Project description:In order to profile the translation events that were regulated by FBXO32, Ribo-seq was performed on PANC-1 cells which was used to generate FBXO32 stably depleted pancreatic cancer cells.
Project description:Pancreatic cancer is among the deadliest cancers that affects almost 54,000 patients in United States alone, with 90% of them succumbing to the disease. Lack of early detection is considered to be the foremost reason for such dismal survival rates. Our study shows that resident gut microbiota is altered at the early stages of tumorigenesis much before development of observable tumors in a spontaneous, genetically engineered mouse model for pancreatic cancer. In the current study, we analyzed the microbiome of in a genetic mouse model for PDAC (KRASG12DTP53R172HPdxCre or KPC) and age-matched controls using WGS at very early time points of tumorigenesis. During these time points, the KPC mice do not show any detectable tumors in their pancreas. Our results show that at these early time points, the histological changes in the pancreas correspond to a significant change in certain gut microbial population. Our predictive metabolomic analysis on the identified bacterial species reveal that the primary microbial metabolites involved in progression and development of PDAC tumors are involved in polyamine metabolism.
Project description:High-fat diet and obesity are high risk factors for colorectal cancer. The underlying mechanism is still unclear. Environmental factors alter the epigenome to affect gene expression thus the phenotype. In response to external stimuli, the cis-regulatory regions, especially enhancer loci, are key elements for regulating selective gene expression. We thus explored the effects of high-fat diet and the accompanying obesity on gene expression and the enhancer landscape in colon epithelium. High-fat diet exposed binding sites of transcription factors downstream of signaling pathways important in the initiation and progression of colon cancer. Meantime, colon specific enhancers were lost rendering the cells potential for dedifferentiation. The alteration at enhancer regions drives a specific transcription program promoting colon cancer progression. The comprehensive interrogation of enhancer changes by high-fat diet in colon epithelium provides a number of insights into the underlying biology of high-fat diet and obesity in increasing colon cancer risk, and provides potential therapeutic targets to treat obese colon cancer patients. ChIP sequencing of active enhancer mark h3k27ac in colon epithelium from wild type mice and NAG-1 transgenic mice treated with either low-fat diet or high-fat diet. The gene expression component of the study is included in GSE46843.