Project description:Heredity is a major cause of ovarian cancer. Lynch syndrome is associated with 10-12% risk of ovarian cancer, diagnosis at young age and a predilection for endometrioid and clear cell tumors. Global gene expression profiling applied to 25 Lynch syndrome-associated and 42 sporadic ovarian cancers revealed 335 differentially expressed genes and involvement of the mTOR and the MAPK/ERK pathways. The clear cell tumors had distinct expression profiles with upregulation of HER2 and apoptosis signaling pathways. The distinct expression profiles provide clues relevant for hereditary tumorigenesis and may be relevant for therapeutic strategies and refined diagnostics in ovarian cancer linked to Lynch syndrome. Ovarian cancers linked to Lynch syndrome (n=25) were compared to a matched series of sporadic ovarian cancers (n=42), selected from a population-based consecutive series in which hereditary was excluded based on family history, normal MMR protein staining and lack of mutations in BRCA1 and BRCA2.
Project description:Heredity is a major cause of ovarian cancer. Lynch syndrome is associated with 10-12% risk of ovarian cancer, diagnosis at young age and a predilection for endometrioid and clear cell tumors. Global gene expression profiling applied to 25 Lynch syndrome-associated and 42 sporadic ovarian cancers revealed 335 differentially expressed genes and involvement of the mTOR and the MAPK/ERK pathways. The clear cell tumors had distinct expression profiles with upregulation of HER2 and apoptosis signaling pathways. The distinct expression profiles provide clues relevant for hereditary tumorigenesis and may be relevant for therapeutic strategies and refined diagnostics in ovarian cancer linked to Lynch syndrome.
Project description:Lynch syndrome and Familial colorectal cancer type X (FCCTX) are clinically diagnosed using the same criteria, but genomic differences exist between these two groups and the genomic profiles share similarities with their sporadic counterparts, mismatch repair (MMR) deficient and proficient tumors, respectively. Array-based comparative genomic hybridization was performed on 91 tumors, comprising 23 Lynch syndrome (AH), 23 FCCTX (AA), 23 sporadic MMR deficient (AM) and 22 sporadic MMR proficient tumors, in order to identify differences between Lynch syndrome and FCCTX.
Project description:Transcriptional profiling of human mesenchymal stem cells comparing normoxic MSCs cells with hypoxic MSCs cells. Hypoxia may inhibit senescence of MSCs during expansion. Goal was to determine the effects of hypoxia on global MSCs gene expression.
Project description:Colorectal carcinomas arising in the context of Lynch syndrome, the most common inherited cancer syndrome, typically show deficiency of the DNA MMR (mismatch repair) system. Lack of functional MMR leads to accumulation of frameshift mutations at micosatellites (microsatellite instability, MSI). High load of highly immunogenic tumor-specific frameshift neoantigens results in strong immune response against Lynch syndrome MSI cancers. Previous studies have shown systemic immune responses against frameshift neoantigens in Lynch syndrome carriers long before tumor manifestation. In the present study, we analyzed the immune profile of normal colorectal mucosa in Lynch syndrome carriers without current or previous cancer history and in Lynch syndrome colorectal cancer patients, as well as of Lynch syndrome colorectal carcinomas. The unsupervised cluster analysis of gene expression data revealed a sharp differentiation between normal mucosa from Lynch syndrome individuals with and without manifest cancer as well as between normal mucosa in general and Lynch syndrome cancer tissue. Deconvolution analysis for predicting the prevalence of immune cell population among the three groups revealed 10 out of 14 investigated populations to be significantly different between the three tissue types (FDR=10%). In contrast to normal mucosa samples, tumor tissue showed overrepresentation of immune-suppressive cell populations, such as regulatory T cells and neutrophils. Taken together with the quantitative T cell density analysis on the basis of immunohistochemical T cell stainings, our data show strong immune infiltration of the normal colorectal mucosa in Lynch syndrome individuals even in the absence of a manifest cancer.
Project description:Gene methylation profiling of immortalized human mesenchymal stem cells comparing HPV E6/E7-transfected MSCs cells with human telomerase reverse transcriptase (hTERT)- and HPV E6/E7-transfected MSCs. hTERT may increase gene methylation in MSCs. Goal was to determine the effects of different transfected genes on global gene methylation in MSCs.
Project description:We aimed to provide a molecular description of Lynch syndrome-associated urothelial cancer in relation to molecular subtypes of sporadic bladder cancer. Whole genome mRNA expression profiles of 41 tumors and immunohistochemical stainings against FGFR3, KRT5, CCNB1, RB1, and CDKN2A (p16) of 37 tumors from Lynch syndrome patients were generated. Pathological data, microsatellite instability, anatomic location, and overall survival data was analyzed and compared with data from sporadic bladder cancer.