Abnormal spindle-like microcephaly-associated protein enhances cell invasion through Wnt/β-catenin-dependent regulation of epithelial-mesenchymal transition in non-small cell lung cancer cells

Oncogenic ASPM Is a Regulatory Hub of Developmental and Stemness Signaling in Cancers

Despite recent advances in molecularly targeted therapies and immunotherapies, the effective treatment of advanced-stage cancers remains a largely unmet clinical need. Identifying driver mechanisms of cancer aggressiveness can lay the groundwork for the development of breakthrough therapeutic strategies. Assembly factor for spindle microtubules (ASPM) was initially identified as a centrosomal protein that regulates neurogenesis and brain size. Mounting evidence has demonstrated the pleiotropic roles of ASPM in mitosis, cell-cycle progression, and DNA double-strand breaks (DSB) repair. Recently, the exon 18-preserved isoform 1 of ASPM has emerged as a critical regulator of cancer stemness and aggressiveness in various malignant tumor types. Here, we describe the domain compositions of ASPM and its transcript variants and overview their expression patterns and prognostic significance in cancers. A summary is provided of recent progress in the molecular elucidation of ASPM as a regulatory hub of development- and stemness-associated signaling pathways, such as the Wnt, Hedgehog, and Notch pathways, and of DNA DSB repair in cancer cells. The review emphasizes the potential utility of ASPM as a cancer-agnostic and pathway-informed prognostic biomarker and therapeutic target.

Lung Cancer Gene Regulatory Network of Transcription Factors Related to the Hallmarks of Cancer

The transcriptomic analysis of microarray and RNA-Seq datasets followed our own bioinformatic pipeline to identify a transcriptional regulatory network of lung cancer. Twenty-six transcription factors are dysregulated and co-expressed in most of the lung cancer and pulmonary arterial hypertension datasets, which makes them the most frequently dysregulated transcription factors. Co-expression, gene regulatory, coregulatory, and transcriptional regulatory networks, along with fibration symmetries, were constructed to identify common connection patterns, alignments, main regulators, and target genes in order to analyze transcription factor complex formation, as well as its synchronized co-expression patterns in every type of lung cancer. The regulatory function of the most frequently dysregulated transcription factors over lung cancer deregulated genes was validated with ChEA3 enrichment analysis. A Kaplan-Meier plotter analysis linked the dysregulation of the top transcription factors with lung cancer patients' survival. Our results indicate that lung cancer has unique and common deregulated genes and transcription factors with pulmonary arterial hypertension, co-expressed and regulated in a coordinated and cooperative manner by the transcriptional regulatory network that might be associated with critical biological processes and signaling pathways related to the acquisition of the hallmarks of cancer, making them potentially relevant tumor biomarkers for lung cancer early diagnosis and targets for the development of personalized therapies against lung cancer.