Project description:The investigators aim to assess the procedure time and miss rate of polyps when performing polypectomy in the colon on the way up* and down** or only on the way down**.
(* advancing the scope to the cecum, ** pulling back the scope after intubation of the cecum). Our hypothesis is that using the strategy to remove all visible polyps firstly on the way up and secondly on the way down is less time consuming and misses less polyps as with the strategy to remove polyps only on the way down.
Project description:Neurobiological alterations seen in addiction amplify during abstinence and compromise relapse prevention. Cocaine use disorder (CUD) exemplifies this phenomenon in which reward regions such as nucleus accumbens (NAc) undergo withdrawal-associated modifications. While genome-wide transcriptional changes in NAc are linked to specific addiction phases, these have not been examined in a context- and NAc-subregion-specific manner during withdrawal vs. extinction. We used cocaine self-administration in rats combined with RNA-sequencing of NAc core and shell to transcriptionally profile withdrawal in the home-cage, in the previous drug context, or after extinction. As expected, home-cage withdrawal maintained drug seeking, whereas extinction reduced it. Conversely, withdrawal involving the drug context increased seeking. Bioinformatic analyses revealed specific gene expression patterns and networks associated with these states. Comparing NAc datasets of CUD patients highlighted conserved transcriptomic signatures with rats experiencing withdrawal in the drug context. Together, this work reveals fundamental mechanisms that can be targeted to attenuate relapse.
Project description:Analysis of Drug transports as a mechanism of resistance to aurora kinase inhibition Parental and Taxol-resistant cell lines are compared for gene expression profile differences. 2 samples, fluor reversed
Project description:Melanoma resistant to MAPK inhibitors (MAPKi) displays loss of fitness upon experimental MAPKi withdrawal and, clinically, may be resensitized to MAPKi therapy after a drug holiday. Here, we uncovered and therapeutically exploited the mechanisms of MAPKi addiction in MAPKi-resistant BRAF MUT or NRAS MUT melanoma. MAPKi-addiction phenotypes evident upon drug withdrawal spanned transient cell-cycle slowdown to cell-death responses, the latter of which required a robust phosphorylated ERK (pERK) rebound. Generally, drug withdrawal–induced pERK rebound upregulated p38–FRA1–JUNB–CDKN1A and downregulated proliferation, but only a robust pERK rebound resulted in DNA damage and parthanatos-related cell death. Importantly, pharmacologically impairing DNA damage repair during MAPKi withdrawal augmented MAPKi addiction across the board by converting a cell-cycle deceleration to a caspase-dependent cell-death response or by furthering parthanatos related cell death. Specifically in MEKi-resistant NRAS MUT or atypical BRAF MUT melanoma, treatment with a type I RAF inhibitor intensified pERK rebound elicited by MEKi withdrawal, thereby promoting a cell death–predominant MAPKi-addiction phenotype. Thus, MAPKi discontinuation upon disease progression should be coupled with specific strategies that augment MAPKi addiction.
Project description:The clinical development of targeted therapies has been hampered by their limited intrinsic antitumor activity and the rapid emergence of resistance, highlighting the need to identify highly active and synergistic drug combinations. However, empirical synergistic drug screening approaches are challenging and elucidating the mechanisms that underlie such drug interactions is typically complex. Here we performed an expression based screen and network analyses to identify drugs amplyfiying the antitumor effects of NOTCH inhibition in T-ALL. These studies uncovered a novel and druggable synthetic lethal interaction between supression of protein translation and NOTCH inhibition in T-ALL. Our results illustrate the power of expression-based analyses towards the identification and functional characterization of new antitumor drug combinations for the treatment of human cancer.
Project description:Analysis of Drug transports as a mechanism of resistance to aurora kinase inhibition Parental and Taxol-resistant cell lines are compared for gene expression profile differences.
Project description:To investigate the mechanism associated with cis-platin intrinsic resistance, we established a model of early drug-tolerant persister cells by exposing lung adenocarcinoma cell lines to the drug for 24 h. Then, we analyzed the transcriptome using RNA-seq from 4 different lung adenocarcinoma cell lines.