Project description:<p>Formation of metastases is the major cause of cancer related deaths. Recent studies have sequenced primary endometrial carcinomas yielding data for a single entity in the progression from the birth of a progenitor tumor cell to metastatic disease. However, the progression of these tumors to metastases has not been characterized. We performed whole-exome sequencing of 98 tumor biopsies including complex atypical hyperplasias, primary tumors and paired abdominopelvic metastases to survey the evolutionary landscape of endometrial cancer. We expanded and reanalyzed TCGA-data, identifying novel recurrent alterations in primary tumors, including mutations in the estrogen receptor cofactor <i>NRIP1</i> in 12% of patients. We found that likely driver events tended to be shared by primary and metastatic tissue-samples, with notable exceptions such as <i>ARID1A</i> mutations. Phylogenetic analyses in cases with multiple metastases indicated these metastases typically arose from one lineage of the primary tumor. These data indicate extensive genetic heterogeneity within endometrial cancers and relative homogeneity across metastatic sites.</p>
Project description:The Illumina Infinium 450k Human DNA methylation Beadchip was used to obtain DNA methylation profiles across approximately 480,000 CpGs in a total of 96 samples, including 8 hyperplasias, 33 endometrial cancers and 53 metastases, as well as 2 cell-lines. Bisulphite converted DNA from the 96 samples were hybridised to the Illumina Infinium 450k Human Methylation Beadchip
Project description:The Illumina Infinium 450k Human DNA methylation Beadchip was used to obtain DNA methylation profiles across approximately 480,000 CpGs in a total of 96 samples, including 8 hyperplasias, 33 endometrial cancers and 53 metastases, as well as 2 cell-lines.
Project description:Metastatic dissemination is the most frequent cause of death sporadic colorectal cancer (sCRC) patients. The genomic abnormalities which are potentially characteristic of such advanced stages of the disease are complex and so far, they have been poorly described and only partially understood. We evaluate the molecular heterogeneity of sCRC tumors based on simultaneous assessment of the overall GEP of both coding mRNA and non-coding RNA genes in primary sCRC tumor samples from 23 consecutive patients and their paired liver metastases. Liver metastases from the sCRC patients analyzed, systematically showed deregulated transcripts of those genes identified as also deregulated in their paired primary colorectal carcinomas. However, some transcripts were found to be specifically deregulated in liver metastases while expressed at normal levels in their primary tumors, suggesting an increased genomic instability of neoplastic cells from metastatic versus primary tumor samples. Of note, once tumoral samples were normalized vs. non-tumoral colorectal tissue, only three mRNAS (i.e.: DEFB1, COL12A and PTGER3) and one miRNA (i.e.: miR-572) emerged as significantly deregulated in the liver metastases vs. the primary tumor. Canonical pathways found to be specifically deregulated in liver metastatic samples included multiple genes related with intercellular adhesion and the metastatic processes (e.g., IGF1R, PIK3CA, PTEN and EGFR), endocytosis (e.g., the PDGFRA, SMAD2, ERBB3, PML and FGFR2), and cell cycle (e.g., SMAD2, CCND2, E2F5 and MYC). Our results also highlight the activation of genes associated with the TGFβ signaling pathway, which thereby emerge as candidate genes to play an important role in CRC tumor metastasis.
Project description:Metastatic dissemination is the most frequent cause of death sporadic colorectal cancer (sCRC) patients. The genomic abnormalities which are potentially characteristic of such advanced stages of the disease are complex and so far, they have been poorly described and only partially understood. We evaluate the molecular heterogeneity of sCRC tumors based on simultaneous assessment of the overall GEP of both coding mRNA and non-coding RNA genes in primary sCRC tumor samples from 23 consecutive patients and their paired liver metastases. Liver metastases from the sCRC patients analyzed, systematically showed deregulated transcripts of those genes identified as also deregulated in their paired primary colorectal carcinomas. However, some transcripts were found to be specifically deregulated in liver metastases while expressed at normal levels in their primary tumors, suggesting an increased genomic instability of neoplastic cells from metastatic versus primary tumor samples. Of note, once tumoral samples were normalized vs. non-tumoral colorectal tissue, only three mRNAS (i.e.: DEFB1, COL12A and PTGER3) and one miRNA (i.e.: miR-572) emerged as significantly deregulated in the liver metastases vs. the primary tumor. Canonical pathways found to be specifically deregulated in liver metastatic samples included multiple genes related with intercellular adhesion and the metastatic processes (e.g., IGF1R, PIK3CA, PTEN and EGFR), endocytosis (e.g., the PDGFRA, SMAD2, ERBB3, PML and FGFR2), and cell cycle (e.g., SMAD2, CCND2, E2F5 and MYC). Our results also highlight the activation of genes associated with the TGFβ signaling pathway, which thereby emerge as candidate genes to play an important role in CRC tumor metastasis.
Project description:Endometrial cancer (EC) is the most common female genital malignancy and the fourth most common cancer in women in the developing world1. EC has been traditionally classified into two main groups with different clinical, pathological and molecular features2,3. Type I or endometrioid endometrial carcinomas (EECs) account for about 75% of the cases and are typically estrogen-related and low-grade tumors with good prognosis that coexist or are preceded by endometrial hyperplasia, mainly diagnosed in perimenopausal women. In contrast, type II or non-endometrioid endometrial carcinomas (NEECs) are high-grade aggressive tumors associated with endometrial atrophy and poor prognosis, unrelated to estrogen and diagnosed in older women. These comprise several histological subtypes, being the most common the serous carcinomas (SEC)4. In recent years numerous large-scale studies of primary endometrioid and serous tumors have been performed5, revealing new mutated genes and establishing a new molecular subclassification based on the results obtained by The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) consortium6, which implies different clinical outcomes. More recently, the genomic evolution of EC has been analyzed through a comparative study of samples from endometrial atypical hyperplasia, primary tumors and paired metastases7, revealing the presence of intratumor heterogeneity as previously described in primary EC and other tumor types8,9. However an in-depth study considering multiple regions from primary tumor and paired metastases has not been performed up to now to our knowledge. Here we analyze by whole-exome sequencing (WES), massive parallel targeted sequencing and array comparative genomic hybridization (aCGH) the clonal evolution and intratumor heterogeneity of 7 endometrioid and 3 serous metastatic endometrial carcinomas. Different locations from the primary tumor as well as from their paired metastases were included in the study, allowing the reconstruction of the spatial and temporal phylogenetic evolution of the tumor. Different phylogenetic evolution patterns were identified, independently of the classical histological or molecular classification of the tumor, although similar patterns were found in ovarian metastasis and recurrent disease.