Dataset Information

Carcinogenesis of pancreatic adenocarcinoma: precursor lesions.

ABSTRACT: Pancreatic adenocarcinoma displays a variety of molecular changes that evolve exponentially with time and lead cancer cells not only to survive, but also to invade the surrounding tissues and metastasise to distant sites. These changes include: genetic alterations in oncogenes and cancer suppressor genes; changes in the cell cycle and pathways leading to apoptosis; and also changes in epithelial to mesenchymal transition. The most common alterations involve the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) gene, the HER2 gene, and the K-ras gene. In particular, the loss of function of tumor-suppressor genes has been documented in this tumor, especially in CDKN2a, p53, DPC4 and BRCA2 genes. However, other molecular events involved in pancreatic adenocarcinoma pathogenesis contribute to its development and maintenance, specifically epigenetic events. In fact, key tumor suppressors that are well established to play a role in pancreatic adenocarcinoma may be altered through hypermethylation, and oncogenes can be upregulated secondary to permissive histone modifications. Indeed, factors involved in tumor invasiveness can be aberrantly expressed through dysregulated microRNAs. This review summarizes current knowledge of pancreatic carcinogenesis from its initiation within a normal cell until the time that it has disseminated to distant organs. In this scenario, highlighting these molecular alterations could provide new clinical tools for early diagnosis and new effective therapies for this malignancy.

SUBMITTER: Gnoni A

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3821583 | biostudies-other | 2013 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-other

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Carcinogenesis of pancreatic adenocarcinoma: precursor lesions.

Gnoni Antonio A Licchetta Antonella A Scarpa Aldo A Azzariti Amalia A Brunetti Anna Elisabetta AE Simone Gianni G Nardulli Patrizia P Santini Daniele D Aieta Michele M Delcuratolo Sabina S Silvestris Nicola N

International journal of molecular sciences 20130930 10

Pancreatic adenocarcinoma displays a variety of molecular changes that evolve exponentially with time and lead cancer cells not only to survive, but also to invade the surrounding tissues and metastasise to distant sites. These changes include: genetic alterations in oncogenes and cancer suppressor genes; changes in the cell cycle and pathways leading to apoptosis; and also changes in epithelial to mesenchymal transition. The most common alterations involve the epidermal growth factor receptor ( ...[more]

PMID: 24084722

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Project description:Annexins are a multigene family of calcium and phospholipid-binding proteins that play important roles in calcium signaling, cell motility, differentiation and proliferation. Our previous mass spectrometry-based proteomics study revealed that annexin A10 (ANXA10) was uniquely overexpressed in pancreatic CD24+ adenocarcinoma cells that were dissected from clinical PDAC tissues but was absent in CD24- adjacent normal cells. The correlation between ANXA10 expression and the progression of pancreatic cancer remains unknown. In this study, we performed an immunostaining assay to evaluate ANXA10 expression in 155 primary human tissue specimens, including normal pancreas, chronic pancreatitis (CP), pancreatic adenocarcinoma (PDAC), pancreatic intraepithelial neoplasia (PanIN, the most important precursor of PDAC), and intraductal papillary mucinous neoplasm (IPMN). The immunostaining result showed that ANXA10 was significantly overexpressed in PanINs, IPMNs, and PDACs but negative in normal pancreas and the majority of chronic pancreatitis tissues. Statistical analysis revealed that ANXA10 expression was significantly associated with PDAC and its precursor lesions (p<0.0001). Abundant ANXA10 expression was predominantly present in pancreatic ductal epithelial cells of PanINs, IPMNs, and tumor cells of PDACs. Since PDAC develops through a series of PanINs which in turn arise from pancreatic ducts, the consistent overexpression of ANXA10 in ductal epithelial cells in PanINs and PDACs but negative in normal pancreatic ducts suggests that ANXA10 could serve as a potential marker indicating the presence of PDAC at its earliest precancerous stages. Double immunostaining of ANXA10 and CD24 showed that there was a large overlap between these two markers in PDAC and high-grade neoplasia lesions. The statistical analysis showed that the coexpression of ANXA10 and CD24 was significantly correlated with the progression of pancreatic precursor lesions towards PDACs.

Project description:BackgroundWith less than a 5% survival rate pancreatic adenocarcinoma (PDAC) is almost uniformly lethal. In order to make a significant impact on survival of patients with this malignancy, it is necessary to diagnose the disease early, when curative surgery is still possible. Detailed knowledge of the natural history of the disease and molecular events leading to its progression is therefore critical.Methods and findingsWe have analysed the precursor lesions, PanINs, from prophylactic pancreatectomy specimens of patients from four different kindreds with high risk of familial pancreatic cancer who were treated for histologically proven PanIN-2/3. Thus, the material was procured before pancreatic cancer has developed, rather than from PanINs in a tissue field that already contains cancer. Genome-wide transcriptional profiling using such unique specimens was performed. Bulk frozen sections displaying the most extensive but not microdissected PanIN-2/3 lesions were used in order to obtain the holistic view of both the precursor lesions and their microenvironment. A panel of 76 commonly dysregulated genes that underlie neoplastic progression from normal pancreas to PanINs and PDAC were identified. In addition to shared genes some differences between the PanINs of individual families as well as between the PanINs and PDACs were also seen. This was particularly pronounced in the stromal and immune responses.ConclusionsOur comprehensive analysis of precursor lesions without the invasive component provides the definitive molecular proof that PanIN lesions beget cancer from a molecular standpoint. We demonstrate the need for accumulation of transcriptomic changes during the progression of PanIN to PDAC, both in the epithelium and in the surrounding stroma. An identified 76-gene signature of PDAC progression presents a rich candidate pool for the development of early diagnostic and/or surveillance markers as well as potential novel preventive/therapeutic targets for both familial and sporadic pancreatic adenocarcinoma.

Project description:Genomic and epigenomic studies support that adenocarcinomas of the gallbladder develop according to a metaplasia-biliary intraepithelial neoplasia (BilIN)-adenocarcinoma histogenic sequence, in which metaplasia and BilIN are non-cancerous lesions of the epithelium. Moreover, recent genomic data suggest that adenocarcinoma can develop in a BilIN-dependent or -independent way, pointing toward patient-specific tumourigenic processes. Spatial transcriptomic data addressing these processes are still missing. Here, using GeoMx digital spatial profiling (NanoString), we characterized the spatial transcriptome of normal gallbladder epithelium, BilINs and adenocarcinoma coexisting within the same samples. To address intra-patient variability we profiled the whole transcriptome of a high number of regions of interest (ROIs) per sample in two patients (Patient #1, 81 year old woman: 24 ROIs; Patient #2, 53-year old man:32 ROIs), with each ROI covering approximately 200 cells of normal epithelium, low-grade BilIN, high-grade BilIN or adenocarcinoma. Our results showed that each type of lesion displayed little transcriptomic variability within the same patient, but differed significantly between patients. They also suggested that adenocarcinoma can derive from high-grade BilIN or from low-grade BilIN, with co-existing high-grade BilIN evolving via a distinct process in the latter case. We also provide strong evidence for patient-specific tumourigenic mechanisms, characterized by distinct sequences of signalling pathway activation. Among those pathways, we functionally investigated SEMAPHORIN 4A (SEMA4A) and provided evidence that repression of SEMA4A expression, as is observed in the gallbladder samples of the two patients, can enhance cell migration and survival, and perturb polarisation of the epithelial cells. In conclusion, our results support that gallbladder adenocarcinoma develops according to patient-specific processes that can be promoted by repression of SEMA4A. They underscore the need to gain gene expression data in addition to histological information to evaluate the risk of low-grade preneoplastic lesions.

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Project description:Purpose: High-grade pancreatic intraepithelial neoplasia (PanIN) are aggressive premalignant lesions, associated with risk of progression to pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC). A depiction of co-dysregulated gene activity in high-grade familial pancreatic cancer (FPC)-related PanIN lesions may characterize the molecular events during the progression from familial PanIN to PDAC. Materials and Methods: We performed weighted gene coexpression network analysis (WGCNA) to identify clusters of coexpressed genes associated with FPC-related PanIN lesions in 13 samples with PanIN-2/3 from FPC predisposed individuals, 6 samples with PDAC from sporadic pancreatic cancer (SPC) patients, and 4 samples of normal donor pancreatic tissue. Results: WGCNA identified seven differentially expressed gene (DEG) modules and two commonly expressed gene (CEG) modules with significant enrichment for Gene Ontology (GO) terms in FPC and SPC, including three upregulated (p?<?5e-05) and four downregulated (p?<?6e-04) gene modules in FPC compared to SPC. Among the DEG modules, the upregulated modules include 14 significant genes (p?<?1e-06): ALOX12-AS1, BCL2L11, EHD4, C4B, BTN3A3, NDUFA11, RBM4B, MYOC, ZBTB47, TTTY15, NAPRT, LOC102606465, LOC100505711, and PTK2. The downregulated modules include 170 genes (p?<?1e-06), among them 13 highly significant genes (p?<?1e-10): COL10A1, SAMD9, PLPP4, COMP, POSTN, IGHV4-31, THBS2, MMP9, FNDC1, HOPX, TMEM200A, INHBA, and SULF1. The DEG modules are enriched for GO terms related to mitochondrial structure and adenosine triphosphate metabolic processes, extracellular structure and binding properties, humoral and complement mediated immune response, ligand-gated ion channel activity, and transmembrane receptor activity. Among the CEG modules, IL22RA1, DPEP1, and BCAT1 were found as highly connective hub genes associated with both FPC and SPC. Conclusion: FPC-related PanIN lesions exhibit a common molecular basis with SPC as shown by gene network activities and commonly expressed high-connectivity hub genes. The differential molecular pathology of FPC and SPC involves multiple coexpressed gene clusters enriched for GO terms including extracellular activities and mitochondrion function.

Dataset Information

Carcinogenesis of pancreatic adenocarcinoma: precursor lesions.

Publications

Carcinogenesis of pancreatic adenocarcinoma: precursor lesions.

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