Project description:RNA sequencing analysis of muscles comparing normal muscles with cachectic muscles isolated from mice bearing distant metastasis from C26m2 and 4T1 murine colon and breast cancer cell lines, collected at the onset of weight loss five weeks after tumor cell injection in these mice.
Project description:Cancer cachexia is a metabolic multifactorial syndrome that causes up to 20% of cancer-related deaths. Muscle atrophy, the hallmark of cancer cachexia, strongly impairs the quality of life of cancer patients; however, the underlying pathological process is still poorly understood. In our study, the transcriptome of cachectic gastrocnemius muscle in the C26 xenograft model was comparied with normal control. The key pathways involving this diseases was discovered according to the different expressed genes.
Project description:Cachexia is a devastating muscle wasting syndrome that occurs in patients suffering from chronic diseases, most commonly observed in 80% of advanced cancer patients. One of the primary causes of cachexia-associated morbidity and mortality is involuntary muscle wasting. And while many cachexia patients show hypermetabolism, its causative role in muscles had remained unclear. To understand the molecular basis of this muscle wasting, accurate models of cachexia are necessary. Using transcriptomics and cytokine profiling of human muscle stem cell-based models and human cancer-induced cachexia models in mice, we found that cachectic cancer cells secreted many inflammatory factors which rapidly led to higher levels of fatty acid metabolism and the activation of a p38 stress response signature, before the cachectic muscle wasting is manifested. Metabolomics profiling revealed that factors secreted by cachectic cancer cells rapidly induce excessive fatty acid oxidation in human myotubes, leading to oxidative stress, p38 activation, and impaired muscle growth. Pharmacological blockade of fatty acid oxidation not only rescued human myotubes, but also significantly improved muscle mass and total weight in cancer cachexia models in vivo. Therefore, fatty acid-induced oxidative stress could be targeted to prevent cancer cachexia.
Project description:We found out that bile acid pathways were deeply altered in cachectic mice bearing ectopic tumor, leading to an increase in portal and liver conjugated bile acid levels. Counteracting this increased level in conjugated bile acids using cholestyramine, a bile acid sequestrant, reduced hepatic inflammation in cachectic mice with no impact on steatosis and minor effects on thermogenesis. Hepatic whole transcriptome analysis identified 16 pathways altered in cachectic mice which were counteracted by cholestyramine, pointing out the large contribution of bile acids to hepatic disturbances occurring in cancer cachexia.
Project description:The Australian Chronic Allograft Dysfunction (AUSCAD) study is an ongoing single centre cohort study at Westmead hospital in Australia. In this section of the study, we aimed to identify biomarkers for chronic allograft dysfunction in kidney transplant recipients. Our study recruited 136 patients, each having protocol renal allograft biopsies taken pre transplantation.
Project description:The Australian Chronic Allograft Dysfunction (AUSCAD) study is an ongoing single centre cohort study at Westmead hospital in Australia. In this section of the study, we aimed to identify biomarkers for allograft rejection in kidney transplant recipients, 3-months after their transplant. Our study recruited 123 patients, each having protocol renal allograft biopsies taken 3-months post transplantation.
Project description:Solid organ transplantation in the mouse is a powerful research tool that has provided a pathway to find important mechanistic insights into the regulation of allograft injury, allograft immunopathology, and transplant rejection/tolerance, and that has unique advantages over transplantation in larger species, due to the well characterization of mouse genome and availability of genetically modified animals. However, setup of mouse liver, heart and kidney transplantation is a technically demanding surgical procedure, especially the orthotopic liver transplantation in mouse. Here, we performed Microwell-based single cell RNA-seq of three mouse organ transplantation models (liver, heart and kidney). Comparison of lymphocytes, parenchyma cells and peripheral blood mononuclear cells in liver, heart and kidney revealed distinct immune microenvironment at acute rejection and tolerance state respectively. Single-cell transcriptome analysis of mouse allograft without immunosuppressive drugs provided rich resources to help understand functioning solid-organ transplantation in human.
Project description:Self-reactive antibodies cloned from B cells infiltrating in a human renal allograft were subjected to IP-mass spectrometry using nuclear lysates of HEp-2 cells.