Project description:Analysis of peripheral circulating mRNA expression levels in patients undergoing neoadjuvant chemoradiation for esophageal squamous cell carcinoma. The hypothesis test was that chemoradiation alters the circulating mRNA expression profiles and the profiling is predictive of pathological response. Results provide information on the response of circulating mRNAs to chemoradiation and identify novel biomarkers or targets in esophageal squamous cell carcinoma. Total RNA obtained from peripheral whole blood before and after neoadjuvant chemoradiation in patients with esophageal squamous cell carcinoma. 21 patients with 42 samples were analyzed. The expression profiles from pathological complete responders were compared to non-complete responders.
Project description:Patients undergoing pancreatic resection at William Beaumont Hospital (Royal Oak, MI) were consented prior to surgery with local IRB oversight. Samples were collected at time of surgery and stored at -80°C according to CAP (College of American Pathologist)-accredited standard operating procedures. Disease pathology of frozen samples was validated with hematoxylin and eosin stained tissue sections from adjacently collected formalin fixed paraffin embedded tissue. The objective of this study was to examine the gene expression patterns of pancreatic adenocarcinoma treated with neoadjuvant chemoradiotherapy compared to pancreatic adenocarcinoma that had not under gone neoadjuvant treatment. The results of this study demonstrate that neoadjuvant therapy alters the gene expression of pancreatic adenocarcinoma
Project description:Background and Purpose: The current standard of care for locally advanced esophageal and gastroesophageal junctional cancer is neoadjuvant chemoradiation (NCRT) followed by surgery. The genomic and proteomic pathways responsible for response to neoadjuvant chemoradiation are sparsely described, and thus response to treatment cannot be reliably predicted. In this study, we performed an in-depth proteomic analysis of esophageal and gastroesophageal tumors, to describe differences in pathway activation between patients with good and poor prognosis following neoadjuvant chemoradiation. Materials and Methods: This study included locally advanced esophageal and gastroesophageal cancer patients treated with NCRT. The study cohort was dichotomized into two groups of patients- good prognosis (GP) and bad prognosis (BP) according to the post-operative disease-free interval. We performed a mass spectrometry analysis of proteins extracted from the malignant regions of surgical specimens and analyzed data from electronic medical records. Clinical data was correlated with differences in protein expression between GP and BP using validated gene expression pathways. Results: The study included thirty-five patients with adenocarcinoma. GP and BP had statistically significant differences in protein expression patterns. GP exhibited differential enrichment of pathways related to cellular respiration, oxidative phosphorylation and proteins of the RAS oncogene family. Conclusion: In this study we identify enrichment of pathways related to oxidative phosphorylation and RAS oncogene pathway in esophageal cancer patients with a favorable response to NCRT. Larger transcriptomic studies are warranted to portray potential surrogate signature of biomarkers based upon these potential pathways.
Project description:Kynureninase is a member of a large family of catalytically diverse but structurally homologous pyridoxal 5'-phosphate (PLP) dependent enzymes known as the aspartate aminotransferase superfamily or alpha-family. The Homo sapiens and other eukaryotic constitutive kynureninases preferentially catalyze the hydrolytic cleavage of 3-hydroxy-l-kynurenine to produce 3-hydroxyanthranilate and l-alanine, while l-kynurenine is the substrate of many prokaryotic inducible kynureninases. The human enzyme was cloned with an N-terminal hexahistidine tag, expressed, and purified from a bacterial expression system using Ni metal ion affinity chromatography. Kinetic characterization of the recombinant enzyme reveals classic Michaelis-Menten behavior, with a Km of 28.3 +/- 1.9 microM and a specific activity of 1.75 micromol min-1 mg-1 for 3-hydroxy-dl-kynurenine. Crystals of recombinant kynureninase that diffracted to 2.0 A were obtained, and the atomic structure of the PLP-bound holoenzyme was determined by molecular replacement using the Pseudomonas fluorescens kynureninase structure (PDB entry 1qz9) as the phasing model. A structural superposition with the P. fluorescens kynureninase revealed that these two structures resemble the "open" and "closed" conformations of aspartate aminotransferase. The comparison illustrates the dynamic nature of these proteins' small domains and reveals a role for Arg-434 similar to its role in other AAT alpha-family members. Docking of 3-hydroxy-l-kynurenine into the human kynureninase active site suggests that Asn-333 and His-102 are involved in substrate binding and molecular discrimination between inducible and constitutive kynureninase substrates.
Project description:Analysis of peripheral circulating mRNA expression levels in patients undergoing neoadjuvant chemoradiation for esophageal squamous cell carcinoma. The hypothesis test was that chemoradiation alters the circulating mRNA expression profiles and the profiling is predictive of pathological response. Results provide information on the response of circulating mRNAs to chemoradiation and identify novel biomarkers or targets in esophageal squamous cell carcinoma.
Project description:41 lung adenocarcinoma from never-smokers hybridized on Illumina SNP arrays on 13 HumanCNV370-Quadv3 chips. High-resolution array comparative genomic hybridization analysis of lung adenocarcinoma in 41 never smokers for identification of new minimal common regions (MCR) of gain or loss. The SNP array analysis validated copy-number aberrations and revealed that RB1 and WRN were altered by recurrent copy-neutral loss of heterozygosity.The present study has uncovered new aberrations containing cancer genes. The oncogene FUS is a candidate gene in the 16p region that is frequently gained in never smokers. Multiple genetic pathways defined by gains of MYC, deletions of RB1 and WRN or gains on 7p and 7q are involved in lung adenocarcinoma in never smokers. A 'Cartes d'Identite des Tumeurs' (CIT) project from the French National League Against Cancer (http://cit.ligue-cancer.net) 41 samples hybridized on Illumina SNP arrays. Submitter : Fabien PETEL petelf@ligue-cancer.net . Project leader : Pr Pierre FOURET pierre.fouret@psl.aphp.fr
Project description:Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) has a poor prognosis with very frequent post-surgical local recurrence. The combination of adjuvant chemotherapy with radiotherapy is under consideration to achieve a prolonged disease-free survival (DFS). To date, few studies have determined protein profiles that are associated with responsiveness to adjuvant chemoradiation. Here, we analyzed the proteomes of primary, surgically resected PDAC tumors subjected to adjuvant chemoradiation and achieving short DFS (median DFS of 6 months, n = 6) or a prolonged DFS (median DFS of 28 months, n = 6) using liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry.