeptide chain, into individual component units, eg, amino acids. |
| dimer |
A molecule that consists of 2 similar but not necessarily identical subunits. |
| DMSO |
Abbreviation for dimethyl sulfoxide. It is a powerful solvent and can penetrate animal tissues. |
| epithelium |
Cellular tissue that covers a free surface or lines a hollow structure (ie, a tube) or cavity of the body. |
| fungus, fungi |
A major group of saprophytic and parasitic plants that lack chlorophyl and flowers. This group includes molds, toadstools, rusts, mildews, smuts, ergot, mushrooms, and yeasts. |
| Hsp90 |
Abbreviation for heat shock proteins 90, a class of molecular chaperones whose members act in the mechanism of signal transduction by steroid receptors. |
| hyperplasia |
The increased cell production in a normal tissue or an organ (ie, an excess of normal tissue). |
| microtubule |
Tiny hollow filaments within eukaryotic cells that are made of tubulin (a protein). Some microtubules give the cell its shape by acting as internal scaffolding. Other microtubules are the move proteins within cells through vesicular transport, including moving apart the paired chromosomes within nuclear DNA of cells undergoing meiosis. Microtubule proteins are present in bacterial cells and here they power flagella, the whip-like structures used by some bacteria to move; and cilia, the tiny hair-like projections that line many mucosal surfaces in humans that are used to clean mucosal surfaces by sweeping particles like dust away. Within neurons, microtubules transport mRNA from the nucleus to the ribosomes in the dendrites, where the mRNAs are translated into protein molecules. |
| morbidity |
A diseased condition or state, the incidence of a disease or all diseases in a population. |
| mTOR |
mTOR inhibitors are protein kinases involved in growth-related processes such as transcription and translation (ie, protein synthesis). Blocking mTOR effectively starves cancer cells by interfering with cell growth, cell division, metabolism, and angiogenesis. |
| multidrug resistance |
The insensitivity of various tumors to a variety of chemically related anticancer drugs. Multidrug resistance is mediated by a process of inactivating the drug or removing it from the target tumor cells. |
| nanoparticle |
Term used to refer to a variety of nanometer-sized particles. |
| nanotechnology |
The science of nanoparticles. |
| pharmacokinetics |
The study of the reactions between drugs or synthetic food ingredients and tissues and organs. Typically, pharmacokinetic studies measure absorption (ie, transport of the test substance into the bloodstream); distribution (ie, initial disposition, concentration, or behavior of the test substance in the body after it enters the body); metabolism (ie, the breakdown of the substance into other compounds and the ultimate disposition of those compounds; and elimination (ie, the speed and thoroughness with which the substance is excreted or otherwise removed from the body). |
| protein kinase inhibitor |
Enzymes capable of stopping the phosphorylation (covalently bonding a phosphate group to) certain amino acid residues in specific proteins. Protein kinases and protein kinase inhibitors have crucial roles in the regulation of signaling within and between cells. |
| SPARC |
Abbreviation for secreted protein acidic and rich in cysteine. SPARC is a matricellular protein upregulated in aggressive cancers but absent in normal tissues. Albumin binds to SPARC both in vitro and in vivo. SPARC expression may play a role in increased tumor distribution and clinical effectiveness of albumin-bound paclitaxel in breast cancer. |
| taxane |
A widely used class of chemotherapy drugs, including paclitaxel and docetaxel. Paclitaxel was originally derived from the Pacific yew tree. The principal mechanism of the taxane class is inhibition of microtubule function. Microtubules are essential to cell division, and taxanes therefore stop cells from properly dividing. |
| time to progression |
The length of time between when a patient first begins therapy of a cancer treatment and a subsequent relapse (additional spreading or growing of the cancer). |
| topoisomerase-1 |
An enzyme that relaxes negatively supercoiled DNA but does not relax positively supercoiled DNA. |
| transalveolar transcytosis |
Process of transport of material across the epithelium of the alveolae, the small thin-walled sacs in the lung used for oxygen exchange. |
| transduction, signal |
The reception and conversion of a chemical message by a cell. When a hormone, drug, neurotransmitter, or other signal chemical binds to the receptor on the exterior of the cell's plasma membrane, the receptor activates a protein that causes an effector inside the cell to produce a signal, which causes the cell to react to the original external chemical signal received. |
| transcription |
A step in the process of protein synthesis. Transcription is the process by which specialized RNA, messenger RNA or mRNA, copies specific parts of DNA. |
| xenograft |
An implanted tumor or organ from one species to another organism in a different species. |
