Project description:We identified the Rho family GTPase Rnd1 as a candidate breast tumor suppressor by using bioinformatics analysis in conjunction with iRNA silencing. Upon silencing of Rnd1, normal mammary epithelial cells underwent a complete EMT but eventually became senescent, suggesting that they had experienced an oncogenic insult. Expression of c-Myc rescued the Rnd1-depleted cells from senescence by suppressing p27Kip and it enabled their neoplastic conversion. The resulting cells were able to grow in soft agar and to form invasive, multi-acinar structures in 3D Matrigel. Silencing of Rnd1 promoted disruption of epithelial adhesion and polarity in xenograft models. In contrast, expression of Rnd1 inhibited tumor development. Mechanistic studies revealed that Rnd1 suppresses Ras signaling and prevents the EMT by activating the Ras-GAP domain of Plexin B1. Finally, analysis of clinical samples and cancer cell lines provided evidence that gene deletion, epigenetic silencing, and missense mutations contribute to inactivate RND1 in a subset of human breast cancers. These results indicate that Rnd1 promotes epithelial adhesion and polarity and suppresses oncogenesis by restraining unscheduled activation of Ras. genomic DNA from 96 breast cancer tissues and 8 normal mammary tissues were extracted and subjected to SOLID deep sequencing for exons of the RND1 gene to identify tumor-associated mutations with the amino acid exchanges There were two separate SOLID runs (0136 and 0270), on the same 96 tumors. The pools are indicated by "A1", "A2", "B1", etc.
Project description:Plasma samples from healthy volunteers were used for the microarray analysis. The fresh sample and intentionally hemolyzed one due to negative pressure were examined. Microarray analyses were performed using the 3D-Gene microRNA microarray platform, and RNA extraction was conducted according to the manufacturer’s instructions. Only a very small amount of total RNA was present in the plasma samples; therefore 2 out of the 4 µl of total RNA extracted from 300- µl of plasma samples were used in microarray experiments.
Project description:Prostate cancer is the most common cancer in men and androgen receptor (AR) downstream signalings promote prostate cancer cell proliferation. To investigate the AR signaling, we performed directional RNA sequence analysis in AR positive prostate cancer cell line, LNCaP and VCaP. Using Noncode and GENCODE data sets. We identified androgen-regulated long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) in prostate cancer cells.
Project description:We identified the Rho family GTPase Rnd1 as a candidate breast tumor suppressor by using bioinformatics analysis in conjunction with iRNA silencing. Upon silencing of Rnd1, normal mammary epithelial cells underwent a complete EMT but eventually became senescent, suggesting that they had experienced an oncogenic insult. Expression of c-Myc rescued the Rnd1-depleted cells from senescence by suppressing p27Kip and it enabled their neoplastic conversion. The resulting cells were able to grow in soft agar and to form invasive, multi-acinar structures in 3D Matrigel. Silencing of Rnd1 promoted disruption of epithelial adhesion and polarity in xenograft models. In contrast, expression of Rnd1 inhibited tumor development. Mechanistic studies revealed that Rnd1 suppresses Ras signaling and prevents the EMT by activating the Ras-GAP domain of Plexin B1. Finally, analysis of clinical samples and cancer cell lines provided evidence that gene deletion, epigenetic silencing, and missense mutations contribute to inactivate RND1 in a subset of human breast cancers. These results indicate that Rnd1 promotes epithelial adhesion and polarity and suppresses oncogenesis by restraining unscheduled activation of Ras.
Project description:Here, we performed the cleavage under targets and tagmentation (CUT&Tag) assay, a recently developed technology for protein-DNA interaction, in protoplasts extracted from wheat root tissues to genome-widely identity the potential targets of TaSPL6-D. Using CUT-Tag-seq, we obtained 7,403 confidential peaks from two biological replicates, with which 2688 genes was associated. Zooming in the promoter region, GTAC motif was significantly enriched in the peaks. Gene Ontology analysis of genes with binding peaks in the promoter region revealed that, the most enriched gene term is ‘response to temperature/heat stimuli’, which is consistent with previous studies on the functions of TaSPL6-D orthologs in rice and Arabidopsis. The following enriched terms are genes of ‘regulation of response to salt stress’, ‘regulation of response to osmotic stress’, and particularly ‘positive regulation of response to salt stress’, implying TaSPL6-D is an upstream regulator of salt stress response.
Project description:Sporozoite is the stage in which malaria parasites initially infect the vertebrate host. Elucidation of gene regulation in this stage will promote the investigation of mechanisms of liver infection by this parasite and contribute to development of strategies for preventing the malaria transmission. AP2-Sp is a transcription factor essential for formation of sporozoites or sporogony, which take place in oocysts on the midgut of infected mosquitoes. To understand the role of this transcription factor in the transcriptional regulatory system of this stage we performed ChIP-seq analysis using whole mosquito midguts containing late oocysts as start materials and explore its target genes genome-widely. Target genes were composed of 640 genes, which encompassed various functional categories and were contained genes involved in distinct processes parasites pass through in this stage, from sporogony to development into the liver stage. Furthermore, RNA-seq analysis showed that these genes constituted majority of the genes highly expressed in in this stage. These results suggested that this TF determines basal pattern of gene expression of this stage by targeting a broad range of genes directly.
Project description:In this study, we aim to investigate the value of circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) analysis in the diagnosis, treatment, and surveillance of patients with surgically resectable colorectal cancer, by performing serial analysis of ctDNA, next-generation sequencing of surgical specimens, and observation of patients undergoing radical resection of the tumor with or without adjuvant chemo- and/or radiotherapy.
Project description:A female patient with a partial trisomy 16q was described previously. Her clinical characteristics included obesity, severe anisomastia, moderate to severe mental retardation, dysmorphic facies, and contractions of the small joints. In this paper, we describe a more detailed analysis of the genetic anomaly in this patient. We were particularly interested in the involvement of the fat mass and obesity associated gene (FTO) in her duplication. Single nucleotide polymorphisms in FTO have recently been associated with obesity. We have precisely mapped the breakpoints of the duplication using high resolution oligonucleotide array comparative genome hybridization (CGH). We found that the duplication spans 11.45 Mb on 16q11.2 to 16q13 and it includes FTO. The increased copy number of FTO was confirmed with a qPCR on genomic DNA of the patient and healthy controls. We investigated the influence of the increased FTO copy number on FTO gene expression in immortalized lymphocytes from the using qPCR. We found no evidence of increased FTO expression in the patient. This observation could be explained by maternal imprinting. We found evidence supporting this hypothesis in a database of imprinted genes. In addition, our results generated new candidate genes for the mental retardation, dysmorphic facies, small joints contractions, small teeth, and anisomastia of the patient.