Project description:Colorectal cancer, one of the most frequent types of malignancy in the Western world, develops through a multi-step process. The main pathways establishing transformation of normal mucosa to invasive carcinoma include chromosomal instability (CIN), microsatellite instability (MSI) or epigenetic silencing through the CpG Island Methylator Phenotype (CIMP). These pathways have distinct clinical, pathological and genetic characteristics. In general, altered cell surface glycosylation has been linked to colorectal cancer progression, however the impact of MSI-specific pathways on the glycosylation machinery of MSI colon cancer cells has not been investigated yet. In a recent study (Patsos et al., 2009) we have shown that MSI-specific mutations induce marked alterations in cell surface glycosylation, indicating specific changes in the expression of glyco-genes. Therefore the purpose of our experiment is to define these changes by glyco-gene chip analysis. Biallelic mutational inactivation of MSI target genes is believed to drive MSI tumorigenesis. TGFBR2, ACVR2 and AIM2 are among the most frequently mutated genes in MSI colorectal adenomas and carcinomas and functional studies indicate their contribution to MSI-carcinogenesis. A first general screening approach by lectin FACS analysis indicated a correlation between functional inactivation of these genes and cell surface glycosylation of the MSI colon cell line HCT116 (Patsos et al., 2009). For detailed analysis of the altered glycosylation pattern and the underlying molecular mechanisms we have established HCT116 double stable transfectants that allow doxycycline-inducible expression of the three MSI target genes TGFBR2, ACVR2 and AIM2 in a reversible manner. Thus we can experimentally control the expression of the MSI-genes and analyze short and long-term effects on different cell functions, including glycosylation. From the application of the glyco-gene chip for analysis of the transfectants we expect to gain seminal information on the influence of MSI-target genes on glycan expression and function in MSI tumor cells. Correlating loss-of-function of MSI target genes not yet linked with glycosylation to the regulation of the glycophenotype is a novel approach to investigate the glycobiology of tumor cells. In addition it is also suitable to detect new MSI-(glyco)markers for clinical applications, including diagnostic tumor markers and specific targets for immunotherapies.
Project description:Inhibition of the nonsense mediated decay (NMD) mechanism in cells results in stabilization of transcripts carrying premature translation termination codons. A strategy referred to as gene indentification by NMD inhibition (GINI) has been proposed to identify genes carrying nonsense mutations (Noensie & Dietz, 2001). Genes containing frameshift mutations in colon cancer cell line have been identifying mutatnt genes using GINI, we have now further improved the strategy. In this approach, inhibition of NMD with emetine is complemented with inhibiting NMD by blocking the phosphorylation of the hUpf1 protein with caffeine. In addition, to enhance the GINI strategy, comparing mRNA level alterations produced by inhibiting transcription alone or inhbiiting transcription together with NMD following caffeine pretreatment were used for the efficient identification of false positives produced as a result of stress response to NMD inhibition. To demonstrate the improved efficiency of this approach, we analyzed colon cancer cell lines showing microstellite instability. Bi-allelic inactivating mutations were found in the FXR1, SEC1L1, NCOR1, BAT3, PHD14, ZNF294, C190ORF5 genes as well as genes coding for proteins with yet unknown functions. Experiment Overall Design: Using GINI2 as a method of identifying novel biallelic truncating mutations in MSI+ colon cancer cells, various treatment conditions were applied to cultured colon cancer cell lines LS180 (MSI+) and SW480 (MSI-) and gene expression profiling was measured using Affymetrix GeneChip U133 Plus 2 arrays.
Project description:Microsatellite instability (MSI), caused by defective mismatch repair, is observed in a subset of colorectal cancers (CRCs). We evaluated somatic mutations in microsatellite repeats of genes chosen based on reduced expression in MSI CRC and existence of a coding mononucleotide repeat. Expression profiling of 34 MSI colorectal cancers and 15 normal colonic mucosas was performed in 2002. Comparison of malignant and healthy tissue.