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Obesity and excess adiposity account for approximately 20% of all cancer cases; however, biomarkers of risk remain to be elucidated. While fibroblast growth factor-2 (FGF2) is emerging as an attractive candidate biomarker for visceral adipose tissue mass, the role of circulating FGF2 in malignant transformation remains unknown. Moreover, functional assays for biomarker discovery are limited. We sought to determine if human serum could stimulate the 3D growth of a non-tumorigenic cell line. This type of anchorage-independent 3D growth in soft agar is a surrogate marker for acquired tumorigenicity of cell lines. We found that human serum from cancer-free men and women has the potential to stimulate growth in soft agar of non-tumorigenic epithelial JB6 P+ cells. We examined circulating levels of FGF2 in humans in malignant transformation in vitro in a pilot study of n = 33 men and women. Serum FGF2 levels were not associated with colony formation in epithelial cells (r = 0.05, p = 0.80); however, a fibroblast growth factor receptor-1 (FGFR1) selective inhibitor significantly blocked serum-stimulated transformation, suggesting that FGF2 activation of FGFR1 may be necessary, but not sufficient for the transforming effects of human serum. This pilot study indicates that the FGF2/FGFR1 axis plays a role in JB6 P+ malignant transformation and describes an assay to determine critical serum factors that have the potential to promote tumorigenesis.
Rich literature abounds concerning the clinical effectiveness of programs aiming to produce weight gain/obesity prevention outcomes. However, there is very little evidence on how these outcomes are produced, and what interplay of factors made those programs effective (or not) in the environment that produced those effects. This study aims to describe the application of realistic evaluation in the field of obesity prevention, as an approach to unravel those components that influence the capacity of a program to produce its effects and to examine its significance in an effort to understand those components. The concepts of critical realism have informed the development of an interview topic guide, while three European programs were selected as case studies after a rigorous selection process. In total, 26 in-depth semi-structured interviews were taken, paired with personal observation and secondary data research. Several grounded context-mechanisms-outcomes (CMO) configurations were described within the respective context of each location, with the mechanisms introduced from each project resulting in distinctive outcomes. This study highlights the potential of realistic evaluation as a comprehensive framework to explain in which contextual circumstances of each program’s effects are produced, how certain underlying mechanisms produce those effects, and how to explicitly connect the context and the acting mechanisms into distinct outcome patterns, which will ultimately form unique configuration sets for each of the analyzed projects.