Project description:Developing targeted therapy for cutaneous T cell lymphoma (CTCL) patients still requires actionable mutated genes and deregulated pathways to be identified. There is increasing evidence that activating mutations in JAK genes and deregulated JAK/STAT signaling are important mechanisms involved in multiple B and T cell malignancies, including CTCL. Therefore, in this study we focused on studying the mutational status of JAK1, JAK2 and JAK3 genes in a series of human CTCL lesions and cell lines using next-generation sequencing (NGS). We found that 7 of 48 (14.7%) of the analyzed cases harbored mutations in the JAK1 and JAK3 genes that mainly affected the pseudokinase domain of the corresponding proteins. On the basis of these results, we used a specific JAK inhibitor (INCB018424) in a series of CTCL cell lines with deregulated JAK/STAT activity. Treatment of CTCL cells with INCB018424 resulted in dose-dependent reduction of activated STAT expression, diminished cell viability, and increased apoptosis. We also studied global changes in gene expression in cells with mutated JAK1 and JAK3 proteins treated with INCB018424 and identified multiple genes that were differentially regulated by JAK/STAT signaling, such as FGF20 (upregulated) and EGR1 (downregulated). Thus, our results show that the detection of deregulated JAK/STAT signaling in CTCL lesions via JAK mutations or other surrogate markers may serve to indicate the clinical use of JAK/STAT inhibitors. 3 replicates of cells treated with DMSO or JAKi during 30 min and 3h
Project description:Developing targeted therapy for cutaneous T cell lymphoma (CTCL) patients still requires actionable mutated genes and deregulated pathways to be identified. There is increasing evidence that activating mutations in JAK genes and deregulated JAK/STAT signaling are important mechanisms involved in multiple B and T cell malignancies, including CTCL. Therefore, in this study we focused on studying the mutational status of JAK1, JAK2 and JAK3 genes in a series of human CTCL lesions and cell lines using next-generation sequencing (NGS). We found that 7 of 48 (14.7%) of the analyzed cases harbored mutations in the JAK1 and JAK3 genes that mainly affected the pseudokinase domain of the corresponding proteins. On the basis of these results, we used a specific JAK inhibitor (INCB018424) in a series of CTCL cell lines with deregulated JAK/STAT activity. Treatment of CTCL cells with INCB018424 resulted in dose-dependent reduction of activated STAT expression, diminished cell viability, and increased apoptosis. We also studied global changes in gene expression in cells with mutated JAK1 and JAK3 proteins treated with INCB018424 and identified multiple genes that were differentially regulated by JAK/STAT signaling, such as FGF20 (upregulated) and EGR1 (downregulated). Thus, our results show that the detection of deregulated JAK/STAT signaling in CTCL lesions via JAK mutations or other surrogate markers may serve to indicate the clinical use of JAK/STAT inhibitors.
Project description:HIV-positive patients have a higher risk of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma with poor prognostic features. To characterize features of HIV-associated lymphoma, we compared the DNA methylation profiles of 803 cancer-related genes in between 9 HIV-associated and 12 non-HIV lymphoma samples by Illumina GoldenGate Methylation Cancer Panel I microarray.
Project description:Natural Killer/T-cell lymphoma (NKTL) is a rare type of aggressive and heterogeneous non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (NHL) with poor prognosis and limited therapeutic options. Here, we demonstrate that chidamide, a novel histone deacetylase (HDAC) inhibitor, is effective in treating relapsed/refractory NKTL patients, achieving an overall response rate of 39.3%, with 17.9% complete response rate. However, the clinical response to chidamide remains variable as more than half of the patients exhibit primary resistance, limiting its utility in NKTL treatment. To unravel the resistance mechanisms of chidamide, we performed integrative transcriptomic and chromatin profiling of sensitive and resistant NKTL cells. Our results revealed that aberrant JAK-STAT signaling remodels the chromatin and confers resistance to chidamide. Subsequently, inhibition of JAK-STAT activity could overcome resistance to chidamide by reprogramming the chromatin from a resistant to sensitive state, leading to synergistic anti-tumor effect. More importantly, our clinical data demonstrated that combinatorial therapy with chidamide and JAK inhibitor ruxolitinib is effective against chidamide-resistant NKTL. In addition, we identified TNFRSF8 (CD30), a downstream target of JAK-STAT pathway, as a potential biomarker that could predict NKTL sensitivity to chidamide. Collectively, our study suggests that chidamide, in combination with JAK-STAT inhibitors, can be a novel targeted therapy in the standard of care for NKTL.
Project description:Purpose: Studying the efficacy and safety of apremilast as an add-on therapy in patients with recalcitrant cutaneous dermatomyositis. Studying the mechanism of action of apremilast in dermatomyositis by performing RNA sequencing and immunohistochemistry on skin biopsies before and after treatment. Methods: We enrolled 8 patients with recalcitrant dermatomyositis. Apremilast 30 mg orally twice daily was added to a stable treatment regimen of steroids and/or steroids sparing agents and patients were followed for 7 months. A CDASI, muscle score, dermatology life quality index (DLQI), and depression assessments were performed at baseline and regularly till month 7. Skin biopsies were performed at baseline and 3-months post-apremilast to study gene expression alterations. Results: Our ORR assessed at 3 months post apremilast was 87.5%. The response was maintained at 6 months with continued decrease in CDASI and improvement in DLQI. The mean decrease in CDASI was 12.9 points (p<0.05). Apremilast was well tolerated and without any grade 3 or higher adverse events using CTCAE version 5. RNA sequencing was performed on skin biopsies from 7 patients before and 3 months after apremilast. Out of 39,076 expressed genes, there were 195 whose expression changed ≥2-fold at P<0.01 (123 down- and 72 up-regulated), several genes are known JAK-STAT targets. Using GSEA analysis, we identified 13 pathways significantly downregulated by apremilast, notably STAT1, STAT3, IL-2, IL-6, IL-12, IL-23, INFγ, and TNFα pathways. Immunohistochemical staining confirmed JAK/STAT signaling inhibition at the protein level. Conclusions: Apremilast is a safe and efficacious add-on treatment in recalcitrant dermatomyositis with an overall response rate of 87.5%, and functions through downregulation of JAK/STAT signaling in dermatomyositis.
Project description:HIV-positive patients have a higher risk of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma with poor prognostic features. To characterize features of HIV-associated lymphoma, we compared the DNA methylation profiles of 803 cancer-related genes in between 9 HIV-associated and 12 non-HIV lymphoma samples by Illumina GoldenGate Methylation Cancer Panel I microarray. Bisulfite-converted DNA from the 42 samples (duplicate analysis of 21 samples) were analyzed to obtain the methylation profiles of cancer-associated genes by using Illumina GoldenGate Methylation Cancer Panel I microarray.
Project description:In order to explore the gene expression signature in essential thrombocythemia (ET) patients in relation to JAK2V617F mutational status, expression profiling in circulating granulocytes was performed. Twenty ET were studied by microarray analysis and the results were confirmed by real-time quantitative RT-PCR in 40 ET patients, not receiving cytoreductive treatment. A heterogeneous molecular signature characterized by two main gene expression patterns was found: one with an up-regulation of inflammatory genes related to neutrophil activation and thrombosis, and the other one with significantly lower expression of these genes. Supervised clustering analysis showed 30 genes differentially expressed between JAK2V617F-negative and JAK2V617F-positive ET patients. Among the JAK2V617F-negative, a set of 14 genes (CISH, C13orf18, CCL3, PIM1, MAFF, SOCS3, ID2, GADD45B, KLF5, TNF, LAMB3, HRH4, TAGAP and TRIB1) showed an abnormal expression pattern. In this group of patients CISH, SOCS2, SOCS3 and PIM1 genes, all involved in JAK-STAT signaling pathway, presented a lower expression,. A two-gene predictor model was built comprising FOSB and CISH genes, which were the best discriminators of JAK2V617F status. In conclusion, JAK2V617F-negative ET patients present a characteristic gene expression profile, different from JAK2V617F-positive patients. Other pathways besides JAK-STAT might be implicated in the pathophysiology of JAK2V617F-negative ET patients. Experiment Overall Design: Twenty ET were studied by microarray analysis and the results were confirmed by real-time quantitative RT-PCR in 40 ET patients. Microarray expression profiles were obtained using Whole Human Genome oligonucleotide microarrays (G4112A, Agilent Technologies, Palo Alto, CA). In each microarray experiment, RNA obtained from granulocytes from a single ET patient was compared with a pool of granulocyte RNAs from 10 healthy individuals. Duplicate hybridizations were performed for each comparison with dye-swapping to control.
Project description:Gene expression profiling of extranodal nasal-type NK/T cell lymphoma and other EBV-associated lymphoid proliferation disease patients was analyzed to elucidate association between JAK-STAT pathway and canonical or non-canonical PRC2/EZH2 target pathways using Illumina HumanRef-8 v3 chips.
Project description:Gene expression profiling of extranodal nasal-type NK/T cell lymphoma and other EBV-associated lymphoid proliferation disease patients was analyzed to elucidate association between JAK-STAT pathway and canonical or non-canonical PRC2/EZH2 target pathways using Illumina HumanRef-8 v3 chips.
Project description:Gene expression profiling of extranodal nasal-type NK/T cell lymphoma and other EBV-associated lymphoid proliferation disease patients was analyzed to elucidate association between JAK-STAT pathway and canonical or non-canonical PRC2/EZH2 target pathways using Illumina HumanRef-8 v3 chips. In total, 47 samples were assayed in this data set. The non-normalized data were used for analysis. No normalization was performed.