Genes and Cancer最新文献

The Human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 positive (HER2+) breast cancer (BC) is a more aggressive tumor with 5 years median survival rates after metastasis. Despite successful treatment, unfortunately, the majority of affected patients die. Defects in cell cycle and transcription regulation phases which are governed by cyclin-dependent kinases (CDKs) are the hallmark of many cancers that underpinning the progression of the disease. Therefore, the current study looked at the alteration of six CDKs mRNA expression levels in pre- and postmenopausal lung metastasis BC groups; the majority were HER2+. Two hundred pre-and postmenopausal lung metastasis breast cancer and healthy control blood samples were taken for RNA isolation. Quantitative PCR was done for CDKs mRNA expressions. We observed overexpression of CDK11, CDK12, CDK17, CDK18, and CDK19 in both pre- and postmenopausal groups. However, CDK20 showed progressive downregulation from early to advanced stages in both groups of patients. Collectively, this data revealed that CDKs overexpression levels may predict BC disease progression and provide further rationale for novel anticancer strategies for HER2+ BC cancers.

Prostate cancer is a prevalent cancer in men and consists of both indolent and aggressive phenotypes. While active surveillance is recommended for the former, current treatments for the latter include surgery, radiation, chemo and hormonal therapy. It has been observed that the recurrence in the treated patients is high and results in castration resistant prostate cancer for which treatment options are limited. This scenario has prompted us to consider immunotherapy with synthetic DNA vaccines, as this approach can generate antigen-specific tumor-killing immune cells. Given the multifocal and heterogeneous nature of prostate cancer, we hypothesized that synthetic DNA vaccines targeting different prostate specific antigens are likely to induce broader and improved immunity who are at high risk as well as advanced clinical stage of prostate cancer, compared to a single antigen approach. Utilizing a bioinformatics approach, synthetic enhanced DNA vaccine (SEV) constructs were generated against STEAP1, PAP, PARM1, PSCA, PCTA and PSP94. Synthetic enhanced vaccines for prostate cancer antigens were shown to elicit antigen-specific immune responses in mice and the anti-tumor activity was evident in a prostate tumor challenge mouse model. These studies support further evaluation of the DNA tools for immunotherapy of prostate cancer and perhaps other cancers.

High grade serous ovarian cancer is characterized by relatively few mutations occurring at low frequency, except in TP53. However other genetic aberrations such as copy number variation alter numerous oncogenes and tumor suppressor genes. Oncogenes are positive regulators of tumorigenesis and play a critical role in cancer cell growth, proliferation, and survival. Accumulating evidence suggests that they are crucial for the development and the progression of high grade serous ovarian carcinoma (HGSOC). Though many oncogenes have been identified, no successful inhibitors targeting these molecules and their associated pathways are available. This review discusses oncogenes that have been identified recently in HGSOC using different screening strategies. All the genes discussed in this review have been functionally characterized both in vitro and in vivo and some of them are able to transform immortalized ovarian surface epithelial and fallopian tube cells upon overexpression. However, it is necessary to delineate the molecular pathways affected by these oncogenes for the development of therapeutic strategies.

Background: Wilms tumor is the most common pediatric renal tumor and the fourth most common malignancy in children. Chromosome 16q deletion(del) or loss of heterozygosity (LOH) has been correlated with recurrence and overall poor prognosis, such that patients with 16qLOH and 1p allelic loss are treated with more aggressive chemotherapeutic regimens.

Methods: In the present study, we have compared the variant profiles of Wilms tumors with and without 16q del/LOH using both data available from the TARGET database (42 samples) and tumors procured from our legacy collection (8 samples). Exome-Seq data was analyzed for tumor specific variants mapping to 16q. Whole exome analysis was also performed. An unbiased approach for somatic variant analysis was used to detect tumor-specific, somatic variants.

Results: Of the 72 genes mapping to 16q, 42% were cilia-related genes and 28% of these were found to carry somatic variants specific to those tumors with 16qdel/LOH. Whole exome analyses further revealed that 30% of cilia-related genes across the genome carried alterations in tumors both with and without 16qdel/LOH. Additional pathway analyses revealed that many cilia-related pathway members also carried deleterious variant in these tumors including Sonic Hedgehog (SHh), Wnt, and Notch signaling pathways.

Conclusions: The data suggest that cilia-related genes and pathways are compromised in Wilms tumors. The genes on chromosome 16q that carry deleterious variants in cilia-related genes may account for the more aggressive nature of tumors with 16q del/LOH.

Previous works have described that autophagy could be associated to both pro- and anti-cancer properties according to numerous factors, such as the gene considered, the step of autophagy involved or the cancer model used. These data might be explained by the fact that some autophagy-related genes may be involved in other cellular processes and therefore differently regulated according to the type or the grade of the tumor. Indeed, using different approaches of transcriptome analysis in breast cancers, and further confirmation using digital PCR, we identified a specific signature of autophagy gene expression associated to Luminal A or Triple Negative Breast Cancers (TNBC). Moreover, we confirmed that ATG5, an autophagy gene specifically expressed in TNBC, favored cell migration, whereas BECN1, an autophagy gene specifically associated with ER-positive breast cancers, induced opposite effects. We also showed that overall inhibition of autophagy promoted cell migration suggesting that the role of individual ATG genes in cancer phenotypes was not strictly dependent of their function during autophagy. Finally, our work led to the identification of TXNIP1 as a potential biomarker associated to autophagy induction in breast cancers. This gene could become an essential tool to quantify autophagy levels in fixed biopsies, sort tumors according to their autophagy levels and determine the best therapeutic treatment.

Previous studies from our group and others have shown that current drug treatment(s) strategies eliminate bulk of tumor cells (non-CSCs) but it had a minimal effect on cancer stem cells (CSCs) leading to resistance and tumor recurrence. We studied the effects of CFM-4.16 (CARP-1 functional mimetic) and/or cisplatin on four Triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) MDA-MB-468, MDA-MB-231, CRL-2335 and BR-1126, two cisplatin resistant CisR/MDA-231 and CisR/MDA-468 and cancer stem cells (CSCs) from resistant cell lines. TNBC cells treated with CFM-4.16 plus cisplatin inhibited the expression of FZD8, LRP6 and c-Myc and significantly enhanced cell death in all the cell lines by ~70%-80% compared with the control(s). When Cisplatin resistant CisR/MDA-231 and CisR/MDA-468 were treated with CFM-4.16 plus cisplatin, they also showed a reduction in FZD8 and LRP6 and increased apoptosis compared to control group. Similarly, CFM-4.16 plus cisplatin treatment reduced mammospheres formation abilities of CSCs by 80-90% compared to control group, increased PARP cleavage and apoptosis. Data shows CFM-4.16 plus cisplatin treatment significantly increased apoptosis/cell death in parental, cisplatin resistant and CSCs. Taken together the data suggests that FZD8-mediated Wnt-signaling plays a major role in mediating CSCs growth and resistance to chemotherapy and its inhibition enhances the chemotherapeutic response in TNBC.

The sfRon kinase is an important therapeutic target in ovarian cancer that contributes to prominent tumor growth and disease progression. We reasoned that a multi-kinase inhibition of sfRon pathway might be an effective strategy to achieve a sustained anti-tumor response, while simultaneously preventing treatment resistance. We performed a detailed dissection of sfRon signaling in vitro and demonstrated that S6K1 is a key component of a multi-kinase targeting strategy in sfRon expressing ovarian tumors. We selected AD80 compound that targets several kinases within sfRon pathway including AKT and S6K1, and compared its efficacy with inhibitors that selectively target either sfRon or PI3 kinase. Using human ovarian xenografts and clinically relevant patient-derived xenografts (PDXs), we demonstrated that in vivo treatment with single agent AD80 shows superior efficacy to a standard-care chemotherapy (cisplatin/paclitaxel), or to the direct inhibition of sfRon kinase by BMS777607. Our findings indicate that ovarian tumors expressing sfRon are most effectively treated with multi-kinase inhibitors simultaneously targeting AKT and S6K1, such as AD80, which results in long-term anti-tumor response and prevents metastasis development.

Over sixty percent of all mammalian protein-coding genes are estimated to be regulated by microRNAs (miRNAs), and unsurprisingly miRNA dysregulation has been linked with cancer. Aberrant miRNA expression in cancer cells has been linked with tumourigenesis and drug resistance. In the past decade, increasing number of studies have demonstrated that cholesterol accumulation fuels tumour growth and contributes to drug resistance, therefore, miRNAs controlling cholesterol metabolism and homeostasis are obvious hypothetical targets for investigating their role in cholesterol-mediated drug resistance in cancer. In this review, we have collated published evidences to consolidate this hypothesis and have scrutinized it by utilizing computational tools to explore the role of miRNAs in cholesterol-mediated drug resistance in breast cancer cells. We found that hsa-miR-128 and hsa-miR-223 regulate genes mediating lipid signalling and cholesterol metabolism, cancer drug resistance and breast cancer genes. The analysis demonstrates that targeting these miRNAs in cancer cells presents an opportunity for developing new strategies to combat anticancer drug resistance.

Rhabdomyosarcoma (RMS) is the most common soft tissue malignancy of childhood. RMS exists as two major disease subtypes, with oncofusion-positive RMS (FP-RMS) typically carrying a worse prognosis than oncofusion-negative RMS (FN-RMS), in part due to higher propensity for metastasis. Epigenetic mechanisms have recently emerged as critical players in the pathogenesis of pediatric cancers, as well as potential new therapeutic vulnerabilities. Herein, we show that the epigenetic regulator KDM3A, a member of the Jumonji-domain histone demethylase (JHDM) family, is overexpressed, potently promotes colony formation and transendothelial invasion, and activates the expression of genes involved in cell growth, migration and metastasis, in both FN-RMS and FP-RMS. In mechanistic studies, we demonstrate that both RMS subtypes utilize a KDM3A/Ets1/MCAM disease-promoting axis recently discovered in Ewing Sarcoma, another aggressive pediatric cancer of distinct cellular and molecular origin. We further show that KDM3A depletion in FP-RMS cells inhibits both tumor growth and metastasis in vivo, and that RMS cells are highly sensitive to colony growth inhibition by the pan-JHDM inhibitor JIB-04. Together, our studies reveal an important role for the KDM3A/Ets1/MCAM axis in pediatric sarcomas of distinct cellular and molecular ontogeny, and identify new targetable vulnerabilities in RMS.

While many genes specifically act as oncogenes or tumor suppressors, others are tumor promoters or suppressors in a context-dependent manner. Here we will review the basic-helix-loop-helix (BHLH) protein BHLHE40, (also known as BHLHB2, STRA13, DEC1, or SHARP2) which is overexpressed in gastric, breast, and brain tumors; and downregulated in colorectal, esophageal, pancreatic and lung cancer. As a transcription factor, BHLHE40 is expressed in the nucleus, where it binds to target gene promoters containing the E-box hexanucleotide sequence, but can also be expressed in the cytoplasm, where it stabilizes cyclin E, preventing cyclin E-mediated DNA replication and cell cycle progression. In different organs BHLHE40 regulates different targets; hence may have different impacts on tumorigenesis. BHLHE40 promotes PI3K/Akt/mTOR activation in breast cancer, activating tumor progression, but suppresses STAT1 expression in clear cell carcinoma, triggering tumor suppression. Target specificity likely depends on cooperation with other transcription factors. BHLHE40 is activated in lung and esophageal carcinoma by the tumor suppressor p53 inducing senescence and suppressing tumor growth, but is also activated under hypoxic conditions by HIF-1α in gastric cancer and hepatocellular carcinomas, stimulating tumor progression. Thus, BHLHE40 is a multi-functional protein that mediates the promotion or suppression of cancer in a context dependent manner.