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Yang X, Yang X, Tang H, Chen X, Wang J, Zhao H. Characterization of stem cell landscape and identification of stemness-relevant prognostic gene signature to aid immunotherapy in breast cancer. Discov Oncol 2025; 16:9. [PMID: 39755992 DOI: 10.1007/s12672-025-01742-w] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/17/2024] [Accepted: 01/01/2025] [Indexed: 01/07/2025] Open
Abstract
A common digestive system cancer with a dismal prognosis and a high death rate globally is breast cancer (BRCA). BRCA recurrence, metastasis, and medication resistance are all significantly impacted by cancer stem cells (CSCs). However, the relationship between CSCs and the tumor microenvironment in BRCA individuals remains unknown, and this information is critically needed. Our research utilized bioinformatics techniques and TCGA data to explore the complex relationship between CSCs and BRCA development. We identified 26 stem cell gene sets from the Stem Checker database and classified BRCA samples into stemness subtypes using consensus clustering. Prognosis, tumor microenvironment (TME) elements, and treatment responses varied across subtypes. Using LASSO, Cox regression, and differential expression analysis, we developed a stemness-risk model. BRCA patients were divided into two groups (Cluster A and Cluster B). Cluster B exhibited an improved prognosis, higher PIK3CA mutation frequency, and increased levels of CD8 T cells and regulatory Tregs. A 5-gene stemness model was constructed, showing that higher stemness scores correlated with poorer prognosis. The model was validated using the METABRIC cohort data from cBioPortal. Our findings identify two stemness-related subgroups with distinct prognoses and TME patterns. Further experimental validation is necessary before this model can be considered for clinical application.
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Affiliation(s)
- Xiaozhou Yang
- Department of General Surgery, The Second Affiliated Hospital of the Air Force Medical University, Xi'an, 710038, China
| | - Xiaojun Yang
- Department of General Surgery, The Second Affiliated Hospital of the Air Force Medical University, Xi'an, 710038, China
| | - Haili Tang
- Department of General Surgery, The Second Affiliated Hospital of the Air Force Medical University, Xi'an, 710038, China
| | - Xin Chen
- Department of General Surgery, The Second Affiliated Hospital of the Air Force Medical University, Xi'an, 710038, China
| | - Jiangang Wang
- Department of General Surgery, The Second Affiliated Hospital of the Air Force Medical University, Xi'an, 710038, China
| | - Huadong Zhao
- Department of General Surgery, The Second Affiliated Hospital of the Air Force Medical University, Xi'an, 710038, China.
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2
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Chida K, Wu R, Roy AM, Ishikawa T, Hakamada K, Takabe K. DEPTH2 score was associated with cell proliferation and immune cell infiltrations but not with systemic treatment response in breast cancer. RESEARCH SQUARE 2024:rs.3.rs-5260856. [PMID: 39606492 PMCID: PMC11601872 DOI: 10.21203/rs.3.rs-5260856/v1] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/29/2024]
Abstract
Intratumoral genomic heterogeneity (ITGH), the existence of genotypic and phenotypic variation within an individual tumor, is known to be a key mechanism in treatment resistance. Deviating gene Expression Profiling Tumor Heterogeneity 2 (DEPTH2) algorithm was developed to estimate ITGH using solely RNA expression data unlike the others that require both DNA- and RNA-expression data. Total of 6,500 breast cancer patients from multiple independent cohorts were analyzed using DEPTH2. High DEPTH2 score patients were associated with worse overall survival consistently across all subtypes in METABRIC, but not in TCGA and SCAN-B cohort. Higher DEPTH2 score was linked to increased cell proliferation, as evidenced by elevated Nottingham histological grades and Ki67 gene expression, as well as enrichment of the cell proliferation-related gene sets, and immune cell infiltrations. DEPTH2 score was significantly higher in triple negative breast cancer among the subtypes but did not reflect with lymph node and distal metastasis. DEPTH2 scores decreased in two but showed no change in another two cohorts after neoadjuvant chemotherapy (NAC). DEPTH2 score was not associated with pathologic complete response after NAC in any subtypes across 3 cohorts. DEPTH2 score may not capture the entire biological aspects of ITGH in breast cancer patients.
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Park S, Kim G, Choi A, Kim S, Yum JS, Chun E, Shin H. Comparative network-based analysis of toll-like receptor agonist, L-pampo signaling pathways in immune and cancer cells. Sci Rep 2024; 14:17173. [PMID: 39060412 PMCID: PMC11282102 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-024-67000-1] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/23/2024] [Accepted: 07/08/2024] [Indexed: 07/28/2024] Open
Abstract
Toll-like receptors (TLRs) are critical components to stimulate immune responses against various infections. Recently, TLR agonists have emerged as a promising way to activate anti-tumor immunity. L-pampo, a TLR1/2 and TLR3 agonist, induces humoral and cellular immune responses and also causes cancer cell death. In this study, we investigated the L-pampo-induced signals and delineated their interactions with molecular signaling pathways using RNA-seq in immune cells and colon and prostate cancer cells. We first constructed a template network with differentially expressed genes and influential genes from network propagation using the weighted gene co-expression network analysis. Next, we obtained perturbed modules using the above method and extracted core submodules from them by conducting Walktrap. Finally, we reconstructed the subnetworks of major molecular signals utilizing a shortest path-finding algorithm, TOPAS. Our analysis suggests that TLR signaling activated by L-pampo is transmitted to oxidative phosphorylation (OXPHOS) with reactive oxygen species (ROS) through PI3K-AKT and JAK-STAT only in immune and prostate cancer cells that highly express TLRs. This signal flow may further sensitize prostate cancer to L-pampo due to its high basal expression level of OXPHOS and ROS. Our computational approaches can be applied for inferring underlying molecular mechanisms from complex gene expression profiles.
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Affiliation(s)
- Sera Park
- MOGAM Institute for Biomedical Research, Seoul, 06730, Republic of Korea
| | - Geuntae Kim
- CHA Vaccine Institute, Seongnamsi, Gyenggido, 13488, South Korea
| | - Ahyoung Choi
- MOGAM Institute for Biomedical Research, Seoul, 06730, Republic of Korea
| | - Sun Kim
- MOGAM Institute for Biomedical Research, Seoul, 06730, Republic of Korea
- Interdisciplinary Program in Artificial Intelligence, Seoul National University, Seoul, 08826, Korea
- Interdisciplinary Program in Bioinformatics, Seoul National University, Seoul, 08826, Korea
| | - Jung Sun Yum
- CHA Vaccine Institute, Seongnamsi, Gyenggido, 13488, South Korea
| | - Eunyoung Chun
- CHA Vaccine Institute, Seongnamsi, Gyenggido, 13488, South Korea.
| | - Hyunjin Shin
- MOGAM Institute for Biomedical Research, Seoul, 06730, Republic of Korea.
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Sun L, Guo W, Guo L, Chen X, Zhou H, Yan S, Zhao G, Bao H, Wu X, Shao Y, Ying J, Lin L. Molecular landscape and multi-omic measurements of heterogeneity in fetal adenocarcinoma of the lung. NPJ Precis Oncol 2024; 8:99. [PMID: 38831114 PMCID: PMC11148097 DOI: 10.1038/s41698-024-00569-y] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/22/2023] [Accepted: 02/26/2024] [Indexed: 06/05/2024] Open
Abstract
Fetal adenocarcinoma of the lung (FLAC) is a rare form of lung adenocarcinoma and was divided into high-grade (H-FLAC) and low-grade (L-FLAC) subtypes. Despite the existence of some small case series studies, a comprehensive multi-omics study of FLAC has yet to be undertaken. In this study, we depicted the multi-omics landscapes of this rare lung cancer type by performing multi-regional sampling on 20 FLAC cases. A comparison of multi-omics profiles revealed significant differences between H-FLAC and L-FLAC in a multi-omic landscape. Two subtypes also showed distinct relationships between multi-layer intratumor heterogeneity (ITH). We discovered that a lower genetic ITH was significantly associated with worse recurrence-free survival and overall survival in FLAC patients, whereas higher methylation ITH in H-FLAC patients suggested a short survival. Our findings highlight the complex interplay between genetic and transcriptional heterogeneity in FLAC and suggest that different types of ITH may have distinct implications for patient prognosis.
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Affiliation(s)
- Li Sun
- Department of Pathology, National Cancer Center/National Clinical Research Center for Cancer/Cancer Hospital, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences and Peking Union Medical College, Beijing, People's Republic of China
| | - Wei Guo
- Department of Thoracic Surgery, National Cancer Center/National Clinical Research Center for Cancer/Cancer Hospital, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences and Peking Union Medical College, Beijing, People's Republic of China.
- Key Laboratory of Minimally Invasive Therapy Research for Lung Cancer, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, Beijing, China.
| | - Lei Guo
- Department of Pathology, National Cancer Center/National Clinical Research Center for Cancer/Cancer Hospital, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences and Peking Union Medical College, Beijing, People's Republic of China
| | - Xiaoxi Chen
- Geneseeq Research Institute, Nanjing Geneseeq Technology Inc, Nanjing, China
| | - Haitao Zhou
- Department of Thoracic Surgery, Peking University Cancer Hospital and Institute, Beijing, China
| | - Shi Yan
- Department of Thoracic Surgery, Peking University Cancer Hospital and Institute, Beijing, China
| | - Gang Zhao
- Department of Pathology, Tianjin Medical University Cancer Institute and Hospital, Tianjin, China
| | - Hua Bao
- Geneseeq Research Institute, Nanjing Geneseeq Technology Inc, Nanjing, China
| | - Xue Wu
- Geneseeq Research Institute, Nanjing Geneseeq Technology Inc, Nanjing, China
| | - Yang Shao
- Geneseeq Research Institute, Nanjing Geneseeq Technology Inc, Nanjing, China
- School of Public Health, Nanjing Medical University, Nanjing, China
| | - Jianming Ying
- Department of Pathology, National Cancer Center/National Clinical Research Center for Cancer/Cancer Hospital, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences and Peking Union Medical College, Beijing, People's Republic of China.
| | - Lin Lin
- Department of Medical Oncology, National Cancer Center/National Clinical Research Center for Cancer/Cancer Hospital, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences and Peking Union Medical College, Beijing, People's Republic of China.
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5
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Hu X, Zhu B, Vokes N, Fujimoto J, Rojas Alvarez FR, Heeke S, Moreira AL, Solis LM, Haymaker C, Velcheti V, Sterman DH, Pass HI, Cheng C, Lee JJ, Zhang J, Wei Z, Wu J, Le X, Ostrin E, Toumazis I, Gibbons D, Su D, Fukuoka J, Antonoff MB, Gerber DE, Li C, Kadara H, Wang L, Davis M, Heymach JV, Hannash S, Wistuba I, Dubinett S, Alexandrov L, Lippman S, Spira A, Futreal AP, Reuben A, Zhang J. The evolution of lung adenocarcinoma precursors is associated with chromosomal instability and transition from innate to adaptive immune response/evasion. RESEARCH SQUARE 2024:rs.3.rs-4396272. [PMID: 38798564 PMCID: PMC11118701 DOI: 10.21203/rs.3.rs-4396272/v1] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 05/29/2024]
Abstract
Studying lung adenocarcinoma (LUAD) early carcinogenesis is challenging, primarily due to the lack of LUAD precursors specimens. We amassed multi-omics data from 213 LUAD and LUAD precursors to identify molecular features underlying LUAD precancer evolution. We observed progressively increasing mutations, chromosomal aberrations, whole genome doubling and genomic instability from precancer to invasive LUAD, indicating aggravating chromosomal instability (CIN). Telomere shortening, a crucial genomic alteration linked to CIN, emerged at precancer stage. Moreover, later-stage lesions demonstrated increasing cancer stemness and decreasing alveolar identity, suggesting epithelial de-differentiation during early LUAD carcinogenesis. The innate immune cells progressively diminished from precancer to invasive LUAD, concomitant with a gradual recruitment of adaptive immune cells (except CD8+ and gamma-delta T cells that decreased in later stages) and upregulation of numerous immune checkpoints, suggesting LUAD precancer evolution is associated with a shift from innate to adaptive immune response and immune evasion mediated by various mechanisms.
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Affiliation(s)
- Xin Hu
- Department of Genomic Medicine, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX, 77030, USA
| | - Bo Zhu
- Departments of Thoracic/Head and Neck Medical Oncology, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX, 77030, USA
| | - Natalie Vokes
- Departments of Thoracic/Head and Neck Medical Oncology, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX, 77030, USA
| | | | - Frank R. Rojas Alvarez
- Department of Translational Molecular Pathology, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX, 77030, USA
| | - Simon Heeke
- Departments of Thoracic/Head and Neck Medical Oncology, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX, 77030, USA
| | - Andre L. Moreira
- Department of Pathology, New York University Langone Medical Center, New York, 10012, USA
| | - Luisa M. Solis
- Department of Translational Molecular Pathology, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX, 77030, USA
| | - Cara Haymaker
- Department of Translational Molecular Pathology, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX, 77030, USA
| | - Vamsidhar Velcheti
- Department of Medical oncology, New York University, New York, 10012, USA
| | | | - Harvey I. Pass
- Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery, New York University Langone Medical Center, New York, 10016, USA
| | - Chao Cheng
- Department of Medicine, Epidemiology and Population Science, Baylor College of Medicine. Houston, TX, 77030, USA
| | - Jack J. Lee
- Department of Biostatistics, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX, 77030, USA
| | - Jianhua Zhang
- Department of Genomic Medicine, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX, 77030, USA
| | - Zhubo Wei
- Departments of Thoracic/Head and Neck Medical Oncology, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX, 77030, USA
| | - Jia Wu
- Department of Imaging Physics, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX, 77030, USA
| | - Xiuning Le
- Departments of Thoracic/Head and Neck Medical Oncology, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX, 77030, USA
| | - Edwin Ostrin
- Department of General Internal Medicine, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX, 77030, USA
| | - Iakovos Toumazis
- Department of Health Services Research, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX, 77030, USA
| | - Don Gibbons
- Departments of Thoracic/Head and Neck Medical Oncology, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX, 77030, USA
| | - Dan Su
- Institute of Cancer and Basic Medicine (IBMC), Chinese Academy of Sciences, Hangzhou, 310022, China
- Department of Pathology, Cancer Hospital of the University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Zhejiang Cancer Hospital, Hangzhou, 310022, China
| | - Junya Fukuoka
- Department of Pathology, Nagasaki University Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, Nagasaki, 8528523, Japan
| | - Mara B. Antonoff
- Department of Thoracic & Cardiovasc Surgery, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX, 77030, USA
| | - David E. Gerber
- Harold C. Simmons Comprehensive Cancer Center, UT Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, TX, 75390, USA
| | - Chenyang Li
- Department of Genomic Medicine, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX, 77030, USA
| | - Humam Kadara
- Department of Translational Molecular Pathology, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX, 77030, USA
| | - Linghua Wang
- Department of Genomic Medicine, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX, 77030, USA
| | - Mark Davis
- Moores Cancer Center, UC San Diego School of Medicine, San Diego, CA, 92037, USA
| | - John V. Heymach
- Departments of Thoracic/Head and Neck Medical Oncology, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX, 77030, USA
| | - Samir Hannash
- Department of Clinical Cancer Prevention, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX, 77030, USA
| | - Ignacio Wistuba
- Department of Translational Molecular Pathology, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX, 77030, USA
| | - Steven Dubinett
- Departments of Medicine and Pathology, University of California Los Angeles and Greater Los Angeles Healthcare System, Los Angeles, CA, 90095, USA
| | - Ludmil Alexandrov
- Moores Cancer Center, UC San Diego School of Medicine, San Diego, CA, 92037, USA
| | - Scott Lippman
- Moores Cancer Center, UC San Diego School of Medicine, San Diego, CA, 92037, USA
| | - Avrum Spira
- Pathology & Laboratory Medicine, and Bioinformatics, Boston University, Boston, MA, 02215, USA
| | - Andrew P. Futreal
- Department of Genomic Medicine, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX, 77030, USA
| | - Alexandre Reuben
- Departments of Thoracic/Head and Neck Medical Oncology, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX, 77030, USA
| | - Jianjun Zhang
- Department of Genomic Medicine, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX, 77030, USA
- Departments of Thoracic/Head and Neck Medical Oncology, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX, 77030, USA
- Lead contact
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6
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Ripley DM, Garner T, Hook SA, Veríssimo A, Grunow B, Moritz T, Clayton P, Shiels HA, Stevens A. Warming during embryogenesis induces a lasting transcriptomic signature in fishes. THE SCIENCE OF THE TOTAL ENVIRONMENT 2023; 902:165954. [PMID: 37536606 DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2023.165954] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/14/2023] [Revised: 07/24/2023] [Accepted: 07/30/2023] [Indexed: 08/05/2023]
Abstract
Exposure to elevated temperatures during embryogenesis can influence the plasticity of tissues in later life. Despite these long-term changes in plasticity, few differentially expressed genes are ever identified, suggesting that the developmental programming of later life plasticity may occur through the modulation of other aspects of transcriptomic architecture, such as gene network organisation. Here, we use network modelling approaches to demonstrate that warm temperatures during embryonic development (developmental warming) have consistent effects in later life on the organisation of transcriptomic networks across four diverse species of fishes: Scyliorhinus canicula, Danio rerio, Dicentrarchus labrax, and Gasterosteus aculeatus. The transcriptomes of developmentally warmed fishes are characterised by an increased entropy of their pairwise gene interaction networks, implying a less structured, more 'random' set of gene interactions. We also show that, in zebrafish subject to developmental warming, the entropy of an individual gene within a network is associated with that gene's probability of expression change during temperature acclimation in later life. However, this association is absent in animals reared under 'control' conditions. Thus, the thermal environment experienced during embryogenesis can alter transcriptomic organisation in later life, and these changes may influence an individual's responsiveness to future temperature challenges.
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Affiliation(s)
- Daniel M Ripley
- Division of Cardiovascular Sciences, Faculty of Biology, Medicine, and Health, The University of Manchester, Manchester, UK.
| | - Terence Garner
- Division of Developmental Biology and Medicine, Faculty of Biology, Medicine, and Health, The University of Manchester, Manchester, UK
| | - Samantha A Hook
- Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, The University of Manchester, Manchester, UK
| | - Ana Veríssimo
- CIBIO, Centro de Investigação em Biodiversidade e Recursos Genéticos, InBIO Laboratório Associado, Campus de Vairão, Universidade do Porto, 4485-661 Vairão, Portugal; BIOPOLIS Program in Genomics, Biodiversity and Land Planning, CIBIO, Campus de Vairão, 4485-661 Vairão, Portugal
| | - Bianka Grunow
- Fish Growth Physiology, Research Institute for Farm Animal Biology (FBN), Wilhelm-Stahl-Allee 2, 18196 Dummerstorf, Germany
| | - Timo Moritz
- Deutsches Meeresmuseum, Katharinenberg 14-20, 18439 Stralsund, Germany; Institute of Biological Sciences, University of Rostock, Albert-Einstein-Straße 3, 18059 Rostock, Germany
| | - Peter Clayton
- Division of Developmental Biology and Medicine, Faculty of Biology, Medicine, and Health, The University of Manchester, Manchester, UK
| | - Holly A Shiels
- Division of Cardiovascular Sciences, Faculty of Biology, Medicine, and Health, The University of Manchester, Manchester, UK
| | - Adam Stevens
- Division of Developmental Biology and Medicine, Faculty of Biology, Medicine, and Health, The University of Manchester, Manchester, UK.
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7
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Wang CX, Yan J, Lin S, Ding Y, Qin YR. Mutant-allele dispersion correlates with prognosis risk in patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer. J Cancer Res Clin Oncol 2023; 149:8545-8555. [PMID: 37093348 DOI: 10.1007/s00432-023-04801-3] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/29/2022] [Accepted: 04/17/2023] [Indexed: 04/25/2023]
Abstract
BACKGROUND Intra-tumor heterogeneity (ITH) contributes to lung cancer progression and resistance to therapy. To evaluate ITH and determine whether it may be employed as a predictive biomarker of prognosis in patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), we used a novel algorithm called mutant-allele dispersion (MAD). METHODS In the study, 103 patients with advanced NSCLC were enrolled. Using a panel of 425 cancer-related genes, next-generation sequencing (NGS) was performed on tumor specimens that had been collected. From NGS data, we derived MAD values, and we next looked into their relationships with clinical variables and different mutation subtypes. RESULTS The median MAD among 103 NSCLC patients was 0.73. EGFR mutation, tyrosine kinase inhibitor (TKI) therapy, radiotherapy, and chemotherapy cycles were all substantially correlated with the MAD score. In patients with lung adenocarcinoma (LUAD), correlation analysis revealed that the MAD score was substantially linked with Notch pathway mutation (P = 0.021). A significant relationship between high MAD and shorter progression-free survival (PFS) was found (HR = 2.004, 95%CI 1.269-3.163, P = 0.003). In patients with advanced NSCLC, histological type (P = 0.004), SMARCA4 mutation (P = 0.038), and LRP1B mutation (P = 0.006) were all independently associated with prognosis. The disease control rate was considerably greater in the low MAD group compared to the high MAD group in 19 LUAD patients receiving immunotherapy (92.9% vs. 40%, P = 0.037). TKI-PFS was longer in 37 patients with low MAD who received first-line TKI therapy (P = 0.014). CONCLUSION Our findings suggested that MAD is a practical and simple algorithm for assessing ITH, and populations with high MAD values are more likely to have EGFR mutations. MAD can be used as a potential biomarker to predict not only the prognosis of NSCLC but also the efficacy of immunotherapy and TKI therapy in patients with advanced NSCLC.
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Affiliation(s)
- Chen-Xu Wang
- Department of Oncology, The First Affiliated Hospital of Zhengzhou University, Zhengzhou, 450052, Henan, China
| | - Jie Yan
- Department of Oncology, The First Affiliated Hospital of Zhengzhou University, Zhengzhou, 450052, Henan, China
| | - Shan Lin
- Department of Oncology, Zhongshan Hospital Affiliated to Xiamen University, Xiamen, 361004, Fujian, China
| | - Yi Ding
- Department of Oncology, The First Affiliated Hospital of Zhengzhou University, Zhengzhou, 450052, Henan, China
| | - Yan-Ru Qin
- Department of Oncology, The First Affiliated Hospital of Zhengzhou University, Zhengzhou, 450052, Henan, China.
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8
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Ai H, Song D, Wang X. Defining multiple layers of intratumor heterogeneity based on variations of perturbations in multi-omics profiling. Comput Biol Med 2023; 159:106964. [PMID: 37099972 DOI: 10.1016/j.compbiomed.2023.106964] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/11/2023] [Revised: 04/12/2023] [Accepted: 04/18/2023] [Indexed: 04/28/2023]
Abstract
BACKGROUND Intratumor heterogeneity (ITH) plays a crucial role in tumor progression, relapse, immune evasion, and drug resistance. Existing ITH quantification methods based on a single molecular level are inadequate to capture ITH evolving from genotype to phenotype. METHODS We designed a set of information entropy (IE)-based algorithms for quantifying ITH at the genome (somatic copy number alterations and mutations), mRNA, microRNA (miRNA), long non-coding RNA (lncRNA), protein, and epigenome level, respectively. We evaluated the performance of these algorithms by analyzing the correlations between their ITH scores and ITH-associated molecular and clinical features in 33 TCGA cancer types. Moreover, we evaluated the correlations between the ITH measures at different molecular levels by Spearman correlation and clustering analysis. RESULTS The IE-based ITH measures had significant correlations with unfavorable prognosis, tumor progression, genomic instability, antitumor immunosuppression, and drug resistance. The mRNA ITH showed stronger correlations with the miRNA, lncRNA, and epigenome ITH than with the genome ITH, supporting the regulatory relationships of miRNA, lncRNA, and DNA methylation towards mRNA. The protein-level ITH displayed stronger correlations with the transcriptome-level ITH than with the genome-level ITH, supporting the central dogma of molecular biology. Clustering analysis based on the ITH scores identified four subtypes of pan-cancer showing significantly different prognosis. Finally, the ITH integrating the seven ITH measures displayed more prominent properties of ITH than that at a single level. CONCLUSIONS This analysis provides landscapes of ITH at various molecular levels. Combining the ITH observation from different molecule levels will improve personalized management for cancer patients.
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Affiliation(s)
- Hongjing Ai
- Biomedical Informatics Research Lab, School of Basic Medicine and Clinical Pharmacy, China Pharmaceutical University, Nanjin, 211198, China; Cancer Genomics Research Center, School of Basic Medicine and Clinical Pharmacy, China Pharmaceutical University, Nanjing, 211198, China; Big Data Research Institute, China Pharmaceutical University, Nanjing, 211198, China
| | - Dandan Song
- Biomedical Informatics Research Lab, School of Basic Medicine and Clinical Pharmacy, China Pharmaceutical University, Nanjin, 211198, China; Cancer Genomics Research Center, School of Basic Medicine and Clinical Pharmacy, China Pharmaceutical University, Nanjing, 211198, China; Big Data Research Institute, China Pharmaceutical University, Nanjing, 211198, China
| | - Xiaosheng Wang
- Biomedical Informatics Research Lab, School of Basic Medicine and Clinical Pharmacy, China Pharmaceutical University, Nanjin, 211198, China; Cancer Genomics Research Center, School of Basic Medicine and Clinical Pharmacy, China Pharmaceutical University, Nanjing, 211198, China; Big Data Research Institute, China Pharmaceutical University, Nanjing, 211198, China.
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9
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Rubio K, Romero-Olmedo AJ, Sarvari P, Swaminathan G, Ranvir VP, Rogel-Ayala DG, Cordero J, Günther S, Mehta A, Bassaly B, Braubach P, Wygrecka M, Gattenlöhner S, Tresch A, Braun T, Dobreva G, Rivera MN, Singh I, Graumann J, Barreto G. Non-canonical integrin signaling activates EGFR and RAS-MAPK-ERK signaling in small cell lung cancer. Theranostics 2023; 13:2384-2407. [PMID: 37215577 PMCID: PMC10196829 DOI: 10.7150/thno.79493] [Citation(s) in RCA: 10] [Impact Index Per Article: 5.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/03/2022] [Accepted: 03/25/2023] [Indexed: 05/24/2023] Open
Abstract
Background: Small cell lung cancer (SCLC) is an extremely aggressive cancer type with a patient median survival of 6-12 months. Epidermal growth factor (EGF) signaling plays an important role in triggering SCLC. In addition, growth factor-dependent signals and alpha-, beta-integrin (ITGA, ITGB) heterodimer receptors functionally cooperate and integrate their signaling pathways. However, the precise role of integrins in EGF receptor (EGFR) activation in SCLC remains elusive. Methods: We analyzed human precision-cut lung slices (hPCLS), retrospectively collected human lung tissue samples and cell lines by classical methods of molecular biology and biochemistry. In addition, we performed RNA-sequencing-based transcriptomic analysis in human lung cancer cells and human lung tissue samples, as well as high-resolution mass spectrometric analysis of the protein cargo from extracellular vesicles (EVs) that were isolated from human lung cancer cells. Results: Our results demonstrate that non-canonical ITGB2 signaling activates EGFR and RAS/MAPK/ERK signaling in SCLC. Further, we identified a novel SCLC gene expression signature consisting of 93 transcripts that were induced by ITGB2, which may be used for stratification of SCLC patients and prognosis prediction of LC patients. We also found a cell-cell communication mechanism based on EVs containing ITGB2, which were secreted by SCLC cells and induced in control human lung tissue RAS/MAPK/ERK signaling and SCLC markers. Conclusions: We uncovered a mechanism of ITGB2-mediated EGFR activation in SCLC that explains EGFR-inhibitor resistance independently of EGFR mutations, suggesting the development of therapies targeting ITGB2 for patients with this extremely aggressive lung cancer type.
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Affiliation(s)
- Karla Rubio
- Université de Lorraine, CNRS, Laboratoire IMoPA, UMR 7365; F-54000 Nancy, France
- Lung Cancer Epigenetics, Max-Planck-Institute for Heart and Lung Research; 61231 Bad Nauheim, Germany
- Department of Pathology, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School; Charlestown, MA, 02129, USA
- International Laboratory EPIGEN, Consejo de Ciencia y Tecnología del Estado de Puebla (CONCYTEP), Instituto de Ciencias, EcoCampus, Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de Puebla; Puebla 72570, Mexico
| | - Addi J. Romero-Olmedo
- Lung Cancer Epigenetics, Max-Planck-Institute for Heart and Lung Research; 61231 Bad Nauheim, Germany
- Institute of Medical Microbiology and Hospital Hygiene, Department of Medicine, Philipps-University Marburg; Marburg, Germany
| | - Pouya Sarvari
- Independent Researcher, collaborator of International Laboratory EPIGEN-CONCYTEP
| | | | - Vikas P. Ranvir
- Emmy Noether Research Group Epigenetic Machineries and Cancer, Division of Chronic Inflammation and Cancer, German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ), 69120 Heidelberg, Germany
| | - Diana G. Rogel-Ayala
- Université de Lorraine, CNRS, Laboratoire IMoPA, UMR 7365; F-54000 Nancy, France
- Lung Cancer Epigenetics, Max-Planck-Institute for Heart and Lung Research; 61231 Bad Nauheim, Germany
| | - Julio Cordero
- Department of Cardiovascular Genomics and Epigenomics, European Center for Angioscience (ECAS), Medical Faculty Mannheim, Heidelberg University, Mannheim, Germany
- German Centre for Cardiovascular Research (DZHK)
| | - Stefan Günther
- ECCPS Bioinformatics and Deep Sequencing Platform, Max-Planck-Institute for Heart and Lung Research; 61231 Bad Nauheim, Germany
- Department of Cardiac Development, Max-Planck-Institute for Heart and Lung Research; 61231 Bad Nauheim, Germany
| | - Aditi Mehta
- Lung Cancer Epigenetics, Max-Planck-Institute for Heart and Lung Research; 61231 Bad Nauheim, Germany
- Pharmaceutical Technology and Biopharmaceutics, Department of Pharmacy, Ludwig-Maximilians-University of Munich; Munich, Germany
| | - Birgit Bassaly
- Institute for Pathology, Justus Liebig University; 35392 Gießen, Germany
| | - Peter Braubach
- Institute for Pathology, Hannover Medical School; Hanover, Germany
- Biomedical Research in Endstage and Obstructive Lung Disease Hannover (BREATH) Research Network; Hanover, Germany
| | - Malgorzata Wygrecka
- Center for Infection and Genomics of the Lung (CIGL), Universities of Giessen and Marburg Lung Center; Giessen, Germany
- Institute of Lung Health, German Center for Lung Research (DZL); Giessen, Germany
| | | | - Achim Tresch
- CECAD, University of Cologne; Cologne, Germany
- Faculty of Medicine and University Hospital, University of Cologne; Cologne, Germany
- Center for Data and Simulation Science, University of Cologne; Cologne, Germany
| | - Thomas Braun
- Department of Cardiac Development, Max-Planck-Institute for Heart and Lung Research; 61231 Bad Nauheim, Germany
| | - Gergana Dobreva
- Department of Cardiovascular Genomics and Epigenomics, European Center for Angioscience (ECAS), Medical Faculty Mannheim, Heidelberg University, Mannheim, Germany
- German Centre for Cardiovascular Research (DZHK)
| | - Miguel N. Rivera
- Department of Pathology, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School; Charlestown, MA, 02129, USA
- Center for Cancer Research, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School; Charlestown, MA, 02129, USA
| | - Indrabahadur Singh
- Emmy Noether Research Group Epigenetic Machineries and Cancer, Division of Chronic Inflammation and Cancer, German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ), 69120 Heidelberg, Germany
| | - Johannes Graumann
- Biomolecular Mass Spectrometry, Max-Planck-Institute for Heart and Lung Research; 61231 Bad Nauheim, Germany
- Institute of Translational Proteomics, Department of Medicine, Philipps-University Marburg; 35043 Marburg, Germany
| | - Guillermo Barreto
- Université de Lorraine, CNRS, Laboratoire IMoPA, UMR 7365; F-54000 Nancy, France
- Lung Cancer Epigenetics, Max-Planck-Institute for Heart and Lung Research; 61231 Bad Nauheim, Germany
- International Laboratory EPIGEN, Consejo de Ciencia y Tecnología del Estado de Puebla (CONCYTEP), Instituto de Ciencias, EcoCampus, Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de Puebla; Puebla 72570, Mexico
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10
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Yang C, Zhang S, Cheng Z, Liu Z, Zhang L, Jiang K, Geng H, Qian R, Wang J, Huang X, Chen M, Li Z, Qin W, Xia Q, Kang X, Wang C, Hang H. Multi-region sequencing with spatial information enables accurate heterogeneity estimation and risk stratification in liver cancer. Genome Med 2022; 14:142. [PMID: 36527145 PMCID: PMC9758830 DOI: 10.1186/s13073-022-01143-6] [Citation(s) in RCA: 18] [Impact Index Per Article: 6.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/26/2022] [Accepted: 11/22/2022] [Indexed: 12/23/2022] Open
Abstract
BACKGROUND Numerous studies have used multi-region sampling approaches to characterize intra-tumor heterogeneity (ITH) in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). However, conventional multi-region sampling strategies do not preserve the spatial details of samples, and thus, the potential influences of spatial distribution on patient-wise ITH (represents the overall heterogeneity level of the tumor in a given patient) have long been overlooked. Furthermore, gene-wise transcriptional ITH (represents the expression pattern of genes across different intra-tumor regions) in HCC is also under-explored, highlighting the need for a comprehensive investigation. METHODS To address the problem of spatial information loss, we propose a simple and easy-to-implement strategy called spatial localization sampling (SLS). We performed multi-region sampling and sequencing on 14 patients with HCC, collecting a total of 75 tumor samples with spatial information and molecular data. Normalized diversity score and integrated heterogeneity score (IHS) were then developed to measure patient-wise and gene-wise ITH, respectively. RESULTS A significant correlation between spatial and molecular heterogeneity was uncovered, implying that spatial distribution of sampling sites did influence ITH estimation in HCC. We demonstrated that the normalized diversity score had the ability to overcome sampling location bias and provide a more accurate estimation of patient-wise ITH. According to this metric, HCC tumors could be divided into two classes (low-ITH and high-ITH tumors) with significant differences in multiple biological properties. Through IHS analysis, we revealed a highly heterogenous immune microenvironment in HCC and identified some low-ITH checkpoint genes with immunotherapeutic potential. We also constructed a low-heterogeneity risk stratification (LHRS) signature based on the IHS results which could accurately predict the survival outcome of patients with HCC on a single tumor biopsy sample. CONCLUSIONS This study provides new insights into the complex phenotypes of HCC and may serve as a guide for future studies in this field.
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Affiliation(s)
- Chen Yang
- grid.16821.3c0000 0004 0368 8293Department of Liver Surgery, Renji Hospital, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, Shanghai, China ,grid.16821.3c0000 0004 0368 8293State Key Laboratory of Oncogenes and Related Genes, Shanghai Cancer Institute, Renji Hospital, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, Shanghai, China
| | - Senquan Zhang
- grid.16821.3c0000 0004 0368 8293Department of Liver Surgery, Renji Hospital, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, Shanghai, China
| | - Zhuoan Cheng
- grid.16821.3c0000 0004 0368 8293Department of Liver Surgery, Renji Hospital, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, Shanghai, China ,grid.16821.3c0000 0004 0368 8293State Key Laboratory of Oncogenes and Related Genes, Shanghai Cancer Institute, Renji Hospital, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, Shanghai, China
| | - Zhicheng Liu
- grid.412793.a0000 0004 1799 5032Hepatic Surgery Center, Tongji Hospital, Tongji Medical College, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, China
| | - Linmeng Zhang
- grid.16821.3c0000 0004 0368 8293State Key Laboratory of Oncogenes and Related Genes, Shanghai Cancer Institute, Renji Hospital, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, Shanghai, China
| | - Kai Jiang
- grid.16821.3c0000 0004 0368 8293Renji Biobank, Renji Hospital, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, Shanghai, China
| | - Haigang Geng
- grid.16821.3c0000 0004 0368 8293Department of Gastrointestinal Surgery, School of Medicine, Renji Hospital, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, China
| | - Ruolan Qian
- grid.16821.3c0000 0004 0368 8293State Key Laboratory of Oncogenes and Related Genes, Shanghai Cancer Institute, Renji Hospital, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, Shanghai, China
| | - Jun Wang
- grid.16821.3c0000 0004 0368 8293State Key Laboratory of Oncogenes and Related Genes, Shanghai Cancer Institute, Renji Hospital, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, Shanghai, China
| | - Xiaowen Huang
- grid.16821.3c0000 0004 0368 8293Key Laboratory of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, Renji Hospital, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, Shanghai, China
| | - Mo Chen
- grid.16821.3c0000 0004 0368 8293Department of Liver Surgery, Renji Hospital, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, Shanghai, China
| | - Zhe Li
- grid.16821.3c0000 0004 0368 8293Department of Liver Surgery, Renji Hospital, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, Shanghai, China
| | - Wenxin Qin
- grid.16821.3c0000 0004 0368 8293State Key Laboratory of Oncogenes and Related Genes, Shanghai Cancer Institute, Renji Hospital, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, Shanghai, China
| | - Qiang Xia
- grid.16821.3c0000 0004 0368 8293Department of Liver Surgery, Renji Hospital, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, Shanghai, China ,grid.16821.3c0000 0004 0368 8293State Key Laboratory of Oncogenes and Related Genes, Shanghai Cancer Institute, Renji Hospital, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, Shanghai, China
| | - Xiaonan Kang
- grid.16821.3c0000 0004 0368 8293Renji Biobank, Renji Hospital, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, Shanghai, China
| | - Cun Wang
- grid.16821.3c0000 0004 0368 8293Department of Liver Surgery, Renji Hospital, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, Shanghai, China ,grid.16821.3c0000 0004 0368 8293State Key Laboratory of Oncogenes and Related Genes, Shanghai Cancer Institute, Renji Hospital, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, Shanghai, China
| | - Hualian Hang
- grid.16821.3c0000 0004 0368 8293Department of Liver Surgery, Renji Hospital, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, Shanghai, China ,grid.16821.3c0000 0004 0368 8293State Key Laboratory of Oncogenes and Related Genes, Shanghai Cancer Institute, Renji Hospital, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, Shanghai, China
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11
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Liu C, Liu D, Wang F, Xie J, Liu Y, Wang H, Rong J, Xie J, Wang J, Zeng R, Zhou F, Xie Y. An Intratumor Heterogeneity-Related Signature for Predicting Prognosis, Immune Landscape, and Chemotherapy Response in Colon Adenocarcinoma. Front Med (Lausanne) 2022; 9:925661. [PMID: 35872794 PMCID: PMC9302538 DOI: 10.3389/fmed.2022.925661] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/21/2022] [Accepted: 06/14/2022] [Indexed: 11/29/2022] Open
Abstract
Background Colon adenocarcinoma (COAD) is a frequent malignancy of the digestive system with a poor prognosis and high mortality rate worldwide. Intratumor heterogeneity (ITH) is associated with tumor progression, poor prognosis, immunosuppression, and therapy resistance. However, the relationship between ITH and prognosis, the immune microenvironment, and the chemotherapy response in COAD patients remains unknown, and this knowledge is urgently needed. Methods We obtained clinical information and gene expression data for COAD patients from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) database. The DEPTH2 algorithm was utilized to evaluate the ITH score. X-tile software was used to determine the optimal cutoff value of the ITH score. The COAD patients were divided into high- and low-ITH groups based on the cutoff value. We analyzed prognosis, tumor mutation burden (TMB), gene mutations, and immune checkpoint expression between the high- and low-ITH groups. Differentially expressed genes (DEGs) in the high- and low-ITH groups were subjected to Gene Ontology (GO) and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) pathway enrichment analyses. We performed univariate Cox regression and least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (LASSO) regression analyses to screen the prognosis-related genes for the construction of an ITH-related prognostic signature. The nomogram was used to predict the overall survival (OS) of COAD patients. The protein–protein interaction (PPI) network was constructed by using the GeneMANIA database. Principal component analysis (PCA) and single-sample gene set enrichment analysis (ssGSEA) were employed to explore the differences in biological pathway activation status between the high- and low-risk groups. The proportion and type of tumor-infiltrating immune cells were evaluated by the CIBERSORT and ESTIMATE algorithms. Additionally, we assessed the chemotherapy response and predicted small-molecule drugs for treatment. Finally, the expression of the prognosis-related genes was validated by using the UALCAN database and Human Protein Atlas (HPA) database. Results The OS of the high-ITH group was worse than that of the low-ITH group. A positive correlation between ITH and TMB was identified. In subgroups stratified by age, gender, and tumor stage, the OS of the low-ITH group remained better than that of the high-ITH group. There were dramatic differences in the mutated genes, single nucleotide variant classes, variant types, immune checkpoints and cooccurring and mutually exclusive mutations of the DEGs between the high- and low-ITH groups. Based on the DEGs between the high- and low-ITH groups, we constructed a five-gene signature consisting of CEACAM5, ENO2, GABBR1, MC1R, and SLC44A4. The COAD patients were divided into high- and low-risk groups according to the median risk score. The OS of the high-risk group was worse than that of the low-risk group. The nomogram was used to accurately predict the 1-, 3- and 5-year OS of COAD patients and showed good calibration and moderate discrimination ability. The stromal score, immune score, and ESTIMATE score of the high-risk group were significantly higher than those of the low-risk group, whereas tumor purity showed the opposite trend. The patients classified by the risk score had distinguishable sensitivity to chemotherapeutic drugs. Finally, two public databases confirmed that CEACAM5 and SLC44A4 were upregulated in normal tissues compared with COAD tissues, and ENO2, GABBR1, and MC1R were upregulated in COAD tissues compared with normal tissues. Conclusion Overall, we identified an ITH-related prognostic signature for COAD that was closely related to the tumor microenvironment and chemotherapy response. This signature may help clinicians make more personalized and precise treatment decisions for COAD patients.
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Affiliation(s)
- Cong Liu
- Department of Gastroenterology, Digestive Disease Hospital, The First Affiliated Hospital of Nanchang University, Nanchang, China
- Gastroenterology Institute of Jiangxi Province, Nanchang, China
- Key Laboratory of Digestive Diseases of Jiangxi Province, Nanchang, China
- Jiangxi Clinical Research Center for Gastroenterology, Nanchang, China
| | - Dingwei Liu
- Department of Gastroenterology, Digestive Disease Hospital, The First Affiliated Hospital of Nanchang University, Nanchang, China
- Gastroenterology Institute of Jiangxi Province, Nanchang, China
- Key Laboratory of Digestive Diseases of Jiangxi Province, Nanchang, China
- Jiangxi Clinical Research Center for Gastroenterology, Nanchang, China
| | - Fangfei Wang
- Department of Gastroenterology, Digestive Disease Hospital, The First Affiliated Hospital of Nanchang University, Nanchang, China
- Gastroenterology Institute of Jiangxi Province, Nanchang, China
- Key Laboratory of Digestive Diseases of Jiangxi Province, Nanchang, China
- Jiangxi Clinical Research Center for Gastroenterology, Nanchang, China
| | - Jun Xie
- Department of Gastroenterology, Digestive Disease Hospital, The First Affiliated Hospital of Nanchang University, Nanchang, China
- Gastroenterology Institute of Jiangxi Province, Nanchang, China
- Key Laboratory of Digestive Diseases of Jiangxi Province, Nanchang, China
- Jiangxi Clinical Research Center for Gastroenterology, Nanchang, China
| | - Yang Liu
- Department of Gastroenterology, Digestive Disease Hospital, The First Affiliated Hospital of Nanchang University, Nanchang, China
- Gastroenterology Institute of Jiangxi Province, Nanchang, China
- Key Laboratory of Digestive Diseases of Jiangxi Province, Nanchang, China
- Jiangxi Clinical Research Center for Gastroenterology, Nanchang, China
| | - Huan Wang
- Department of Gastroenterology, Digestive Disease Hospital, The First Affiliated Hospital of Nanchang University, Nanchang, China
- Gastroenterology Institute of Jiangxi Province, Nanchang, China
- Key Laboratory of Digestive Diseases of Jiangxi Province, Nanchang, China
- Jiangxi Clinical Research Center for Gastroenterology, Nanchang, China
| | - Jianfang Rong
- Department of Gastroenterology, Digestive Disease Hospital, The First Affiliated Hospital of Nanchang University, Nanchang, China
- Gastroenterology Institute of Jiangxi Province, Nanchang, China
- Key Laboratory of Digestive Diseases of Jiangxi Province, Nanchang, China
- Jiangxi Clinical Research Center for Gastroenterology, Nanchang, China
| | - Jinliang Xie
- Department of Gastroenterology, Digestive Disease Hospital, The First Affiliated Hospital of Nanchang University, Nanchang, China
- Gastroenterology Institute of Jiangxi Province, Nanchang, China
- Key Laboratory of Digestive Diseases of Jiangxi Province, Nanchang, China
- Jiangxi Clinical Research Center for Gastroenterology, Nanchang, China
| | - Jinyun Wang
- Department of Gastroenterology, Digestive Disease Hospital, The First Affiliated Hospital of Nanchang University, Nanchang, China
- Gastroenterology Institute of Jiangxi Province, Nanchang, China
- Key Laboratory of Digestive Diseases of Jiangxi Province, Nanchang, China
- Jiangxi Clinical Research Center for Gastroenterology, Nanchang, China
| | - Rong Zeng
- Department of Gastroenterology, Digestive Disease Hospital, The First Affiliated Hospital of Nanchang University, Nanchang, China
- Gastroenterology Institute of Jiangxi Province, Nanchang, China
- Key Laboratory of Digestive Diseases of Jiangxi Province, Nanchang, China
- Jiangxi Clinical Research Center for Gastroenterology, Nanchang, China
| | - Feng Zhou
- Department of Gastroenterology, Digestive Disease Hospital, The First Affiliated Hospital of Nanchang University, Nanchang, China
- Gastroenterology Institute of Jiangxi Province, Nanchang, China
- Key Laboratory of Digestive Diseases of Jiangxi Province, Nanchang, China
- Jiangxi Clinical Research Center for Gastroenterology, Nanchang, China
| | - Yong Xie
- Department of Gastroenterology, Digestive Disease Hospital, The First Affiliated Hospital of Nanchang University, Nanchang, China
- Gastroenterology Institute of Jiangxi Province, Nanchang, China
- Key Laboratory of Digestive Diseases of Jiangxi Province, Nanchang, China
- Jiangxi Clinical Research Center for Gastroenterology, Nanchang, China
- *Correspondence: Yong Xie
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12
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Tiong KL, Lin YW, Yeang CH. Characterization of gene cluster heterogeneity in single-cell transcriptomic data within and across cancer types. Biol Open 2022; 11:275538. [PMID: 35665803 PMCID: PMC9235070 DOI: 10.1242/bio.059256] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/27/2022] [Accepted: 05/19/2022] [Indexed: 11/20/2022] Open
Abstract
Despite the remarkable progress in probing tumor transcriptomic heterogeneity by single-cell RNA sequencing (sc-RNAseq) data, several gaps exist in prior studies. Tumor heterogeneity is frequently mentioned but not quantified. Clustering analyses typically target cells rather than genes, and differential levels of transcriptomic heterogeneity of gene clusters are not characterized. Relations between gene clusters inferred from multiple datasets remain less explored. We provided a series of quantitative methods to analyze cancer sc-RNAseq data. First, we proposed two quantitative measures to assess intra-tumoral heterogeneity/homogeneity. Second, we established a hierarchy of gene clusters from sc-RNAseq data, devised an algorithm to reduce the gene cluster hierarchy to a compact structure, and characterized the gene clusters with functional enrichment and heterogeneity. Third, we developed an algorithm to align the gene cluster hierarchies from multiple datasets to a small number of meta gene clusters. By applying these methods to nine cancer sc-RNAseq datasets, we discovered that cancer cell transcriptomes were more homogeneous within tumors than the accompanying normal cells. Furthermore, many gene clusters from the nine datasets were aligned to two large meta gene clusters, which had high and low heterogeneity and were enriched with distinct functions. Finally, we found the homogeneous meta gene cluster retained stronger expression coherence and associations with survival times in bulk level RNAseq data than the heterogeneous meta gene cluster, yet the combinatorial expression patterns of breast cancer subtypes in bulk level data were not preserved in single-cell data. The inference outcomes derived from nine cancer sc-RNAseq datasets provide insights about the contributing factors for transcriptomic heterogeneity of cancer cells and complex relations between bulk level and single-cell RNAseq data. They demonstrate the utility of our methods to enable a comprehensive characterization of co-expressed gene clusters in a wide range of sc-RNAseq data in cancers and beyond. Summary: We propose quantitative methods to analyze cancer sc-RNAseq data: measures of intra-tumoral heterogeneity, characterization of a hierarchy of gene clusters, and alignment of gene cluster hierarchies from multiple datasets.
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Affiliation(s)
- Khong-Loon Tiong
- Institute of Statistical Science, Academia Sinica, 128 Academia Road, Section 2, Taipei 115, Taiwan
| | - Yu-Wei Lin
- Institute of Statistical Science, Academia Sinica, 128 Academia Road, Section 2, Taipei 115, Taiwan.,The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, School of Health Profession, Master Program of Diagnostic Genetics, Houston, Texas, 77030, USA
| | - Chen-Hsiang Yeang
- Institute of Statistical Science, Academia Sinica, 128 Academia Road, Section 2, Taipei 115, Taiwan
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13
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van den Bosch T, Vermeulen L, Miedema DM. Quantitative models for the inference of intratumor heterogeneity. COMPUTATIONAL AND SYSTEMS ONCOLOGY 2022. [DOI: 10.1002/cso2.1034] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/09/2022] Open
Affiliation(s)
- Tom van den Bosch
- Laboratory for Experimental Oncology and Radiobiology Center for Experimental and Molecular Medicine Cancer Center Amsterdam and Amsterdam Gastroenterology and Metabolism Amsterdam University Medical Centers Amsterdam The Netherlands
- Oncode Institute Amsterdam The Netherlands
| | - Louis Vermeulen
- Laboratory for Experimental Oncology and Radiobiology Center for Experimental and Molecular Medicine Cancer Center Amsterdam and Amsterdam Gastroenterology and Metabolism Amsterdam University Medical Centers Amsterdam The Netherlands
- Oncode Institute Amsterdam The Netherlands
| | - Daniël M. Miedema
- Laboratory for Experimental Oncology and Radiobiology Center for Experimental and Molecular Medicine Cancer Center Amsterdam and Amsterdam Gastroenterology and Metabolism Amsterdam University Medical Centers Amsterdam The Netherlands
- Oncode Institute Amsterdam The Netherlands
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14
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Song D, Wang X. DEPTH2: an mRNA-based algorithm to evaluate intratumor heterogeneity without reference to normal controls. J Transl Med 2022; 20:150. [PMID: 35365157 PMCID: PMC8974098 DOI: 10.1186/s12967-022-03355-1] [Citation(s) in RCA: 17] [Impact Index Per Article: 5.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/22/2022] [Accepted: 03/21/2022] [Indexed: 11/23/2022] Open
Abstract
Background Intratumor heterogeneity (ITH) is associated with tumor progression, unfavorable prognosis, immunosuppression, genomic instability, and therapeutic resistance. Thus, evaluation of ITH levels is valuable in cancer diagnosis and treatment. Methods We proposed a new mRNA-based ITH evaluation algorithm (DEPTH2) without reference to normal controls. DEPTH2 evaluates ITH levels based on the standard deviations of absolute z-scored transcriptome levels in tumors, reflecting the asynchronous level of transcriptome alterations relative to the central tendency in a tumor. Results By analyzing 33 TCGA cancer types, we demonstrated that DEPTH2 ITH was effective in measuring ITH for its significant associations with tumor progression, unfavorable prognosis, genomic instability, reduced antitumor immunity and immunotherapy response, and altered drug response in diverse cancers. Compared to other five ITH evaluation algorithms (MATH, PhyloWGS, ABSOLUTE, DEPTH, and tITH), DEPTH2 ITH showed a stronger association with unfavorable clinical outcomes, and in characterizing other properties of ITH, such as its associations with genomic instability and antitumor immunosuppression, DEPTH2 also displayed competitive performance. Conclusions DEPTH2 is expected to have a wider spectrum of applications in evaluating ITH in comparison to other algorithms. Supplementary Information The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12967-022-03355-1.
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Affiliation(s)
- Dandan Song
- Biomedical Informatics Research Lab, School of Basic Medicine and Clinical Pharmacy, China Pharmaceutical University, Nanjing, 211198, China.,Cancer Genomics Research Center, School of Basic Medicine and Clinical Pharmacy, China Pharmaceutical University, Nanjing, 211198, China.,Big Data Research Institute, China Pharmaceutical University, Nanjing, 211198, China
| | - Xiaosheng Wang
- Biomedical Informatics Research Lab, School of Basic Medicine and Clinical Pharmacy, China Pharmaceutical University, Nanjing, 211198, China. .,Cancer Genomics Research Center, School of Basic Medicine and Clinical Pharmacy, China Pharmaceutical University, Nanjing, 211198, China. .,Big Data Research Institute, China Pharmaceutical University, Nanjing, 211198, China.
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15
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Liu C, Zhang Y, Li X, Wang D. Ovarian cancer-specific dysregulated genes with prognostic significance: scRNA-Seq with bulk RNA-Seq data and experimental validation. Ann N Y Acad Sci 2022; 1512:154-173. [PMID: 35247207 DOI: 10.1111/nyas.14748] [Citation(s) in RCA: 19] [Impact Index Per Article: 6.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/03/2021] [Accepted: 12/15/2021] [Indexed: 12/22/2022]
Abstract
A major cause of gynecological cancer -related deaths worldwide, ovarian cancer is characterized by heterogeneity in both tumor cells and the tumor microenvironment (TME). Our study aimed to characterize tumor cell heterogeneity and the infiltration of M2 tumor-associated macrophages (TAMs) in the ovarian cancer TME by single-cell RNA-Seq (scRNA-Seq) analysis combined with bulk RNA sequencing (bulk RNA-Seq). Several highly variable genes were identified in ovarian cancer tissues, and tumor cell heterogeneity and infiltrating immune tumor cell heterogeneity were characterized in ovarian cancer cells. M2 TAMs in the TME were the predominant phenotype of TAM. Further, M2 TAM infiltration in the TME was negatively correlated with poor prognosis of ovarian cancer patients. Four M2 TAM-associated genes (SLAMF7, GNAS, TBX2-AS1, and LYPD6) correlated with the prognostic survival of ovarian cancer patients. Knockdown of SLAMF7 or GNAS mRNA repressed malignancy and cisplatin resistance of ovarian cancer cells. ScRNA-Seq combined with bulk RNA-Seq identified the same four genes associated with M2 TAMs. The prognostic risk score model based on these four genes may hold favorable predictive value for the prognosis of ovarian cancer patients.
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Affiliation(s)
- Chang Liu
- Department of Pathology, Shengjing Hospital of China Medical University, Shenyang, China
| | - Ying Zhang
- Department of Pathology, Shengjing Hospital of China Medical University, Shenyang, China
| | - Xiaohan Li
- Department of Pathology, Shengjing Hospital of China Medical University, Shenyang, China
| | - Dandan Wang
- Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Shengjing Hospital of China Medical University, Shenyang, China
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16
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Laganà A. Computational Approaches for the Investigation of Intra-tumor Heterogeneity and Clonal Evolution from Bulk Sequencing Data in Precision Oncology Applications. ADVANCES IN EXPERIMENTAL MEDICINE AND BIOLOGY 2022; 1361:101-118. [DOI: 10.1007/978-3-030-91836-1_6] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/19/2022]
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17
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Kashyap A, Rapsomaniki MA, Barros V, Fomitcheva-Khartchenko A, Martinelli AL, Rodriguez AF, Gabrani M, Rosen-Zvi M, Kaigala G. Quantification of tumor heterogeneity: from data acquisition to metric generation. Trends Biotechnol 2021; 40:647-676. [PMID: 34972597 DOI: 10.1016/j.tibtech.2021.11.006] [Citation(s) in RCA: 42] [Impact Index Per Article: 10.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/16/2021] [Revised: 11/26/2021] [Accepted: 11/29/2021] [Indexed: 01/18/2023]
Abstract
Tumors are unique and complex ecosystems, in which heterogeneous cell subpopulations with variable molecular profiles, aggressiveness, and proliferation potential coexist and interact. Understanding how heterogeneity influences tumor progression has important clinical implications for improving diagnosis, prognosis, and treatment response prediction. Several recent innovations in data acquisition methods and computational metrics have enabled the quantification of spatiotemporal heterogeneity across different scales of tumor organization. Here, we summarize the most promising efforts from a common experimental and computational perspective, discussing their advantages, shortcomings, and challenges. With personalized medicine entering a new era of unprecedented opportunities, our vision is that of future workflows integrating across modalities, scales, and dimensions to capture intricate aspects of the tumor ecosystem and to open new avenues for improved patient care.
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Affiliation(s)
- Aditya Kashyap
- IBM Research Europe -Säumerstrasse 4, Rüschlikon CH-8803, Zurich, Switzerland
| | | | - Vesna Barros
- Department of Healthcare Informatics, IBM Research, IBM R&D Labs, University of Haifa Campus, Mount Carmel, Haifa, 3498825, Israel; The Hebrew University, The Edmond J. Safra Campus - Givat Ram, Jerusalem, 9190401, Israel
| | - Anna Fomitcheva-Khartchenko
- IBM Research Europe -Säumerstrasse 4, Rüschlikon CH-8803, Zurich, Switzerland; Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule (ETH-Zurich), Vladimir-Prelog-Weg 1-5/10, 8099 Zurich, Switzerland
| | | | | | - Maria Gabrani
- IBM Research Europe -Säumerstrasse 4, Rüschlikon CH-8803, Zurich, Switzerland
| | - Michal Rosen-Zvi
- Department of Healthcare Informatics, IBM Research, IBM R&D Labs, University of Haifa Campus, Mount Carmel, Haifa, 3498825, Israel; The Hebrew University, The Edmond J. Safra Campus - Givat Ram, Jerusalem, 9190401, Israel
| | - Govind Kaigala
- IBM Research Europe -Säumerstrasse 4, Rüschlikon CH-8803, Zurich, Switzerland.
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18
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Park S, Lee D, Kim Y, Lim S, Chae H, Kim S. BioVLAB-Cancer-Pharmacogenomics: tumor heterogeneity and pharmacogenomics analysis of multi-omics data from tumor on the cloud. Bioinformatics 2021; 38:275-277. [PMID: 34185062 DOI: 10.1093/bioinformatics/btab478] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/10/2021] [Revised: 06/12/2021] [Accepted: 06/28/2021] [Indexed: 02/03/2023] Open
Abstract
MOTIVATION Multi-omics data in molecular biology has accumulated rapidly over the years. Such data contains valuable information for research in medicine and drug discovery. Unfortunately, data-driven research in medicine and drug discovery is challenging for a majority of small research labs due to the large volume of data and the complexity of analysis pipeline. RESULTS We present BioVLAB-Cancer-Pharmacogenomics, a bioinformatics system that facilitates analysis of multi-omics data from breast cancer to analyze and investigate intratumor heterogeneity and pharmacogenomics on Amazon Web Services. Our system takes multi-omics data as input to perform tumor heterogeneity analysis in terms of TCGA data and deconvolve-and-match the tumor gene expression to cell line data in CCLE using DNA methylation profiles. We believe that our system can help small research labs perform analysis of tumor multi-omics without worrying about computational infrastructure and maintenance of databases and tools. AVAILABILITY AND IMPLEMENTATION http://biohealth.snu.ac.kr/software/biovlab_cancer_pharmacogenomics. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.
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Affiliation(s)
- Sungjoon Park
- Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Seoul National University, Seoul 08840, Republic of Korea
| | - Dohoon Lee
- Interdisciplinary Program in Bioinformatics, Seoul National University, Seoul 08840, Republic of Korea
| | - Youngkuk Kim
- Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Seoul National University, Seoul 08840, Republic of Korea
| | - Sangsoo Lim
- Bioinformatics Institute, Seoul National University, Seoul 08840, Republic of Korea
| | - Heejoon Chae
- Division of Computer Science, Sookmyung Women's University, Seoul 04310, Republic of Korea
| | - Sun Kim
- Interdisciplinary Program in Bioinformatics, Seoul National University, Seoul 08840, Republic of Korea.,Bioinformatics Institute, Seoul National University, Seoul 08840, Republic of Korea.,Institute of Engineering Research, Seoul National University, Seoul 08840, Republic of Korea
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19
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Liu Q, Li L, Wang X. MYTH: An algorithm to score intratumour heterogeneity based on alterations of DNA methylation profiles. Clin Transl Med 2021; 11:e611. [PMID: 34709741 PMCID: PMC8516364 DOI: 10.1002/ctm2.611] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/25/2021] [Revised: 09/24/2021] [Accepted: 09/28/2021] [Indexed: 01/15/2023] Open
Affiliation(s)
- Qian Liu
- Biomedical Informatics Research Lab, School of Basic Medicine and Clinical Pharmacy, China Pharmaceutical University, Nanjing, China.,Cancer Genomics Research Center, School of Basic Medicine and Clinical Pharmacy, China Pharmaceutical University, Nanjing, China.,Big Data Research Institute, China Pharmaceutical University, Nanjing, China
| | - Lin Li
- Biomedical Informatics Research Lab, School of Basic Medicine and Clinical Pharmacy, China Pharmaceutical University, Nanjing, China.,Cancer Genomics Research Center, School of Basic Medicine and Clinical Pharmacy, China Pharmaceutical University, Nanjing, China.,Big Data Research Institute, China Pharmaceutical University, Nanjing, China
| | - Xiaosheng Wang
- Biomedical Informatics Research Lab, School of Basic Medicine and Clinical Pharmacy, China Pharmaceutical University, Nanjing, China.,Cancer Genomics Research Center, School of Basic Medicine and Clinical Pharmacy, China Pharmaceutical University, Nanjing, China.,Big Data Research Institute, China Pharmaceutical University, Nanjing, China
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20
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Montemurro M, Grassi E, Pizzino CG, Bertotti A, Ficarra E, Urgese G. PhyliCS: a Python library to explore scCNA data and quantify spatial tumor heterogeneity. BMC Bioinformatics 2021; 22:360. [PMID: 34217219 PMCID: PMC8254361 DOI: 10.1186/s12859-021-04277-3] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/22/2021] [Accepted: 06/21/2021] [Indexed: 11/10/2022] Open
Abstract
BACKGROUND Tumors are composed by a number of cancer cell subpopulations (subclones), characterized by a distinguishable set of mutations. This phenomenon, known as intra-tumor heterogeneity (ITH), may be studied using Copy Number Aberrations (CNAs). Nowadays ITH can be assessed at the highest possible resolution using single-cell DNA (scDNA) sequencing technology. Additionally, single-cell CNA (scCNA) profiles from multiple samples of the same tumor can in principle be exploited to study the spatial distribution of subclones within a tumor mass. However, since the technology required to generate large scDNA sequencing datasets is relatively recent, dedicated analytical approaches are still lacking. RESULTS We present PhyliCS, the first tool which exploits scCNA data from multiple samples from the same tumor to estimate whether the different clones of a tumor are well mixed or spatially separated. Starting from the CNA data produced with third party instruments, it computes a score, the Spatial Heterogeneity score, aimed at distinguishing spatially intermixed cell populations from spatially segregated ones. Additionally, it provides functionalities to facilitate scDNA analysis, such as feature selection and dimensionality reduction methods, visualization tools and a flexible clustering module. CONCLUSIONS PhyliCS represents a valuable instrument to explore the extent of spatial heterogeneity in multi-regional tumour sampling, exploiting the potential of scCNA data.
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Affiliation(s)
- Marilisa Montemurro
- Department of Control and Computer Science, Politecnico di Torino, C.so Duca degli Abruzzi 24, 10129, Turin, Italy.
| | - Elena Grassi
- Department of Oncology, University of Torino, Strada Provinciale, 142 - KM 3.95, 10060, Candiolo, Turin, Italy.,Candiolo Cancer Institute - FPO IRCCS, Strada Provinciale, 142 - KM 3.95, 10060, Candiolo, TO, Italy
| | - Carmelo Gabriele Pizzino
- Department of Oncology, University of Torino, Strada Provinciale, 142 - KM 3.95, 10060, Candiolo, Turin, Italy.,Candiolo Cancer Institute - FPO IRCCS, Strada Provinciale, 142 - KM 3.95, 10060, Candiolo, TO, Italy
| | - Andrea Bertotti
- Department of Oncology, University of Torino, Strada Provinciale, 142 - KM 3.95, 10060, Candiolo, Turin, Italy.,Candiolo Cancer Institute - FPO IRCCS, Strada Provinciale, 142 - KM 3.95, 10060, Candiolo, TO, Italy
| | - Elisa Ficarra
- Enzo Ferrari Engineering Dept, University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, Via Vivarelli 10/1, 41125, Modena, Italy
| | - Gianvito Urgese
- Interuniversity Department of Regional and Urban Studies and Planning, Politecnico di Torino, C.so Duca degli Abruzzi 24, 10129, Turin, Italy
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21
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Li L, Chen C, Wang X. DITHER: an algorithm for Defining IntraTumor Heterogeneity based on EntRopy. Brief Bioinform 2021; 22:6294161. [PMID: 34096997 DOI: 10.1093/bib/bbab202] [Citation(s) in RCA: 14] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/31/2021] [Revised: 04/12/2021] [Accepted: 05/07/2021] [Indexed: 02/07/2023] Open
Abstract
Intratumor heterogeneity (ITH) is associated with tumor development, prognosis, immune evasion and therapeutic effects. We proposed the Defining ITH based on EntRopy (DITHER) algorithm for evaluating ITH. We first evaluated the entropies of somatic mutation profiles and copy number alteration (CNA) profiles in a tumor, respectively, and defined their average as the ITH level for the tumor. Using DITHER, we analyzed 33 cancer types from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) program. We demonstrated that the ITH defined by DITHER had the typical properties of ITH, namely its strong correlations with tumor progression, unfavorable phenotype, genomic instability and immune evasion. Compared with two other ITH evaluation methods: MATH and PhyloWGS, the DITHER ITH had more prominent characteristics of ITH. Moreover, different from MATH and PhyloWGS, DITHER scores were positively correlated with tumor purity, suggesting that DITHER tends to capture the ITH between tumor cells. Interestingly, microsatellite instability (MSI)-high tumors had significantly lower DITHER scores than microsatellite stability (MSS)/MSI-low tumors, although the former had significantly higher tumor mutation loads than the latter. It suggests that the hypermutability of MSI is homogeneous between different cellular populations in bulk tumors. The DITHER ITH may provide novel insights into tumor biology and potential clinical applications.
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Affiliation(s)
- Lin Li
- Biomedical Informatics Research Lab, School of Basic Medicine and Clinical Pharmacy, China Pharmaceutical University, Nanjing 211198, China
| | - Canping Chen
- Biomedical Informatics Research Lab, School of Basic Medicine and Clinical Pharmacy, China Pharmaceutical University, Nanjing 211198, China
| | - Xiaosheng Wang
- Biomedical Informatics Research Lab, School of Basic Medicine and Clinical Pharmacy, China Pharmaceutical University, Nanjing 211198, China
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22
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Clemens Z, Sivakumar S, Pius A, Sahu A, Shinde S, Mamiya H, Luketich N, Cui J, Dixit P, Hoeck JD, Kreuz S, Franti M, Barchowsky A, Ambrosio F. The biphasic and age-dependent impact of klotho on hallmarks of aging and skeletal muscle function. eLife 2021; 10:e61138. [PMID: 33876724 PMCID: PMC8118657 DOI: 10.7554/elife.61138] [Citation(s) in RCA: 33] [Impact Index Per Article: 8.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/16/2020] [Accepted: 04/06/2021] [Indexed: 12/15/2022] Open
Abstract
Aging is accompanied by disrupted information flow, resulting from accumulation of molecular mistakes. These mistakes ultimately give rise to debilitating disorders including skeletal muscle wasting, or sarcopenia. To derive a global metric of growing 'disorderliness' of aging muscle, we employed a statistical physics approach to estimate the state parameter, entropy, as a function of genes associated with hallmarks of aging. Escalating network entropy reached an inflection point at old age, while structural and functional alterations progressed into oldest-old age. To probe the potential for restoration of molecular 'order' and reversal of the sarcopenic phenotype, we systemically overexpressed the longevity protein, Klotho, via AAV. Klotho overexpression modulated genes representing all hallmarks of aging in old and oldest-old mice, but pathway enrichment revealed directions of changes were, for many genes, age-dependent. Functional improvements were also age-dependent. Klotho improved strength in old mice, but failed to induce benefits beyond the entropic tipping point.
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Affiliation(s)
- Zachary Clemens
- Department of Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation, University of PittsburghPittsburghUnited States
- Department of Environmental and Occupational Health, University of PittsburghPittsburghUnited States
| | - Sruthi Sivakumar
- Department of Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation, University of PittsburghPittsburghUnited States
- Department of Bioengineering, University of PittsburghPittsburghUnited States
| | - Abish Pius
- Department of Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation, University of PittsburghPittsburghUnited States
- Department of Computational & Systems Biology, School of Medicine, University of PittsburghPittsburghUnited States
| | - Amrita Sahu
- Department of Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation, University of PittsburghPittsburghUnited States
| | - Sunita Shinde
- Department of Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation, University of PittsburghPittsburghUnited States
| | - Hikaru Mamiya
- Department of Bioengineering, University of PittsburghPittsburghUnited States
| | - Nathaniel Luketich
- Department of Bioengineering, University of PittsburghPittsburghUnited States
| | - Jian Cui
- Department of Computational & Systems Biology, School of Medicine, University of PittsburghPittsburghUnited States
| | - Purushottam Dixit
- Department of Physics, University of FloridaGainesvilleUnited States
| | - Joerg D Hoeck
- Department of Research Beyond Borders, Regenerative Medicine, Boehringer Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals, IncRheinGermany
| | - Sebastian Kreuz
- Department of Research Beyond Borders, Regenerative Medicine, Boehringer Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals, IncRheinGermany
| | - Michael Franti
- Department of Research Beyond Borders, Regenerative Medicine, Boehringer Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals, IncRheinGermany
| | - Aaron Barchowsky
- Department of Environmental and Occupational Health, University of PittsburghPittsburghUnited States
| | - Fabrisia Ambrosio
- Department of Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation, University of PittsburghPittsburghUnited States
- Department of Environmental and Occupational Health, University of PittsburghPittsburghUnited States
- Department of Bioengineering, University of PittsburghPittsburghUnited States
- McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine, University of PittsburghPittsburghUnited States
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23
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Abstract
Tumor heterogeneity can arise from a variety of extrinsic and intrinsic sources and drives unfavorable outcomes. With recent technological advances, single-cell RNA sequencing has become a way for researchers to easily assay tumor heterogeneity at the transcriptomic level with high resolution. However, ongoing research focuses on different ways to analyze this big data and how to compare across multiple different samples. In this chapter, we provide a practical guide to calculate inter- and intrasample diversity metrics from single-cell RNA sequencing datasets. These measures of diversity are adapted from commonly used metrics in statistics and ecology to quantify and compare sample heterogeneity at single-cell resolution.
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24
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Savino A, Provero P, Poli V. Differential Co-Expression Analyses Allow the Identification of Critical Signalling Pathways Altered during Tumour Transformation and Progression. Int J Mol Sci 2020; 21:E9461. [PMID: 33322692 PMCID: PMC7764314 DOI: 10.3390/ijms21249461] [Citation(s) in RCA: 21] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/30/2020] [Revised: 12/02/2020] [Accepted: 12/09/2020] [Indexed: 02/02/2023] Open
Abstract
Biological systems respond to perturbations through the rewiring of molecular interactions, organised in gene regulatory networks (GRNs). Among these, the increasingly high availability of transcriptomic data makes gene co-expression networks the most exploited ones. Differential co-expression networks are useful tools to identify changes in response to an external perturbation, such as mutations predisposing to cancer development, and leading to changes in the activity of gene expression regulators or signalling. They can help explain the robustness of cancer cells to perturbations and identify promising candidates for targeted therapy, moreover providing higher specificity with respect to standard co-expression methods. Here, we comprehensively review the literature about the methods developed to assess differential co-expression and their applications to cancer biology. Via the comparison of normal and diseased conditions and of different tumour stages, studies based on these methods led to the definition of pathways involved in gene network reorganisation upon oncogenes' mutations and tumour progression, often converging on immune system signalling. A relevant implementation still lagging behind is the integration of different data types, which would greatly improve network interpretability. Most importantly, performance and predictivity evaluation of the large variety of mathematical models proposed would urgently require experimental validations and systematic comparisons. We believe that future work on differential gene co-expression networks, complemented with additional omics data and experimentally tested, will considerably improve our insights into the biology of tumours.
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Affiliation(s)
- Aurora Savino
- Molecular Biotechnology Center, Department of Molecular Biotechnology and Health Sciences, University of Turin, Via Nizza 52, 10126 Turin, Italy
| | - Paolo Provero
- Department of Neurosciences “Rita Levi Montalcini”, University of Turin, Corso Massimo D’Ázeglio 52, 10126 Turin, Italy;
- Center for Omics Sciences, Ospedale San Raffaele IRCCS, Via Olgettina 60, 20132 Milan, Italy
| | - Valeria Poli
- Molecular Biotechnology Center, Department of Molecular Biotechnology and Health Sciences, University of Turin, Via Nizza 52, 10126 Turin, Italy
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25
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Capp JP, Thomas F. Tissue-disruption-induced cellular stochasticity and epigenetic drift: Common origins of aging and cancer? Bioessays 2020; 43:e2000140. [PMID: 33118188 DOI: 10.1002/bies.202000140] [Citation(s) in RCA: 9] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/10/2020] [Revised: 09/22/2020] [Accepted: 09/24/2020] [Indexed: 01/10/2023]
Abstract
Age-related and cancer-related epigenomic modifications have been associated with enhanced cell-to-cell gene expression variability that characterizes increased cellular stochasticity. Since gene expression variability appears to be highly reduced by-and epigenetic and phenotypic stability acquired through-direct or long-range cellular interactions during cell differentiation, we propose a common origin for aging and cancer in the failure to control cellular stochasticity by cell-cell interactions. Tissue-disruption-induced cellular stochasticity associated with epigenetic drift would be at the origin of organ dysfunction because of an increase in phenotypic variation among cells, ultimately leading to cell death and organ failure through a loss of coordination in cellular functions, and eventually to cancerization. We propose mechanistic research perspectives to corroborate this hypothesis and explore its evolutionary consequences, highlighting a positive correlation between the median age of mass loss onset (a proxy for the onset of organ aging) and the median age at cancer diagnosis.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jean-Pascal Capp
- Toulouse Biotechnology Institute, University of Toulouse, INSA, CNRS, INRAE, Toulouse, France
| | - Frédéric Thomas
- CREEC (CREES), UMR IRD 224-CNRS 5290-University of Montpellier, Montpellier, France
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26
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Sharma A, Merritt E, Hu X, Cruz A, Jiang C, Sarkodie H, Zhou Z, Malhotra J, Riedlinger GM, De S. Non-Genetic Intra-Tumor Heterogeneity Is a Major Predictor of Phenotypic Heterogeneity and Ongoing Evolutionary Dynamics in Lung Tumors. Cell Rep 2020; 29:2164-2174.e5. [PMID: 31747591 PMCID: PMC6952742 DOI: 10.1016/j.celrep.2019.10.045] [Citation(s) in RCA: 83] [Impact Index Per Article: 16.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/23/2019] [Revised: 09/04/2019] [Accepted: 10/10/2019] [Indexed: 12/24/2022] Open
Abstract
Impacts of genetic and non-genetic intra-tumor heterogeneity (ITH) on tumor phenotypes and evolvability remain debated. We analyze ITH in lung squamous cell carcinoma at the levels of genome, transcriptome, and tumor-immune interactions and histopathological characteristics by multi-region bulk and single-cell sequencing. Genomic heterogeneity alone is a weak indicator of intra-tumor non-genetic heterogeneity at immune and transcriptomic levels that impact multiple cancer-related pathways, including those related to proliferation and inflammation, which in turn contribute to intra-tumor regional differences in histopathology and subtype classification. Tumor subclones have substantial differences in proliferation score, suggestive of non-neutral clonal dynamics. Proliferation and other cancer-related pathways also show intra-tumor regional differences, sometimes even within the same subclones. Neo-epitope burden negatively correlates with immune infiltration, indicating immune-mediated purifying selection on somatic mutations. Taken together, our observations suggest that non-genetic heterogeneity is a major determinant of heterogeneity in histopathological characteristics and impacts evolutionary dynamics in lung cancer.
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Affiliation(s)
- Anchal Sharma
- Rutgers Cancer Institute of New Jersey, Rutgers the State University of New Jersey, New Brunswick, NJ 08901, USA
| | - Elise Merritt
- Rutgers Cancer Institute of New Jersey, Rutgers the State University of New Jersey, New Brunswick, NJ 08901, USA
| | - Xiaoju Hu
- Rutgers Cancer Institute of New Jersey, Rutgers the State University of New Jersey, New Brunswick, NJ 08901, USA
| | | | - Chuan Jiang
- Rutgers Cancer Institute of New Jersey, Rutgers the State University of New Jersey, New Brunswick, NJ 08901, USA
| | - Halle Sarkodie
- Rutgers Cancer Institute of New Jersey, Rutgers the State University of New Jersey, New Brunswick, NJ 08901, USA
| | - Zhan Zhou
- Institute of Drug Metabolism and Pharmaceutical Analysis, College of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310058, China
| | - Jyoti Malhotra
- Rutgers Cancer Institute of New Jersey, Rutgers the State University of New Jersey, New Brunswick, NJ 08901, USA
| | - Gregory M Riedlinger
- Rutgers Cancer Institute of New Jersey, Rutgers the State University of New Jersey, New Brunswick, NJ 08901, USA
| | - Subhajyoti De
- Rutgers Cancer Institute of New Jersey, Rutgers the State University of New Jersey, New Brunswick, NJ 08901, USA.
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27
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Li M, Zhang Z, Li L, Wang X. An algorithm to quantify intratumor heterogeneity based on alterations of gene expression profiles. Commun Biol 2020; 3:505. [PMID: 32917965 PMCID: PMC7486929 DOI: 10.1038/s42003-020-01230-7] [Citation(s) in RCA: 59] [Impact Index Per Article: 11.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/16/2019] [Accepted: 08/18/2020] [Indexed: 12/23/2022] Open
Abstract
Intratumor heterogeneity (ITH) is a biomarker of tumor progression, metastasis, and immune evasion. Previous studies evaluated ITH mostly based on DNA alterations. Here, we developed a new algorithm (DEPTH) for quantifying ITH based on mRNA alterations in the tumor. DEPTH scores displayed significant correlations with ITH-associated features (genomic instability, tumor advancement, unfavorable prognosis, immunosuppression, and drug response). Compared to DNA-based ITH scores (EXPANDS, PhyloWGS, MATH, and ABSOLUTE), DEPTH scores had stronger correlations with antitumor immune signatures, cell proliferation, stemness, tumor advancement, survival prognosis, and drug response. Compared to two other mRNA-based ITH scores (tITH and sITH), DEPTH scores showed stronger and more consistent associations with genomic instability, unfavorable tumor phenotypes and clinical features, and drug response. We further validated the reliability and robustness of DEPTH in 50 other datasets. In conclusion, DEPTH may provide new insights into tumor biology and potential clinical implications for cancer prognosis and treatment.
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Affiliation(s)
- Mengyuan Li
- Biomedical Informatics Research Lab, School of Basic Medicine and Clinical Pharmacy, China Pharmaceutical University, Nanjing, 211198, China.,Cancer Genomics Research Center, School of Basic Medicine and Clinical Pharmacy, China Pharmaceutical University, Nanjing, 211198, China.,Big Data Research Institute, China Pharmaceutical University, Nanjing, 211198, China
| | - Zhilan Zhang
- Biomedical Informatics Research Lab, School of Basic Medicine and Clinical Pharmacy, China Pharmaceutical University, Nanjing, 211198, China.,Cancer Genomics Research Center, School of Basic Medicine and Clinical Pharmacy, China Pharmaceutical University, Nanjing, 211198, China.,Big Data Research Institute, China Pharmaceutical University, Nanjing, 211198, China
| | - Lin Li
- Biomedical Informatics Research Lab, School of Basic Medicine and Clinical Pharmacy, China Pharmaceutical University, Nanjing, 211198, China.,Cancer Genomics Research Center, School of Basic Medicine and Clinical Pharmacy, China Pharmaceutical University, Nanjing, 211198, China.,Big Data Research Institute, China Pharmaceutical University, Nanjing, 211198, China
| | - Xiaosheng Wang
- Biomedical Informatics Research Lab, School of Basic Medicine and Clinical Pharmacy, China Pharmaceutical University, Nanjing, 211198, China. .,Cancer Genomics Research Center, School of Basic Medicine and Clinical Pharmacy, China Pharmaceutical University, Nanjing, 211198, China. .,Big Data Research Institute, China Pharmaceutical University, Nanjing, 211198, China.
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28
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Lee D, Park Y, Kim S. Towards multi-omics characterization of tumor heterogeneity: a comprehensive review of statistical and machine learning approaches. Brief Bioinform 2020; 22:5896573. [PMID: 34020548 DOI: 10.1093/bib/bbaa188] [Citation(s) in RCA: 20] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/02/2020] [Revised: 06/29/2020] [Accepted: 07/21/2020] [Indexed: 12/19/2022] Open
Abstract
The multi-omics molecular characterization of cancer opened a new horizon for our understanding of cancer biology and therapeutic strategies. However, a tumor biopsy comprises diverse types of cells limited not only to cancerous cells but also to tumor microenvironmental cells and adjacent normal cells. This heterogeneity is a major confounding factor that hampers a robust and reproducible bioinformatic analysis for biomarker identification using multi-omics profiles. Besides, the heterogeneity itself has been recognized over the years for its significant prognostic values in some cancer types, thus offering another promising avenue for therapeutic intervention. A number of computational approaches to unravel such heterogeneity from high-throughput molecular profiles of a tumor sample have been proposed, but most of them rely on the data from an individual omics layer. Since the heterogeneity of cells is widely distributed across multi-omics layers, methods based on an individual layer can only partially characterize the heterogeneous admixture of cells. To help facilitate further development of the methodologies that synchronously account for several multi-omics profiles, we wrote a comprehensive review of diverse approaches to characterize tumor heterogeneity based on three different omics layers: genome, epigenome and transcriptome. As a result, this review can be useful for the analysis of multi-omics profiles produced by many large-scale consortia. Contact:sunkim.bioinfo@snu.ac.kr.
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Affiliation(s)
- Dohoon Lee
- Interdisciplinary Program in Bioinformatics, Seoul National University, Seoul 08826, Korea
| | - Youngjune Park
- Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Institute of Engineering Research, Seoul National University, Seoul 08826, Korea
| | - Sun Kim
- Bioinformatics Institute, Seoul National University, Seoul 08826, Korea
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29
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Lee D, Lee S, Kim S. PRISM: methylation pattern-based, reference-free inference of subclonal makeup. Bioinformatics 2020; 35:i520-i529. [PMID: 31510697 PMCID: PMC6612819 DOI: 10.1093/bioinformatics/btz327] [Citation(s) in RCA: 7] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/20/2022] Open
Abstract
Motivation Characterizing cancer subclones is crucial for the ultimate conquest of cancer. Thus, a number of bioinformatic tools have been developed to infer heterogeneous tumor populations based on genomic signatures such as mutations and copy number variations. Despite accumulating evidence for the significance of global DNA methylation reprogramming in certain cancer types including myeloid malignancies, none of the bioinformatic tools are designed to exploit subclonally reprogrammed methylation patterns to reveal constituent populations of a tumor. In accordance with the notion of global methylation reprogramming, our preliminary observations on acute myeloid leukemia (AML) samples implied the existence of subclonally occurring focal methylation aberrance throughout the genome. Results We present PRISM, a tool for inferring the composition of epigenetically distinct subclones of a tumor solely from methylation patterns obtained by reduced representation bisulfite sequencing. PRISM adopts DNA methyltransferase 1-like hidden Markov model-based in silico proofreading for the correction of erroneous methylation patterns. With error-corrected methylation patterns, PRISM focuses on a short individual genomic region harboring dichotomous patterns that can be split into fully methylated and unmethylated patterns. Frequencies of such two patterns form a sufficient statistic for subclonal abundance. A set of statistics collected from each genomic region is modeled with a beta-binomial mixture. Fitting the mixture with expectation-maximization algorithm finally provides inferred composition of subclones. Applying PRISM for two AML samples, we demonstrate that PRISM could infer the evolutionary history of malignant samples from an epigenetic point of view. Availability and implementation PRISM is freely available on GitHub (https://github.com/dohlee/prism). Supplementary information Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.
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Affiliation(s)
- Dohoon Lee
- Interdisciplinary Program in Bioinformatics, Seoul National University, Seoul, Korea
| | - Sangseon Lee
- Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Seoul National University, Seoul, Korea
| | - Sun Kim
- Interdisciplinary Program in Bioinformatics, Seoul National University, Seoul, Korea.,Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Seoul National University, Seoul, Korea.,Bioinformatics Institute, Seoul National University, Seoul, Korea
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30
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Kim M, Lee S, Lim S, Kim S. SpliceHetero: An information theoretic approach for measuring spliceomic intratumor heterogeneity from bulk tumor RNA-seq. PLoS One 2019; 14:e0223520. [PMID: 31644551 PMCID: PMC6808416 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0223520] [Citation(s) in RCA: 7] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/08/2019] [Accepted: 09/23/2019] [Indexed: 01/19/2023] Open
Abstract
Motivation Intratumor heterogeneity (ITH) represents the diversity of cell populations that make up cancer tissue. The level of ITH in a tumor is usually measured by a genomic variation profile, such as copy number variation and somatic mutation. However, a recent study has identified ITH at the transcriptome level and suggested that ITH at gene expression levels is useful for predicting prognosis. Measuring ITH levels at the spliceome level is a natural extension. There are serious technical challenges in measuring spliceomic ITH (sITH) from bulk tumor RNA sequencing (RNA-seq) due to the complex splicing patterns. Results We propose an information-theoretic method to measure the sITH of bulk tumors to overcome the above challenges. This method has been extensively tested in experiments using synthetic data, xenograft tumor data, and TCGA pan-cancer data. As a result, we showed that sITH is closely related to cancer progression and clonal heterogeneity, along with clinically significant features such as cancer stage, survival outcome and PAM50 subtype. As far as we know, it is the first study to define ITH at the spliceome level. This method can greatly improve the understanding of cancer spliceome and has great potential as a diagnostic and prognostic tool.
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Affiliation(s)
- Minsu Kim
- Interdisciplinary Program in Bioinformatics, Seoul National University, Seoul, 08826, Korea
| | - Sangseon Lee
- Interdisciplinary Program in Bioinformatics, Seoul National University, Seoul, 08826, Korea
| | - Sangsoo Lim
- Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Seoul National University, Seoul, 08826, Korea
| | - Sun Kim
- Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Seoul National University, Seoul, 08826, Korea
- Interdisciplinary Program in Bioinformatics, Seoul National University, Seoul, 08826, Korea
- Bioinformatics Institute, Seoul National University, Seoul, 08826, Korea
- * E-mail:
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Sung JY, Shin HT, Sohn KA, Shin SY, Park WY, Joung JG. Assessment of intratumoral heterogeneity with mutations and gene expression profiles. PLoS One 2019; 14:e0219682. [PMID: 31310640 PMCID: PMC6634409 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0219682] [Citation(s) in RCA: 13] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/18/2019] [Accepted: 06/30/2019] [Indexed: 02/07/2023] Open
Abstract
Intratumoral heterogeneity (ITH) refers to the presence of distinct tumor cell populations. It provides vital information for the clinical prognosis, drug responsiveness, and personalized treatment of cancer patients. As genomic ITH in various cancers affects the expression patterns of genes, the expression profile could be utilized for determining ITH level. Herein, we present a novel approach to directly detect high ITH defined as a larger number of subclones from the gene expression pattern through machine learning approaches. We examined associations between gene expression profile and ITH of 12 cancer types from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) database. Using stomach adenocarcinoma (STAD) showing high association, we evaluated the performance of our method in predicting ITH by employing three machine learning algorithms using gene expression profile data. We classified tumors into high and low heterogeneity groups using the learning model through the selection of LASSO feature. The result showed that support vector machines (SVMs) outperformed other algorithms (AUC = 0.84 in SVMs and 0.82 in Naïve Bayes) and we were able to improve predictive power by using both combined data from mutation and expression. Furthermore, we evaluated the prediction ability of each model using simulation data generated by mixing cell lines of the Cancer Cell Line Encyclopedia (CCLE), and obtained consistent results with using real dataset. Our approach could be utilized for discriminating tumors with heterogeneous cell populations to characterize ITH.
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Affiliation(s)
- Ji-Yong Sung
- Samsung Genome Institute, Samsung Medical Center, Seoul, Korea
- Department of Health Science and Technology, Samsung Advanced Institute of Health Science and Technology, Sungkyunkwan University, Seoul, Korea
| | - Hyun-Tae Shin
- Samsung Genome Institute, Samsung Medical Center, Seoul, Korea
- Department of Health Science and Technology, Samsung Advanced Institute of Health Science and Technology, Sungkyunkwan University, Seoul, Korea
| | - Kyung-Ah Sohn
- Department of Software and Computer Engineering, Ajou University, Suwon, Korea
| | - Soo-Yong Shin
- Department of Digital Health, Samsung Advanced Institute of Health Science and Technology, Sungkyunkwan University, Seoul, Korea
- Big Data Research Center, Samsung Medical Center, Seoul, Korea
| | - Woong-Yang Park
- Samsung Genome Institute, Samsung Medical Center, Seoul, Korea
- Department of Health Science and Technology, Samsung Advanced Institute of Health Science and Technology, Sungkyunkwan University, Seoul, Korea
- Department of Molecular Cell Biology, Sungkyunkwan University School of Medicine, Seoul, Korea
| | - Je-Gun Joung
- Samsung Genome Institute, Samsung Medical Center, Seoul, Korea
- * E-mail:
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Giraudeau M, Sepp T, Ujvari B, Renaud F, Tasiemski A, Roche B, Capp JP, Thomas F. Differences in mutational processes and intra-tumour heterogeneity between organs: The local selective filter hypothesis. Evol Med Public Health 2019; 2019:139-146. [PMID: 31528343 PMCID: PMC6735757 DOI: 10.1093/emph/eoz017] [Citation(s) in RCA: 6] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/12/2018] [Accepted: 03/05/2019] [Indexed: 12/21/2022] Open
Abstract
Extensive diversity (genetic, cytogenetic, epigenetic and phenotypic) exists within and between tumours, but reasons behind these variations, as well as their consistent hierarchical pattern between organs, are poorly understood at the moment. We argue that these phenomena are, at least partially, explainable by the evolutionary ecology of organs' theory, in the same way that environmental adversity shapes mutation rates and level of polymorphism in organisms. Organs in organisms can be considered as specialized ecosystems that are, for ecological and evolutionary reasons, more or less efficient at suppressing tumours. When a malignancy does arise in an organ applying strong selection pressure on tumours, its constituent cells are expected to display a large range of possible surviving strategies, from hyper mutator phenotypes relying on bet-hedging to persist (high mutation rates and high diversity), to few poorly variable variants that become invisible to natural defences. In contrast, when tumour suppression is weaker, selective pressure favouring extreme surviving strategies is relaxed, and tumours are moderately variable as a result. We provide a comprehensive overview of this hypothesis. Lay summary: Different levels of mutations and intra-tumour heterogeneity have been observed between cancer types and organs. Anti-cancer defences are unequal between our organs. We propose that mostly aggressive neoplasms (i.e. higher mutational and ITH levels), succeed in emerging and developing in organs with strong defences.
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Affiliation(s)
- Mathieu Giraudeau
- CREEC, UMR IRD 224-CNRS 5290-Université de Montpellier, Montpellier, France
| | - Tuul Sepp
- Institute of Ecology and Earth Sciences, University of Tartu, Vanemuise 46, Tartu 51014, Estonia
| | - Beata Ujvari
- School of Natural Sciences, University of Tasmania, Private Bag 55, Hobart, Tasmania 7001, Australia
- Centre for Integrative Ecology, School of Life and Environmental Sciences, Deakin University, Waurn Ponds, Victoria 3216, Australia
| | - François Renaud
- CREEC, UMR IRD 224-CNRS 5290-Université de Montpellier, Montpellier, France
| | - Aurélie Tasiemski
- Université de Lille-sciences et technologies, UMR 8198 Evo-Eco-Paleo, Villeneuve d'Ascq/CNRS/INSERM/CHU Lille, Institut Pasteur de Lille, U1019-Unité Mixte de Recherche 8204, Lille, France
| | - Benjamin Roche
- CREEC, UMR IRD 224-CNRS 5290-Université de Montpellier, Montpellier, France
- IRD, Sorbonne Université, UMMISCO, F-93143, Bondy, France
- Departamento de Etología, Fauna Silvestre y Animales de Laboratorio, Facultad de Medicina Veterinaria y Zootecnia, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM), Ciudad de México, México
| | - Jean-Pascal Capp
- INSA/Université Fédérale de Toulouse, Laboratoire d'Ingénierie des Systèmes Biologiques et des Procédés, UMR CNRS 5504, UMR INRA 792, Toulouse, France
| | - Frédéric Thomas
- CREEC, UMR IRD 224-CNRS 5290-Université de Montpellier, Montpellier, France
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Kumar N, Zhao D, Bhaumik D, Sethi A, Gann PH. Quantification of intrinsic subtype ambiguity in Luminal A breast cancer and its relationship to clinical outcomes. BMC Cancer 2019; 19:215. [PMID: 30849944 PMCID: PMC6408846 DOI: 10.1186/s12885-019-5392-z] [Citation(s) in RCA: 8] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/24/2018] [Accepted: 02/20/2019] [Indexed: 12/01/2022] Open
Abstract
Background PAM50 gene profiling assigns each cancer to a single intrinsic subtype. However, individual cancers vary in their adherence to a prototype, and due to bulk tissue sampling, some may exhibit expression patterns that indicate intra-tumor admixture of multiple subtypes. Our objective was to develop admixture metrics from PAM50 gene expression profiles in order to stratify Luminal A (LumA) cases according to their degree of subtype admixture, and then relate such admixture to clinical and molecular variables. Methods We re-constructed scaled, normalized PAM50 profiles for 1980 cases (674 LumA) in the METABRIC cohort and for each case computed its Mahalanobis (M-) distance from its assigned centroid and M-distance from all other centroids. We used t-SNE plots to visualize overlaps in subtype clustering. With Normal-like cases excluded, we developed two metrics: Median Distance Criteria (MDC) classified pure cases as those located within the 50th percentile of the LumA centroid and > =50th percentile from any other centroid. Distance Ratio Criteria (DRC) was computed as the ratio of M-distances from the LumA centroid to the nearest non-assigned centroid. Pure and admixed LumA cases were compared on clinical/molecular traits. TCGA LumA cases (n = 509) provided independent validation. Results Compared to pure cases in METABRIC, admixed ones had older age at diagnosis, larger tumor size, and higher grade and stage. These associations were stronger for the DRC metric compared to MDC. Admixed cases were associated with HER2 gain, high proliferation, higher PAM50 recurrence scores, more frequent TP53 mutation, and less frequent PIK3CA mutation. Similar results were observed in the TCGA validation cohort, which also showed a positive association between admixture and number of clonal populations estimated by PyClone. LumA-LumB confusion predominated, but other combinations were also present. Degree of admixture was associated with overall survival in both cohorts, as was disease-free survival in TCGA, independent of age, grade and stage (HR = 2.85, Tertile 3 vs.1). Conclusions Luminal A breast cancers subgrouped based on PAM50 subtype purity support the hypothesis that admixed cases have worse clinical features and survival. Future analyses will explore more extensive genomic metrics for admixture and their spatial significance within a single tumor. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (10.1186/s12885-019-5392-z) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
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Kikutake C, Yoshihara M, Sato T, Saito D, Suyama M. Pan-cancer analysis of intratumor heterogeneity associated with patient prognosis using multidimensional measures. Oncotarget 2018; 9:37689-37699. [PMID: 30701024 PMCID: PMC6340877 DOI: 10.18632/oncotarget.26485] [Citation(s) in RCA: 6] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.9] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/22/2018] [Accepted: 12/04/2018] [Indexed: 01/28/2023] Open
Abstract
Human cancers accumulate various mutations during development and consist of highly heterogeneous cell populations. This phenomenon is called intratumor heterogeneity (ITH). ITH is known to be involved in tumor growth, progression, invasion, and metastasis, presenting obstacles to accurate diagnoses and effective treatments. Numerous studies have explored the dynamics of ITH, including constructions of phylogenetic trees in cancer samples using multiregional ultradeep sequencing and simulations of evolution using statistical models. Although ITH is associated with prognosis, it is still challenging to use the characteristics of ITH as prognostic factors because of difficulties in quantifying ITH precisely. In this study, we analyzed the relationship between patient prognosis and the distribution of variant allele frequencies (VAFs) in cancer samples (n = 6,064) across 16 cancer types registered in The Cancer Genome Atlas. To measure VAF distributions multidimensionally, we adopted parameters that define the shape of VAF distributions and evaluated the relationships between these parameters and prognosis. In seven cancer types, we found significant relationships between prognosis and VAF distributions. Moreover, we observed that samples with a larger amount of mutations were not necessarily linked to worse prognosis. By evaluating the ITH from multidimensional viewpoints, it will be possible to provide a more accurate prediction of cancer prognosis.
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Affiliation(s)
- Chie Kikutake
- Medical Institute of Bioregulation, Kyushu University, Fukuoka 812-8582, Japan
| | - Minako Yoshihara
- Medical Institute of Bioregulation, Kyushu University, Fukuoka 812-8582, Japan
| | - Tetsuya Sato
- Medical Institute of Bioregulation, Kyushu University, Fukuoka 812-8582, Japan
| | - Daisuke Saito
- Medical Institute of Bioregulation, Kyushu University, Fukuoka 812-8582, Japan
| | - Mikita Suyama
- Medical Institute of Bioregulation, Kyushu University, Fukuoka 812-8582, Japan
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Weis CA, Aban IB, Cutter G, Kaminski HJ, Scharff C, Grießmann BW, Deligianni M, Kayser K, Wolfe GI, Ströbel P, Marx A. Histopathology of thymectomy specimens from the MGTX-trial: Entropy analysis as strategy to quantify spatial heterogeneity of lymphoid follicle and fat distribution. PLoS One 2018; 13:e0197435. [PMID: 29897907 PMCID: PMC5999223 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0197435] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/26/2017] [Accepted: 05/02/2018] [Indexed: 01/12/2023] Open
Abstract
The thymectomy specimens from the "thymectomy trial in non-thymomatous myasthenia gravis patients receiving prednisone therapy" (MGTX) underwent rigid and comprehensive work-up, which permits analysis of the spatial distribution of histological and immunohistological features. This analysis revealed strong intra- and inter-case variability. While many histological features (e.g. median percent fat content among different specimens) can easily be correlated with clinical parameters, intra-case spatial variability of histological features has yet defied quantification and statistical evaluation. To overcome this gap in digital pathology, we here propose intra-case entropy of measured histological features in all available slides of a given thymectomy specimen as a quantitative marker of spatial histological heterogeneity. Calculation of entropy led to one value per specimen and histological feature. Through these 'entropy values' the so far neglected degree of spatial histological heterogeneity could be fed into statistical analyses, extending the scope of clinico-pathological correlations.
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Affiliation(s)
- Cleo-Aron Weis
- Institute of Pathology, University Medical Centre Mannheim, University of Heidelberg, Mannheim, Germany
- * E-mail:
| | - Inmaculada B. Aban
- Department of Biostatistics, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AL, United States of America
| | - Garry Cutter
- Department of Biostatistics, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AL, United States of America
| | - Henry J. Kaminski
- Department of Neurology, George Washington University Medical Center, Washington, DC, United States of America
| | - Christoph Scharff
- Institute of Pathology, University Medical Centre Mannheim, University of Heidelberg, Mannheim, Germany
| | - Benedict W. Grießmann
- Institute of Pathology, University Medical Centre Mannheim, University of Heidelberg, Mannheim, Germany
| | - Maria Deligianni
- Institute of Pathology, University Medical Centre Mannheim, University of Heidelberg, Mannheim, Germany
| | - Klaus Kayser
- Institute of Pathology, Charité, Berlin, Germany
| | - Gil I. Wolfe
- Department of Neurology, University at Buffalo Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, Buffalo, NY, United States of America
| | - Philipp Ströbel
- Institute of Pathology, University Medical Center Göttingen, University of Göttingen, Göttingen, Germany
| | - Alexander Marx
- Institute of Pathology, University Medical Centre Mannheim, University of Heidelberg, Mannheim, Germany
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Juarez-Flores A, José MV. Multivariate Entropy Characterizes the Gene Expression and Protein-Protein Networks in Four Types of Cancer. ENTROPY 2018; 20:e20030154. [PMID: 33265245 PMCID: PMC7844632 DOI: 10.3390/e20030154] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/02/2017] [Revised: 01/31/2018] [Accepted: 02/23/2018] [Indexed: 12/12/2022]
Abstract
There is an important urgency to detect cancer at early stages to treat it, to improve the patients’ lifespans, and even to cure it. In this work, we determined the entropic contributions of genes in cancer networks. We detected sudden changes in entropy values in melanoma, hepatocellular carcinoma, pancreatic cancer, and squamous lung cell carcinoma associated to transitions from healthy controls to cancer. We also identified the most relevant genes involved in carcinogenic process of the four types of cancer with the help of entropic changes in local networks. Their corresponding proteins could be used as potential targets for treatments and as biomarkers of cancer.
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Affiliation(s)
- Angel Juarez-Flores
- Posgrado en Ciencias Biológicas, Unidad de Posgrado, Circuito de Posgrados, Ciudad Universitaria, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, CP 04510, Mexico City, Mexico
- Theoretical Biology Group, Instituto de Investigaciones Biomédicas, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, CP 04510, Mexico City, Mexico
| | - Marco V. José
- Theoretical Biology Group, Instituto de Investigaciones Biomédicas, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, CP 04510, Mexico City, Mexico
- Correspondence:
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Manem VSK, Salgado R, Aftimos P, Sotiriou C, Haibe-Kains B. Network science in clinical trials: A patient-centered approach. Semin Cancer Biol 2017; 52:135-150. [PMID: 29278737 DOI: 10.1016/j.semcancer.2017.12.006] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/20/2017] [Revised: 12/12/2017] [Accepted: 12/13/2017] [Indexed: 02/08/2023]
Abstract
There has been a paradigm shift in translational oncology with the advent of novel molecular diagnostic tools in the clinic. However, several challenges are associated with the integration of these sophisticated tools into clinical oncology and daily practice. High-throughput profiling at the DNA, RNA and protein levels (omics) generate a massive amount of data. The analysis and interpretation of these is non-trivial but will allow a more thorough understanding of cancer. Linear modelling of the data as it is often used today is likely to limit our understanding of cancer as a complex disease, and at times under-performs to capture a phenotype of interest. Network science and systems biology-based approaches, using machine learning and network science principles, that integrate multiple data sources, can uncover complex changes in a biological system. This approach will integrate a large number of potential biomarkers in preclinical studies to better inform therapeutic decisions and ultimately make substantial progress towards precision medicine. It will however require development of a new generation of clinical trials. Beyond discussing the challenges of high-throughput technologies, this review will develop a framework on how to implement a network science approach in new clinical trial designs in order to advance cancer care.
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Affiliation(s)
- Venkata S K Manem
- Bioinformatics and Computational Genomics Laboratory, Princess Margaret Cancer Center, Toronto, ON, Canada; Department of Medical Biophysics, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada
| | - Roberto Salgado
- Breast Cancer Translational Research Laboratory, Université Libre de Bruxelles, Brussels, Belgium; Department of Pathology, GZA Hospitals Antwerp, Belgium
| | - Philippe Aftimos
- Medical Oncology Clinic, Institut Jules Bordet - Université Libre de Bruxelles, Brussels, Belgium
| | - Christos Sotiriou
- Breast Cancer Translational Research Laboratory, Université Libre de Bruxelles, Brussels, Belgium; Medical Oncology Clinic, Institut Jules Bordet - Université Libre de Bruxelles, Brussels, Belgium
| | - Benjamin Haibe-Kains
- Bioinformatics and Computational Genomics Laboratory, Princess Margaret Cancer Center, Toronto, ON, Canada; Department of Computer Science, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada; Ontario Institute of Cancer Research, Toronto, ON, Canada; Department of Medical Biophysics, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada.
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Weber RJ, Desai TA, Gartner ZJ. Non-autonomous cell proliferation in the mammary gland and cancer. Curr Opin Cell Biol 2017; 45:55-61. [PMID: 28314237 PMCID: PMC8811621 DOI: 10.1016/j.ceb.2017.02.009] [Citation(s) in RCA: 11] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/22/2016] [Revised: 01/27/2017] [Accepted: 02/08/2017] [Indexed: 12/28/2022]
Abstract
Cells decide whether to grow and divide by integrating internal and external signals. Non-autonomous cell growth and proliferation occurs when microenvironmental signals from neighboring cells, both physical and secreted, license this decision. Understanding these processes is vital to developing an accurate framework for cell-cell interactions and cellular decision-making, and is useful for advancing new therapeutic strategies to prevent dysregulated growth. Here, we review some recent examples of non-autonomous cell growth in the mammary gland and tumor cell proliferation.
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Affiliation(s)
- Robert J Weber
- Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry, University of California, San Francisco, 600 16th Street, San Francisco, California 94158, United States; Chemistry and Chemical Biology Graduate Program, University of California, San Francisco, 600 16th Street, Room 522, San Francisco, California 94158, United States; Medical Scientist Training Program, University of California, San Francisco, 513 Parnassus Avenue, San Francisco, California 94143, United States
| | - Tejal A Desai
- UC Berkeley-UCSF Group in Bioengineering, 1700 Fourth Street, Room 216, San Francisco, California 94158, United States; UCSF Bioengineering and Therapeutic Sciences, 1700 Fourth Street, Room 216B, San Francisco, California 94158, United States
| | - Zev J Gartner
- Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry, University of California, San Francisco, 600 16th Street, San Francisco, California 94158, United States; UC Berkeley-UCSF Group in Bioengineering, 1700 Fourth Street, Room 216, San Francisco, California 94158, United States; Chemistry and Chemical Biology Graduate Program, University of California, San Francisco, 600 16th Street, Room 522, San Francisco, California 94158, United States.
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