Mesothelin is currently considered the best available serum biomarker for malignant pleural mesothelioma. To examine the reported diagnostic accuracy of mesothelin and evaluate its value for early diagnosis, the authors performed a meta-analysis on the individual patient data (IPD) of 16 diagnostic studies, representing a total of 4,491 individuals, including 1,026 patients with malignant pleural mesothelioma.
They found a significant heterogeneity in reported diagnostic accuracies of mesothelin (see Figure for sensitivity of mesothelin in different studies). Differences in study population can explain this heterogeneity, since the type of control group, mesothelioma …

In this short communication, the authors focus on the SRC pathway, which is hyperactivated in MM specimens and cell lines compared with normal mesothelial cells (Menges et al., 2010). Inhibition of the SRC pathway with the multi-targeted inhibitor dasatinib has been shown to result in apoptosis, cell cycle arrest and decreased migration and invasion in mesothelioma cell lines (Tsao et al., 2007).
Here the authors test a panel of newly synthesized pyrazolo[3,4-d]pyrimidine derivative SRC kinase inhibitors, that bind the ATP pocket of the SRC kinase, which effectively inhibit SRC activity at nanomolar concentrations.