Project description:Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) has been used for thousands of years to treat or prevent diseases, including cancer. Good manufacturing practices (GMP) and sophisticated product analysis (PhytomicsQC) to ensure consistency are now available allowing the assessment of its utility. Polychemical Medicines, like TCM, include chemicals with distinct tissue-dependent pharmacodynamic properties that result in tissue-specific bioactivity. Determining the mode of action of these mixtures was previously unsatisfactory; however, information rich RNA microarray technologies now allow for thorough mechanistic studies about complex mixtures effects. PHY906 is a long used four herb TCM formula employed as adjuvant to relieve side effects associated with chemotherapy. Animal studies documented a decrease in global toxicity and an increase in therapeutic effectiveness of chemotherapy when PHY906 was combined. Using a systems biology approach, we studied tumor tissue to identify reasons for the enhancement of the antitumor effect of Irinotecan by PHY-906 in a well-characterized pre-clinical model; PHY-906 and Irinotecan were administered orally to female BDF-1 mice bearing subcutaneous Colon 38 tumors. We observed that 1) individually PHY-906 and Irinotecan induce distinct alterations in tumor, liver and spleen; 2) PHY-906 alone predominantly induces repression of transcription and immune-suppression in tumors; 3) these effects are reverted in the presence of Irinotecan, with prevalent induction of pro-apoptotic and pro-inflammatory pathways that may favor tumor rejection. Most importantly, PHY-906 together with Irinotecan triggers unique changes not activated by each one alone suggesting that the combination creates a unique tissue-specific response. Four groups of BDF-1 mice bearing colon 38 tumors were treated with Phosphate Buffered Saline (PBS) (n=10), PHY-906 (n=10), Irinotecan (CPT-11, Camptosar(TM)) (n=10) or the combination PHY-906 and Irinotecan (n=10). Tumor (38 samples), spleen (38 samples), and liver (35 samples) tissues were removed and frozen for total RNA isolation and subsequent microarray hybridization. There were a total of 111 samples representing 12 treated tissue groups with 8 to 10 biological replicates each. A reference sample was generated from a pool of mixed normal mouse tissue.
Project description:Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) has been used for thousands of years to treat or prevent diseases, including cancer. Good manufacturing practices (GMP) and sophisticated product analysis (PhytomicsQC) to ensure consistency are now available allowing the assessment of its utility. Polychemical Medicines, like TCM, include chemicals with distinct tissue-dependent pharmacodynamic properties that result in tissue-specific bioactivity. Determining the mode of action of these mixtures was previously unsatisfactory; however, information rich RNA microarray technologies now allow for thorough mechanistic studies about complex mixtures effects. PHY906 is a long used four herb TCM formula employed as adjuvant to relieve side effects associated with chemotherapy. Animal studies documented a decrease in global toxicity and an increase in therapeutic effectiveness of chemotherapy when PHY906 was combined. Using a systems biology approach, we studied tumor tissue to identify reasons for the enhancement of the antitumor effect of Irinotecan by PHY-906 in a well-characterized pre-clinical model; PHY-906 and Irinotecan were administered orally to female BDF-1 mice bearing subcutaneous Colon 38 tumors. We observed that 1) individually PHY-906 and Irinotecan induce distinct alterations in tumor, liver and spleen; 2) PHY-906 alone predominantly induces repression of transcription and immune-suppression in tumors; 3) these effects are reverted in the presence of Irinotecan, with prevalent induction of pro-apoptotic and pro-inflammatory pathways that may favor tumor rejection. Most importantly, PHY-906 together with Irinotecan triggers unique changes not activated by each one alone suggesting that the combination creates a unique tissue-specific response.
Project description:Desmoplastic small round cell tumor (DSRCT) is a rare and incurable malignancy characterized by the oncogenic EWSR1-WT1 transcription factor. This study exploited a novel DSRCT patient-derived xenograft (PDX), which reproduces histomorphological and molecular characteristics of the paired clinical tumor, to comparatively assess the activity of cytotoxic and targeted anticancer agents. Anti-tumor effect was moderate for single-agent doxorubicin, pazopanib and larotrectenib [maximum tumor volume inhibition (max TVI): 55-66%] while trabectedin had a higher effect (max TVI: 82%). Single-agent vinorelbine, irinotecan and eribulin achieved a nearly complete tumor growth inhibition (max TVI: 96-98%), although tumors started to re-growth after the end of treatment. Combination of irinotecan with either eribulin or trabectedin resulted in complete responses which were maintained until the end of the experiment for irinotecan plus trabectedin. Irinotecan-based combinations almost completely abrogated the expression of proteins involved in the G2/M checkpoint preventing cell entrance in mitosis and induced apoptotic and necroptotic cell death. This study emphasizes the importance of patient-derived pre-clinical models to explore new treatments in DSRCT and fosters clinical investigation in the activity of irinotecan plus trabectedin.
Project description:Desmoplastic small round cell tumor (DSRCT) is a rare and incurable malignancy characterized by the oncogenic EWSR1-WT1 transcription factor. This study exploited a novel DSRCT patient-derived xenograft (PDX), which reproduces histomorphological and molecular characteristics of the paired clinical tumor, to comparatively assess the activity of cytotoxic and targeted anticancer agents. Anti-tumor effect was moderate for single-agent doxorubicin, pazopanib and larotrectenib [maximum tumor volume inhibition (max TVI): 55-66%] while trabectedin had a higher effect (max TVI: 82%). Single-agent vinorelbine, irinotecan and eribulin achieved a nearly complete tumor growth inhibition (max TVI: 96-98%), although tumors started to re-growth after the end of treatment. Combination of irinotecan with either eribulin or trabectedin resulted in complete responses which were maintained until the end of the experiment for irinotecan plus trabectedin. Irinotecan-based combinations almost completely abrogated the expression of proteins involved in the G2/M checkpoint preventing cell entrance in mitosis and induced apoptotic and necroptotic cell death. This study emphasizes the importance of patient-derived pre-clinical models to explore new treatments in DSRCT and fosters clinical investigation in the activity of irinotecan plus trabectedin.
Project description:Advanced colorectal cancer (CRC) is an unresolved clinical problem. Epigenetic drugs belonging to the group of histone deacetylase inhibitors (HDACi) may combat CRC in rationally designed treatment schedules. Unfortunately, there is sparse evidence on molecular mechanisms and markers that determine cellular sensitivity to HDACi. Irinotecan is widely used to treat CRC and causes replication stress (RS) and DNA damage as topoisomerase-I inhibitor. We applied irinotecan and the class I HDACi entinostat (MS-275) to isogenic p53-positive and -negative CRC cells. Combinations of irinotecan and MS-275 evoke mitochondrial damage, caspase-mediated apoptosis, and RS-associated DNA damage synergistically and p53-dependently. Targeted mass spectrometry and immunoblot show that irinotecan induces phosphorylation, acetylation, and accumulation of p53 and its target genes. Addition of MS-275 augments the irinotecan-induced acetylation of C-terminal lysine residues of p53 but decreases its phosphorylation and p53 target gene induction. Furthermore, MS-275 increases the amount of acetylated p53 at mitochondria and dysregulates the expression of pro- and anti-apoptotic BCL2 proteins in irinotecan-treated cells. Regarding DNA repair, we see that MS-275 represses the homologous recombination (HR) filament protein RAD51, which limits DNA damage and pro-apoptotic effects of irinotecan. These data suggest that key class I HDAC-dependent functions of p53 in cells with RS are linked to mitochondrial damage and a breakdown of HR. Most importantly, combinations of irinotecan plus MS-275 also kill short-term primary CRC cell cultures and organoids from CRC patients but spare organoids of adjacent matched normal tissue. Thus, irinotecan/HDACi treatment is a promising new approach for the therapy of p53-proficient tumors with clinically tractable inhibitors.
Project description:Light initiates the seedling deetiolation transition by promoting major changes in gene expression mainly regulated by phytochrome (phy) photoreceptors. During the initial dark-to-light transition, phy photoactivation induces rapid changes in gene expression that eventually lead to the photomorphogenic development. Recent reports indicate that this process is achieved by phy-induced degradation of Phy-Interacting bHLH transcription Factors (PIFs) PIF1, PIF3 PIF4 and PIF5, which are partly redundant constitutive repressors of photomorphogenesis that accumulate in darkness. In order to test whether light/phy-regulated gene expression occurs through these PIFs, we have performed whole-genome expression analysis in the pif1pif3pif4pif5 quadruple mutant (pifq).
Project description:Eribulin, irinotecan, and the combination were studied in ES4 xenograft model. RNAs from xenograft tumors were harvested at 24h and 144h after single agent or combination treatment to analyze gene expression.