Project description:The aim of this research was to identify miRNAs that are associated with neoadjuvant hormonal therapy resisitance in prostate cancer.
Project description:Men with clinically localized prostate cancer were treated with 0 to 9 months of neoadjuvant hormone suppression prior to prostatectomy. Keywords: microarray, hormone, 9 men with prostate cancer were assigned to neoadjuvant hormone suppression therapy for 3-6, 6, or 0 months.
Project description:Men with clinically localized prostate cancer were treated with 0 to 9 months of neoadjuvant hormone suppression prior to prostatectomy. Keywords: microarray, hormone,
Project description:Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) has dismal five-year survival (<9%). We examined the impact of neoadjuvant FOLFIRINOX alone or in combination with radiation therapy (conventional radiotherapy, XRT, or stereotactic body radiotherapy, SBRT) on immunologically relevant genes in the PDAC tumor microenvironment (TME). We hypothesize conventional therapies may induce immune alterations in the TME that can be leveraged to enhance the efficacy of immunotherapy in PDAC. PDAC patients who underwent upfront surgical resection or who received neoadjuvant FOLFIRINOX with or without neoadjuvant radiotherapy followed by surgical resection were selected for study. The expression of 730 immunologically relevant transcripts was quantitated using the Nanostring PanCancer immune profiling panel (Platform GPL19965). This analysis identified189 genes that were differentially expressed at the RNA level on the basis of neoadjuvant therapy. On average specimens were obtained 6.6-17.0 weeks after the conclusion of neoadjuvant therapy, depending on treatment group. These data provide insight into the immunological effects of standard of care neoadjuvant therapy for resectable/borderline-resectable PDAC. This work provides data to guide strategic new combination therapies for pancreatic cancer.
Project description:Neoadjuvant therapy has been shown to improve survival for locally advanced esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC). However, some cases may acquire therapy resistance and the mechanism is still unclear. Here, we applied single-cell RNA sequencing on 7 ESCC patients with neoadjuvant therapy and 2 ESCC patients underwent general surgery alone to delineate the tumor heterogeneity, tumor microenvironment (TME) and potential hallmarks of therapy resistance. In total, 13 tumor cell lineages and its corresponding lineage-specific gene signatures, pathway activities, and transcription factors were identified, representing different mechanisms and hallmarks of neoadjuvant therapy resistance, such as oxidative stress response, hypoxia, DNA repair, ECM and EMT. Typically, tumor cell lineage Ep-C2 with signatures of oxidative stress response showed the strongest resistance to neoadjuvant therapy, particularly under chemoradiotherapy and immunotherapy combination. Excepting for the resistance mechanisms associated with tumor cell lineages, we also investigated three TME characteristics response to neoadjuvant therapy resistance, including the infiltration of cytotoxic-insufficient GZMK+ effector memory T cells, angiogenesis-promoting effect of myeloid lineages and the cell-cell communication of tumor-associated fibroblasts. These hallmarks of neoadjuvant therapy will help us to understand the therapy resistance in ESCC and provide important clues to identify potential targets to improve therapy sensitivity.
Project description:To examine the effect of hormonal therapy on otoconial changes caused by estrogen deficiency, we dissected the utricle and extracted its total RNA. We performed gene expression analysis using data obtained from RNA-seq of four groups.
Project description:There is a great need of non-invasive tools that inform of an early molecular response to cancer therapeutic treatment. Here, we have tested the hypothesis that proteolytically resistant proteins could be candidate circulating tumor biomarkers for cancer therapy. Proteins resistant to proteolysis are drastically under-sampled by current proteomic workflows. These proteins could be reliable sensors for the response to therapy since they are likely to stay longer in circulation. We selected Manganese superoxide dismutase (SOD2), a mitochondrial redox enzyme, from a screening of proteolytic resistant proteins in breast cancer (BC). First, we confirmed the robustness of SOD2 and determined that its proteolytic resistance is mediated by its quaternary protein structure. We also proved that the release of SOD2 upon chemotherapy treatment correlates with cell death in BC cells. Then, after confirming that SOD2 is very stable in human serum, we sought to measure its circulating levels in a cohort of BC patients undergoing neoadjuvant therapy. The results showed that circulating levels of SOD2 increased when patients respond to the treatment according to the tumor shrinkage during neoadjuvant chemotherapy. Therefore, the measurement of SOD2 levels in plasma could improve the non-invasive monitoring of the therapeutic treatment in breast cancer patients. The identification of circulating biomarkers linked to the tumor cell death induced by treatment could be a useful for monitoring the action of the large number of cancer drugs currently used in the clinic. We envision that our approach could help uncover candidate tumor biomarkers to measure a tumor’s response to cancer therapy in real time by sampling the tumor throughout the course of treatment.