Project description:Genome wide expression profiles of 10-day-old seedlings in response to prior exposure with OS followed by heat stress or cold stress as well simultaneous exposure to OS along with HS/CS was done to study the transcriptional changes in response to combination of stresses.
Project description:A strong promoter increases transcription of the genes of interest and enhances the production of various valuable substances. For a hyperthermophilic archaeon Thermococcus onnurineus NA1, which can produce H2 by carbon monoxide oxidation, we searched for a novel endogenous strong promoter by transcriptome analysis using high-throughput RNA sequencing. Based on the relative transcript abundance, we selected one promoter to encode a hypothetical gene, of which homologs were found only in several Thermococcales strains. This promoter, PTN0510, was introduced into the front of CO-responsible hydrogenase gene cluster encoding a carbon monoxide dehydrogenase (CODH), a hydrogenase and a Na+/H+ antiporter. In the resulting mutant strain, KS0510, transcription and translation level of the gene cluster increased by 4- to 14-folds and 1.5- to 1.9-folds, respectively, in comparison with those of wild-type strain. Additionally, H2 production rate of KS0510 mutant was 4.8-fold higher than that of wild-type strain. The PTN0510 was identified to be much stronger than the well-known two strong promoters, gdh and slp promoters from Thermococcus strains, through RT-qPCR and western blotting analyses and kinetics of H2 production. In this study, we demonstrated that the RNA-seq approach is a good strategy to mine a novel strong promoter of use to a Thermococcus strain when developed as a biotechnologically promising strain to produce valuable metabolites through a metabolic engineering. RNA expreesion profile of T. onnurineus NA1 genes in CO-containing media, in duplicate, using Illumina HiSeq 2500
Project description:Cellular senescence, a stable cell growth arrest, can have dual effects in tumors, either suppressing or promoting tumor progression. The Senescence-Associated Secretory Phenotype (SASP), released by senescent cells, plays a crucial role in this dichotomy. Consequently, the clinical challenge lies in developing therapies that safely enhance senescence in cancer, promoting tumor-suppressive over tumor-promoting SASP factors. Here, we identified the Retinoic-Acid-Receptor (RAR) agonist Adapalene as an effective pro-senescence compound in prostate cancer (PCa). The reactivation of the RARs triggers a strong senescence response and a tumor-suppressive SASP. In preclinical mouse models of PCa, the combination of Adapalene and Docetaxel, promotes a tumor-suppressive SASP that activates NK cell-mediated tumor clearance more effectively than either agent alone. This approach increases the efficacy of allogenic infusion of human NK cells in mice injected with human PCa cells, suggesting an alternative therapeutic strategy to stimulate the anti-tumor immune response in "immunologically cold" tumors.
Project description:Immune checkpoint blockade (ICB) therapy intends to only benefit a fraction of cancer patients, and combination immunotherapy with a compound is a promising treatment to overcome this limitation. Here, a tumor immunological phenotype (TIP) gene signature and high throughput sequencing-based high throughput screening (HTS2) were combined to identify combination immunotherapy compounds. We firstly defined a TIP gene signature, which expression pattern distinguishes “cold” tumors from “hot” tumors, and predicts ICB response in cancer patients. Then, after screening thousands of compounds, we identified that aurora kinase inhibitors, including ENMD-2076 and TAK-901, could reprogram the expression pattern of TIP genes from “cold” tumor to “hot” tumor in triple negative breast cancer (TNBC) cells. The treatment of aurora kinase inhibitors on TNBC cells dramatically up-regulates expression of Th1 type chemokine genes CXCL10 and CXCL11, which promotes effective T cells infiltrating into tumor microenvironment and significantly improves anti-PD-1 efficacy in inhibiting the tumor growth of TNBC in preclinical models. Mechanistically, these aurora kinase inhibitors are mainly through inhibiting AURKA-STAT3 signaling pathway to stimulate the expression of CXCL10 and CXCL11. Our study established a high throughput strategy to discover candidate compounds for combination immunotherapy, and suggested the therapeutic potential of combining aurora kinase inhibitors with checkpoint blockade immunotherapy for the treatment of TNBC.
