Gli activation by the estrogen receptor in breast cancer cells: Regulation of cancer cell growth by Gli3

Identification of novel molecular subtypes to improve the classification framework of nasopharyngeal carcinoma

BACKGROUND

Nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) treatment is largely based on a 'one-drug-fits-all' strategy in patients with similar pathological characteristics. However, given its biological heterogeneity, patients at the same clinical stage or similar therapies exhibit significant clinical differences. Thus, novel molecular subgroups based on these characteristics may better therapeutic outcomes.

METHODS

Herein, 192 treatment-naïve NPC samples with corresponding clinicopathological information were obtained from Fujian Cancer Hospital between January 2015 and January 2018. The gene expression profiles of the samples were obtained by RNA sequencing. Molecular subtypes were identified by consensus clustering. External NPC cohorts were used as the validation sets.

RESULTS

Patients with NPC were classified into immune, metabolic, and proliferative molecular subtypes with distinct clinical features. Additionally, this classification was repeatable and predictable as validated by the external NPC cohorts. Metabolomics has shown that arachidonic acid metabolites were associated with NPC malignancy. We also identified several key genes in each subtype using a weighted correlation network analysis. Furthermore, a prognostic risk model based on these key genes was developed and was significantly associated with disease-free survival (hazard ratio, 1.11; 95% CI, 1.07-1.16; P < 0.0001), which was further validated by an external NPC cohort (hazard ratio, 7.71; 95% CI, 1.39-42.73; P < 0.0001). Moreover, the 1-, 3-, and 5-year areas under the curve were 0.84 (95% CI, 0.74-0.94), 0.81 (95% CI, 0.73-0.89), and 0.82 (95% CI, 0.73-0.90), respectively, demonstrating a high predictive value.

CONCLUSIONS

Overall, we defined a novel classification of nasopharyngeal carcinoma (immune, metabolism, and proliferation subtypes). Among these subtypes, metabolism and proliferation subtypes were associated with advanced stage and poor prognosis of NPC patients, whereas the immune subtype was linked to early stage and favorable prognosis.

DriverMP enables improved identification of cancer driver genes

BACKGROUND

Cancer is widely regarded as a complex disease primarily driven by genetic mutations. A critical concern and significant obstacle lies in discerning driver genes amid an extensive array of passenger genes.

FINDINGS

We present a new method termed DriverMP for effectively prioritizing altered genes on a cancer-type level by considering mutated gene pairs. It is designed to first apply nonsilent somatic mutation data, protein‒protein interaction network data, and differential gene expression data to prioritize mutated gene pairs, and then individual mutated genes are prioritized based on prioritized mutated gene pairs. Application of this method in 10 cancer datasets from The Cancer Genome Atlas demonstrated its great improvements over all the compared state-of-the-art methods in identifying known driver genes. Then, a comprehensive analysis demonstrated the reliability of the novel driver genes that are strongly supported by clinical experiments, disease enrichment, or biological pathway analysis.

CONCLUSIONS

The new method, DriverMP, which is able to identify driver genes by effectively integrating the advantages of multiple kinds of cancer data, is available at https://github.com/LiuYangyangSDU/DriverMP. In addition, we have developed a novel driver gene database for 10 cancer types and an online service that can be freely accessed without registration for users. The DriverMP method, the database of novel drivers, and the user-friendly online server are expected to contribute to new diagnostic and therapeutic opportunities for cancers.

Gender-related differentially expressed genes in pancreatic cancer: possible culprits or accomplices?

Pancreatic cancer (PC) is one of the leading causes of cancer mortality worldwide, and its incidence and mortality rate in several regions is higher in male patients. Although numerous efforts have been made to enhance the clinical outcomes of existing therapeutic regimens, their efficiency is still low, and drug resistance usually occurs in many patients. In addition, the exact underlying molecular basis that makes PC slightly more prevalent among males remains unknown. Providing information regarding the possible association between gender and PC tumorigenesis may offer important clues for how certain molecular cross-talks can affect PC initiation and/or progression. In this study, we used several microarray expression data to identify the common up- and downregulated genes within one specific gender, which were also specified to have binding sites for androgen and/or estrogen receptors. Using functional enrichment analysis among the others, for all the gene sets found in this study, we have shed light on the plausible importance of the androgenic effectors in tumorigenesis, such as the androgen-regulated expression of the GLI transcription factor and the potential role of testosterone in the extracellular matrix (ECM)–cell interaction, which are known for their importance in tumorigenesis. Moreover, we demonstrated that the biological process axon guidance was highlighted regarding the upregulated genes in male patients. Overall, identification of gene candidates as the possible link between gender and PC progression or survival rates may help in developing strategies to reduce the incidence of this cancer.

Resveratrol inhibits TRAF6/PTCH/SMO signal and regulates prostate cancer progression

Prostate cancer (PC) is one of the most common types of cancers among men, referring to the uncontrolled growth of the prostate gland. It is increasingly recognized that the interaction of the glioma-associated oncogene (GLI) pathway and androgen receptor affects PC progression. Nevertheless, the effects of resveratrol on PC progression via Hedgehog (HH) signaling remain unexplored. In this study, the castration-sensitive and castration-resistant xenograft models in mice are systematically established using two different PC cell lines (LNCaP and PC-3). Further, the Western blotting, immunohistochemistry, MTT, Transwell, and RT-qPCR analyses are performed to verify the mechanistic views of resveratrol on PC and HH signals in vitro and in vivo. Resveratrol showed epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) progression, inhibiting the tumor size and expression levels of vimentin, vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), and matrix metalloproteinases (MMP) 7, as well as upregulating the expression profiles the E-cadherin and Annexin 2. Moreover, resveratrol inhibited the hedgehog (HH) signals and tumor necrosis factor receptor (TNFR)-associated factor 6 (TRAF6) levels exhibiting the therapeutic action on castration-sensitive and castration-resistant PC cell lines. In summary, the overexpression of TRAF6 enhanced the viability and EMT progression of cancer cells. The resveratrol could alleviate the TRAF6 effect and regulate the HH signal to affect PC progression.

Supplementary Information

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s10616-022-00544-0.

Bone Marrow Mesenchymal Stem Cells (BMSCs)-Derived miR-206 Promotes Breast Cancer Development by Activating Hedgehog Gene Signaling

Bone marrow-derived mesenchymal stem cells (BMSCs) are an integral part of the tumor microenvironment and involved in tumor evolution. Our aim is to further illuminate the relationship of exosomes of BMSC origin and breast cancer cells in breast cancer. Differential diagnosis was performed by identifying exosomal miR-206 secreted by BMSCs, and RT-PCR detected miR-206 expression in tumor tissues. Transwell assayed cell function and Target scan analyzed the regulatory relationship between Rab23 and miR-206. Rab23 expression was examined by western-blot after the addition of Rab23 and the effect of Rab23 on hedgehog was further verified. We demonstrated that exosomal miR-206 from BMSCs is expressed in tumor tissues and miR-206 mimics significantly inhibited tumor cell invasion and proliferation. miR-206 targets Rab23 and negatively regulates its expression. Further results showed that the addition of Rab23 could activate hedgehog signaling and promote the development of breast cancer. In conclusion, our study reveals that BMSC-derived miR-206 activates hedgehog gene signaling and promotes the breast carcinogenesis development by regulating Rab23 expression.

Embryonic Programs in Cancer and Metastasis—Insights From the Mammary Gland

Cancer is characterized as a reversion of a differentiated cell to a primitive cell state that recapitulates, in many aspects, features of embryonic cells. This review explores the current knowledge of developmental mechanisms that are essential for embryonic mouse mammary gland development, with a particular focus on genes and signaling pathway components that are essential for the induction, morphogenesis, and lineage specification of the mammary gland. The roles of these same genes and signaling pathways in mammary gland or breast tumorigenesis and metastasis are then summarized. Strikingly, key embryonic developmental pathways are often reactivated or dysregulated during tumorigenesis and metastasis in processes such as aberrant proliferation, epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition (EMT), and stem cell potency which affects cellular lineage hierarchy. These observations are in line with findings from recent studies using lineage tracing as well as bulk- and single-cell transcriptomics that have uncovered features of embryonic cells in cancer and metastasis through the identification of cell types, cell states and characterisation of their dynamic changes. Given the many overlapping features and similarities of the molecular signatures of normal development and cancer, embryonic molecular signatures could be useful prognostic markers for cancer. In this way, the study of embryonic development will continue to complement the understanding of the mechanisms of cancer and aid in the discovery of novel therapeutic targets and strategies.