Project description:Introduction: The incidence of brain metastases in cancer patients is increasing, with lung and breast cancer being the most common sources. Despite advancements in targeted therapies, the prognosis remains poor, highlighting the importance to investigate the underlying mechanisms in brain metastases. The aim of this study was to investigate the differences in the molecular mechanisms involved in brain metastasis of breast and lung cancers. In addition, we aimed to identify cancer lineage-specific druggable targets in the brain metastasis. Methods: To that aim, a cohort of 44 FFPE tissue samples, including 22 breast cancer and 22 lung adenocarcinoma (LUAD) and their matched-paired brain metastases were collected. Targeted gene expression profiles of primary tumors were compared to their matched-paired brain metastases samples using nCounter PanCancer IO 360™ Panel of NanoString technologies. Pathway analysis was performed using gene set analysis (GSA) and gene set enrichment analysis (GSEA). The validation was performed by using Immunohistochemistry (IHC) to confirm the expression of immune checkpoint inhibitors. Results: Our results revealed the significant upregulation of cancer-related genes in primary tumors compared to their matched-paired brain metastases (adj. p ≤ 0.05). We found that upregulated differentially expressed genes in breast cancer brain metastasis (BM-BC) and brain metastasis from lung adenocarcinoma (BM-LUAD) were associated with the metabolic stress pathway, particularly related to the glycolysis. Additionally, we found that the upregulated genes in BM-BC and BM-LUAD played roles in immune response regulation, tumor growth, and proliferation. Importantly, we identified high expression of the immune checkpoint VTCN1 in BM-BC, and VISTA, IDO1, NT5E, and HDAC3 in BM-LUAD. Validation using immunohistochemistry further supported these findings. Conclusion: In conclusion, the findings highlight the significance of using matched-paired samples to identify cancer lineage-specific therapies that may improve brain metastasis patients outcomes.

Project description:Uterine leiomyosarcoma (LMS) is the worst malignancy among the gynecologic cancers. Uterine leiomyoma (LM) is a benign tumor of myometrial origin and is the most common among women of childbearing age. Because the symptoms of women with LMS such as abnormal vaginal bleeding, palpable pelvic mass, and pelvic pain resemble with those of women with LM, it is difficult to preoperatively distinguish LMS and LM only by ultrasound and pelvic MRI. While histopathological diagnosis after hysterectomy is the current major means to distinguish them postoperatively, unusual histologic variants of LM tend to be misdiagnosed as LMS. Furthermore, the low incidence of LMS has been preventing elucidating its causal mechanisms and developing effective diagnoses and treatments. Therefore, development of molecular diagnosis as an alternative or confirmatory means helps diagnosing LMS more accurately. We adopted omics-based technologies to identify genome-wide features to distinguish LMS from LM, and revealed that copy-number, gene expression, and DNA methylation profiles successfully distinguished between these tumors. LMS was found to possess features typically observed in malignant solid tumors, such as extensive chromosomal abnormalities, overexpression of cell cycle –related genes, and hypomethylation spreading through large genomic regions as well as frequent hypermethylation at polycomb group target gene and cadherin gene loci. We also identified candidate expression and DNA methylation markers, which will help establishing diagnostic tests using conventional quantitative assays. While the identified omics-signatures and certain markers specific to LMS need to be further validated in larger numbers of LM and LMS samples, our results demonstrate the practical feasibility of establishing a postoperative diagnostic test to distinguish LMS from LM with high accuracy, and also suggest the future possibility of developing preoperative and non-invasive diagnostic methods.

Dataset Information

Transcription profiling of human breast cancers and lung metastatis

Publications

Lung metastasis genes couple breast tumor size and metastatic spread.

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