Adjuvant-like effect

The finding that tamoxifen given as adjuvant to surgery improved survival (Fisher et al., 1996) and decreased bone loss (Evans and Turner, 1995 Jordan, 1993) has been a major stimulus to search for other and possibly more potent and specific compounds that would act as antiestrogens in the breast and uterus while having estrogen-like effects in the skeletal and cardiovascular systems. 

The adjuvanticity of liposomes depends upon their composition, number of layers and charge characteristics. They act as effective adjuvants for both protein- and carbohydrate-based antigens and help stimulate both B- and T-cell responses. Their likely mode of action includes depot formation, but they also possibly increase/enhance antigen presentation to macrophages. The exact molecular mechanism(s) by which they stimulate a T-cell response remains to be elucidated,... 

Bisphosphonates (particularly clodronate) have been shown to have anti-inflammatory effects in animal models of rheumatoid arthritis (RA), as well as in arthritis in humans. In adjuvant- and antigen-induced arthritis in rats, clodronate suppresses the inflammatory articular lesions in the inflamed joints [29], whilst in human RA, clodronate decreases the levels of interleukin (ILJ-1, tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNFaand /1-microglobulin in the circulation [30]. In vitro, clodronate inhibits cytokine and nitric oxide (NO) release and inducible nitric oxide synthase (iNOS) expression in macrophage-like cells. 

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