PloS One 2013, 8:e68022.PubMedCentralPubMedCrossRef 18. Wu YC, Chang IC, Wang CL, Chen TD, Chen YT, Liu HP, Chu Y, Chiu YT, Wu TH, Chou LH, et al.: Comparison TSA HDAC datasheet of IHC, FISH and RT-PCR methods for detection of ALK rearrangements in 312 non-small cell lung cancer patients in Taiwan. PloS One 2013, 8:e70839.PubMedCentralPubMedCrossRef Competing interests The authors declare that they have no competing interests. Authors’ contributions BW, KY and JZ carried out the DNA isolation. BW, YC, ZM, BD and YG performed real

time PCR for quantification of EGFR mutation. BW and JM performed the statistical analysis. BW and JM designed the study and drafted the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.”
“Background Parthenolide is a sesquiterpene lactone derived from the plant feverfew. It is used to treat inflammation due to its ability of inhibiting NF-κB activity [1]. Parthenolide has also been reported to play other roles such as promoting cellular differentiation, causing cells to exit cell cycle and inducing apoptosis [2, 3]. Its pro-apoptotic effect on cancer cells is known to trigger the intrinsic apoptotic

pathway which includes elevated levels of intracellular reactive oxygen species (ROS) and alteration of BCL2 family proteins [4–6]. What’s more, recent studies have revealed that PTL could selectively eradicate acute myelogenous leukemia stem and progenitor cells [7]. It is also demonstrated that PTL could preferentially inhibit breast cancer stem-like cells [8], but the molecular mechanism was still unclear. There selleck are two major pathways contributing to apoptotic signaling: the extrinsic death receptor pathway and the intrinsic mitochondrial

pathway [9]. Death receptor 5 (TNFRSF10B) is a protein that belongs to tumor necrosis factor receptor (TNFR) superfamily [10]. It contains a cytoplasmic death domain (DD) which can recruit Fas-Associated Death Domain (FADD) and caspases to form the Death-Inducing Signal Complex (DISC) when the receptor is trimerized SSR128129E [11]. Subsequently, initiator caspases are activated and lead to the cleavage of downstream effectors. The activation of CASP8 can be regulated by FLICE-like inhibitor protein (CFLAR) which prevents recruitment of CASP8 to DISC [12, 13]. Development of pro-apoptotic agonists has been focused on TNFRSF10B because of its target selectivity for malignant over normal cells [14, 15]. The imbalance among the BCL2 family members which have been defined as either anti-apoptotic or pro-apoptotic is essential for the modulation of intrinsic pathway [16, 17]. The BH3-only protein PMAIP1 is a p53 transcriptional target in response to DNA damage [18]. It has been reported to be involved in chemotherapeutic agent-induced apoptosis [19].