Project description:Considerable recent research has indicated the presence of bacteria in a variety of human tumours and matched normal tissue. Rather than focusing on further identification of bacteria within tumour samples, we reversed the hypothesis to query if establishing the bacterial profile of a tissue biopsy could reveal its histology / malignancy status. The aim of the present study was therefore to differentiate between malignant and non-malignant fresh breast biopsy specimens, collected specifically for this purpose, based on bacterial sequence data alone. Fresh tissue biopsies were obtained from breast cancer patients and subjected to 16S rRNA gene sequencing. Progressive microbiological and bioinformatic contamination control practices were imparted at all points of specimen handling and bioinformatic manipulation. Differences in breast tumour and matched normal tissues were probed using a variety of statistical and machine-learning-based strategies. Breast tumour and matched normal tissue microbiome profiles proved sufficiently different to indicate that a classification strategy using bacterial biomarkers could be effective. Leave-one-out cross-validation of the predictive model confirmed the ability to identify malignant breast tissue from its bacterial signature with 84.78% accuracy, with a corresponding area under the receiver operating characteristic curve of 0.888. This study provides proof-of-concept data, from fit-for-purpose study material, on the potential to use the bacterial signature of tissue biopsies to identify their malignancy status.
Project description:Analysis of 143 completely histologically-normal breast tissues resulted in the identification of a “malignancy risk” gene signature that may serve as a marker of subsequent risk of breast cancer development. Keywords: Tissue from breast cancer and adjacent regions
Project description:High-throughput proteomics profiling-derived signature associated with chemotherapy response and survival for stage II/III colorectal cancer
Project description:Analysis of 143 completely histologically-normal breast tissues resulted in the identification of a âÂÂmalignancy riskâ gene signature that may serve as a marker of subsequent risk of breast cancer development. Experiment Overall Design: RNA was extracted from microdissected frozen breast tissues for gene array analysis
Project description:Chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) is a heterogeneous malignancy, characterized by a variable clinical course. While clinical and laboratory parameters are increasingly being used to refine prognosis, they do not accurately predict response to commonly used therapy. We used gene expression profiling to generate and further refine prognostic and predictive markers. Genomic signatures that reflect progressive disease and responses to chemotherapy or chemo-immunotherapy were created using cancer cell lines and patient leukemia samples. We validated these signatures using independent clinical data from four separate cohorts representing a total of 301 CLL patients. A prognostic genomic signature created from patient leukemic cell gene expression data coupled with clinical parameters could statistically differentiate patients with stable or progressive disease in the training dataset. The progression signature was then validated in two independent datasets, demonstrating a capacity to accurately identify patients at risk for progressive disease. In addition, two distinct genomic signatures that predict response to chlorambucil or pentostatin, cyclophosphamide, and rituximab were also generated and were shown to accurately distinguish responding and non-responding CLL patients. Microarray analysis of CLL patientsâ lymphocytes can be used to refine prognosis and predict response to different therapies. These results have direct implications for standard and investigational therapeutics in CLL patients. Experiment Overall Design: For the predictive genomic signature or response to pentostatin, cyclophosphamide, and rituximab, 20 CLL leukemia samples were used in the training set, and 20 CLL leukemia samples were used in the validation set