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Chen X, Yang W, Roberts CWM, Zhang J. Developmental origins shape the paediatric cancer genome. Nat Rev Cancer 2024:10.1038/s41568-024-00684-9. [PMID: 38698126 DOI: 10.1038/s41568-024-00684-9] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Accepted: 03/18/2024] [Indexed: 05/05/2024]
Abstract
In the past two decades, technological advances have brought unprecedented insights into the paediatric cancer genome revealing characteristics distinct from those of adult cancer. Originating from developing tissues, paediatric cancers generally have low mutation burden and are driven by variants that disrupt the transcriptional activity, chromatin state, non-coding cis-regulatory regions and other biological functions. Within each tumour, there are multiple populations of cells with varying states, and the lineages of some can be tracked to their fetal origins. Genome-wide genetic screening has identified vulnerabilities associated with both the cell of origin and transcription deregulation in paediatric cancer, which have become a valuable resource for designing new therapeutic approaches including those for small molecules, immunotherapy and targeted protein degradation. In this Review, we present recent findings on these facets of paediatric cancer from a pan-cancer perspective and provide an outlook on future investigations.
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Affiliation(s)
- Xiaolong Chen
- Department of Computational Biology, St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, Memphis, TN, USA
| | - Wentao Yang
- Department of Computational Biology, St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, Memphis, TN, USA
| | - Charles W M Roberts
- Comprehensive Cancer Center, St Jude Children's Research Hospital, Memphis, TN, USA
- Department of Oncology, St Jude Children's Research Hospital, Memphis, TN, USA
| | - Jinghui Zhang
- Department of Computational Biology, St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, Memphis, TN, USA.
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2
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Raj A, Petreaca RC, Mirzaei G. Multi-Omics Integration for Liver Cancer Using Regression Analysis. Curr Issues Mol Biol 2024; 46:3551-3562. [PMID: 38666952 PMCID: PMC11049490 DOI: 10.3390/cimb46040222] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/18/2024] [Revised: 04/11/2024] [Accepted: 04/16/2024] [Indexed: 04/28/2024] Open
Abstract
Genetic biomarkers have played a pivotal role in the classification, prognostication, and guidance of clinical cancer therapies. Large-scale and multi-dimensional analyses of entire cancer genomes, as exemplified by projects like The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA), have yielded an extensive repository of data that holds the potential to unveil the underlying biology of these malignancies. Mutations stand out as the principal catalysts of cellular transformation. Nonetheless, other global genomic processes, such as alterations in gene expression and chromosomal re-arrangements, also play crucial roles in conferring cellular immortality. The incorporation of multi-omics data specific to cancer has demonstrated the capacity to enhance our comprehension of the molecular mechanisms underpinning carcinogenesis. This report elucidates how the integration of comprehensive data on methylation, gene expression, and copy number variations can effectively facilitate the unsupervised clustering of cancer samples. We have identified regressors that can effectively classify tumor and normal samples with an optimal integration of RNA sequencing, DNA methylation, and copy number variation while also achieving significant p-values. Further, these regressors were trained using linear and logistic regression with k-means clustering. For comparison, we employed autoencoder- and stacking-based omics integration and computed silhouette scores to evaluate the clusters. The proof of concept is illustrated using liver cancer data. Our analysis serves to underscore the feasibility of unsupervised cancer classification by considering genetic markers beyond mutations, thereby emphasizing the clinical relevance of additional global cellular parameters that contribute to the transformative process in cells. This work is clinically relevant because changes in gene expression and genomic re-arrangements have been shown to be signatures of cellular transformation across cancers, as well as in liver cancers.
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Affiliation(s)
- Aditya Raj
- Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH 43210, USA;
| | - Ruben C. Petreaca
- Department of Molecular Genetics, The Ohio State University, Marion, OH 43302, USA;
- Cancer Biology Program, The Ohio State University James Comprehensive Cancer Center, Columbus, OH 43210, USA
| | - Golrokh Mirzaei
- Department of Computer Science and Engineering, The Ohio State University, Marion, OH 43302, USA
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3
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Fu T, Amoah K, Chan TW, Bahn JH, Lee JH, Terrazas S, Chong R, Kosuri S, Xiao X. Massively parallel screen uncovers many rare 3' UTR variants regulating mRNA abundance of cancer driver genes. Nat Commun 2024; 15:3335. [PMID: 38637555 PMCID: PMC11026479 DOI: 10.1038/s41467-024-46795-7] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/01/2023] [Accepted: 03/06/2024] [Indexed: 04/20/2024] Open
Abstract
Understanding the function of rare non-coding variants represents a significant challenge. Using MapUTR, a screening method, we studied the function of rare 3' UTR variants affecting mRNA abundance post-transcriptionally. Among 17,301 rare gnomAD variants, an average of 24.5% were functional, with 70% in cancer-related genes, many in critical cancer pathways. This observation motivated an interrogation of 11,929 somatic mutations, uncovering 3928 (33%) functional mutations in 155 cancer driver genes. Functional MapUTR variants were enriched in microRNA- or protein-binding sites and may underlie outlier gene expression in tumors. Further, we introduce untranslated tumor mutational burden (uTMB), a metric reflecting the amount of somatic functional MapUTR variants of a tumor and show its potential in predicting patient survival. Through prime editing, we characterized three variants in cancer-relevant genes (MFN2, FOSL2, and IRAK1), demonstrating their cancer-driving potential. Our study elucidates the function of tens of thousands of non-coding variants, nominates non-coding cancer driver mutations, and demonstrates their potential contributions to cancer.
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Affiliation(s)
- Ting Fu
- Molecular, Cellular and Integrative Physiology Interdepartmental Program, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, 90095, USA
- Department of Integrative Biology and Physiology, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, 90095, USA
| | - Kofi Amoah
- Department of Integrative Biology and Physiology, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, 90095, USA
- Bioinformatics Interdepartmental Program, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, 90095, USA
| | - Tracey W Chan
- Department of Integrative Biology and Physiology, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, 90095, USA
- Bioinformatics Interdepartmental Program, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, 90095, USA
| | - Jae Hoon Bahn
- Department of Integrative Biology and Physiology, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, 90095, USA
| | - Jae-Hyung Lee
- Department of Integrative Biology and Physiology, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, 90095, USA
- Department of Life and Nanopharmaceutical Sciences & Oral Microbiology, School of Dentistry, Kyung Hee University, Seoul, South Korea
| | - Sari Terrazas
- Department of Integrative Biology and Physiology, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, 90095, USA
- Molecular Biology Interdepartmental Program, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, 90095, USA
| | - Rockie Chong
- Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, 90095, USA
| | - Sriram Kosuri
- Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, 90095, USA
| | - Xinshu Xiao
- Molecular, Cellular and Integrative Physiology Interdepartmental Program, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, 90095, USA.
- Department of Integrative Biology and Physiology, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, 90095, USA.
- Bioinformatics Interdepartmental Program, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, 90095, USA.
- Molecular Biology Interdepartmental Program, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, 90095, USA.
- Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, 90095, USA.
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4
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Lee ES, Woo J, Shin J, Cha BS, Kim S, Park KS. Tetrahedral DNA nanostructures enhance transcription isothermal amplification for multiplex detection of non-coding RNAs. Biosens Bioelectron 2024; 250:116055. [PMID: 38266617 DOI: 10.1016/j.bios.2024.116055] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/17/2023] [Revised: 01/11/2024] [Accepted: 01/18/2024] [Indexed: 01/26/2024]
Abstract
This study introduces an innovative detection system for multiple cancer biomarkers, employing transcription isothermal amplification methods in conjunction with a tetrahedral DNA nanostructure (TDN). We demonstrate that TDN enhances various transcription isothermal amplification methods by placing DNA probes in proximity. Notably, the TDN-enhanced split T7 promoter-based isothermal transcription amplification with light-up RNA aptamer (STAR) system stands out for its optimal performance and operational simplicity, especially in identifying non-coding RNAs such as microRNAs and long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs). Multiplex detection of lncRNAs was also achieved by generating distinct light-up RNA aptamers, each emitting unique fluorescence signals. The system effectively identified the target lncRNAs, demonstrating high sensitivity and selectivity in both cell lines and clinical samples. The system, utilizing the single enzyme T7 RNA polymerase, can be easily tailored for alternative targets by substituting target-specific sequences in DNA probes and seamlessly integrated with other isothermal amplification methods for greater sensitivity and accuracy in the detection of multiple cancer biomarkers.
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Affiliation(s)
- Eun Sung Lee
- Department of Biological Engineering, College of Engineering, Konkuk University, Seoul, 05029, Republic of Korea
| | - Jisu Woo
- Department of Biological Engineering, College of Engineering, Konkuk University, Seoul, 05029, Republic of Korea
| | - Jiye Shin
- Department of Biological Engineering, College of Engineering, Konkuk University, Seoul, 05029, Republic of Korea
| | - Byung Seok Cha
- Department of Biological Engineering, College of Engineering, Konkuk University, Seoul, 05029, Republic of Korea
| | - Seokjoon Kim
- Department of Biological Engineering, College of Engineering, Konkuk University, Seoul, 05029, Republic of Korea
| | - Ki Soo Park
- Department of Biological Engineering, College of Engineering, Konkuk University, Seoul, 05029, Republic of Korea.
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5
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Gong B, Lababidi S, Kusko R, Bouri K, Prezek S, Thovarai V, Prasanna A, Maier EJ, Golkaram M, Sun X, Kyriakidis K, Kitajima JP, Ebrahim Sahraeian SM, Guo Y, Johanson E, Jones W, Tong W, Xu J. Towards accurate indel calling for oncopanel sequencing through an international pipeline competition at precisionFDA. Sci Rep 2024; 14:8165. [PMID: 38589653 PMCID: PMC11001604 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-024-58573-y] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/25/2023] [Accepted: 04/01/2024] [Indexed: 04/10/2024] Open
Abstract
Accurately calling indels with next-generation sequencing (NGS) data is critical for clinical application. The precisionFDA team collaborated with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's (FDA's) National Center for Toxicological Research (NCTR) and successfully completed the NCTR Indel Calling from Oncopanel Sequencing Data Challenge, to evaluate the performance of indel calling pipelines. Top performers were selected based on precision, recall, and F1-score. The performance of many other pipelines was close to the top performers, which produced a top cluster of performers. The performance was significantly higher in high confidence regions and coding regions, and significantly lower in low complexity regions. Oncopanel capture and other issues may have occurred that affected the recall rate. Indels with higher variant allele frequency (VAF) may generally be called with higher confidence. Many of the indel calling pipelines had good performance. Some of them performed generally well across all three oncopanels, while others were better for a specific oncopanel. The performance of indel calling can further be improved by restricting the calls within high confidence intervals (HCIs) and coding regions, and by excluding low complexity regions (LCR) regions. Certain VAF cut-offs could be applied according to the applications.
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Affiliation(s)
- Binsheng Gong
- Division of Bioinformatics and Biostatistics, Office of Research, National Center for Toxicological Research, Office of the Chief Scientist, Office of the Commissioner, U.S. Food and Drug Administration, Jefferson, AR, 72079, USA
| | - Samir Lababidi
- Health Informatics Staff, Office of Data, Analytics, and Research, Office of Digital Transformation, Office of the Commissioner, U.S. Food and Drug Administration, Silver Spring, MD, 20993, USA
| | - Rebecca Kusko
- Cellino Biotech, 750 Main Street, Cambridge, MA, 02143, USA
| | - Khaled Bouri
- Office of Regulatory Science and Innovation, Office of the Chief Scientist, Office of the Commissioner, U.S. Food and Drug Administration, Silver Spring, MD, 20993, USA
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | - Yunfei Guo
- Roche Sequencing Solutions, Santa Clara, CA, 95050, USA
| | - Elaine Johanson
- Health Informatics Staff, Office of Data, Analytics, and Research, Office of Digital Transformation, Office of the Commissioner, U.S. Food and Drug Administration, Silver Spring, MD, 20993, USA
| | - Wendell Jones
- Q squared Solutions Genomics, 2400 Elis Road, Durham, NC, 27703, USA
| | - Weida Tong
- Division of Bioinformatics and Biostatistics, Office of Research, National Center for Toxicological Research, Office of the Chief Scientist, Office of the Commissioner, U.S. Food and Drug Administration, Jefferson, AR, 72079, USA
| | - Joshua Xu
- Division of Bioinformatics and Biostatistics, Office of Research, National Center for Toxicological Research, Office of the Chief Scientist, Office of the Commissioner, U.S. Food and Drug Administration, Jefferson, AR, 72079, USA.
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6
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Guo X, Bian X, Li Y, Zhu X, Zhou X. The intricate dance of tumor evolution: Exploring immune escape, tumor migration, drug resistance, and treatment strategies. Biochim Biophys Acta Mol Basis Dis 2024; 1870:167098. [PMID: 38412927 DOI: 10.1016/j.bbadis.2024.167098] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/16/2023] [Revised: 01/14/2024] [Accepted: 02/19/2024] [Indexed: 02/29/2024]
Abstract
Recent research has unveiled fascinating insights into the intricate mechanisms governing tumor evolution. These studies have illuminated how tumors adapt and proliferate by exploiting various factors, including immune evasion, resistance to therapeutic drugs, genetic mutations, and their ability to adapt to different environments. Furthermore, investigations into tumor heterogeneity and chromosomal aberrations have revealed the profound complexity that underlies the evolution of cancer. Emerging findings have also underscored the role of viral influences in the development and progression of cancer, introducing an additional layer of complexity to the field of oncology. Tumor evolution is a dynamic and complex process influenced by various factors, including immune evasion, drug resistance, tumor heterogeneity, and viral influences. Understanding these elements is indispensable for developing more effective treatments and advancing cancer therapies. A holistic approach to studying and addressing tumor evolution is crucial in the ongoing battle against cancer. The main goal of this comprehensive review is to explore the intricate relationship between tumor evolution and critical aspects of cancer biology. By delving into this complex interplay, we aim to provide a profound understanding of how tumors evolve, adapt, and respond to treatment strategies. This review underscores the pivotal importance of comprehending tumor evolution in shaping effective approaches to cancer treatment.
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Affiliation(s)
- Xiaojun Guo
- Department of Immunology, School of Medicine, Nantong University, Nantong, China; The Marine Biomedical Research Institute of Guangdong Zhanjiang, School of Ocean and Tropical Medicine, Guangdong Medical University, Zhanjiang, China
| | - Xiaonan Bian
- Department of Immunology, School of Medicine, Nantong University, Nantong, China
| | - Yitong Li
- The Marine Biomedical Research Institute of Guangdong Zhanjiang, School of Ocean and Tropical Medicine, Guangdong Medical University, Zhanjiang, China
| | - Xiao Zhu
- The Marine Biomedical Research Institute of Guangdong Zhanjiang, School of Ocean and Tropical Medicine, Guangdong Medical University, Zhanjiang, China.
| | - Xiaorong Zhou
- Department of Immunology, School of Medicine, Nantong University, Nantong, China.
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7
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Chen F, Zhang Y, Sedlazeck FJ, Creighton CJ. Germline structural variation globally impacts the cancer transcriptome including disease-relevant genes. Cell Rep Med 2024; 5:101446. [PMID: 38442712 PMCID: PMC10983041 DOI: 10.1016/j.xcrm.2024.101446] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/26/2023] [Revised: 01/01/2024] [Accepted: 02/06/2024] [Indexed: 03/07/2024]
Abstract
Germline variation and somatic alterations contribute to the molecular profile of cancers. We combine RNA with whole genome sequencing across 1,218 cancer patients to determine the extent germline structural variants (SVs) impact expression of nearby genes. For hundreds of genes, recurrent and common germline SV breakpoints within 100 kb associate with increased or decreased expression in tumors spanning various tissues of origin. A significant fraction of germline SV expression associations involves duplication of intergenic enhancers or 3' UTR disruption. Genes altered by both somatic and germline SVs include ATRX and CEBPA. Genes essential in cancer cell lines include BARD1 and IRS2. Genes with both expression and germline SV breakpoint patterns associated with patient survival include GCLM. Our results capture a class of phenotypic variation at work in the disease setting, including genes with cancer roles. Specific germline SVs represent potential cancer risk variants for genetic testing, including those involving genes with targeting implications.
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Affiliation(s)
- Fengju Chen
- Dan L. Duncan Comprehensive Cancer Center, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX 77030, USA
| | - Yiqun Zhang
- Dan L. Duncan Comprehensive Cancer Center, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX 77030, USA
| | - Fritz J Sedlazeck
- Human Genome Sequencing Center, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX 77030, USA; Department of Computer Science, Rice University, Houston, TX 77005, USA
| | - Chad J Creighton
- Dan L. Duncan Comprehensive Cancer Center, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX 77030, USA; Human Genome Sequencing Center, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX 77030, USA; Department of Medicine, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX 77030, USA.
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8
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Annapragada AV, Niknafs N, White JR, Bruhm DC, Cherry C, Medina JE, Adleff V, Hruban C, Mathios D, Foda ZH, Phallen J, Scharpf RB, Velculescu VE. Genome-wide repeat landscapes in cancer and cell-free DNA. Sci Transl Med 2024; 16:eadj9283. [PMID: 38478628 DOI: 10.1126/scitranslmed.adj9283] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/24/2023] [Accepted: 02/16/2024] [Indexed: 03/22/2024]
Abstract
Genetic changes in repetitive sequences are a hallmark of cancer and other diseases, but characterizing these has been challenging using standard sequencing approaches. We developed a de novo kmer finding approach, called ARTEMIS (Analysis of RepeaT EleMents in dISease), to identify repeat elements from whole-genome sequencing. Using this method, we analyzed 1.2 billion kmers in 2837 tissue and plasma samples from 1975 patients, including those with lung, breast, colorectal, ovarian, liver, gastric, head and neck, bladder, cervical, thyroid, or prostate cancer. We identified tumor-specific changes in these patients in 1280 repeat element types from the LINE, SINE, LTR, transposable element, and human satellite families. These included changes to known repeats and 820 elements that were not previously known to be altered in human cancer. Repeat elements were enriched in regions of driver genes, and their representation was altered by structural changes and epigenetic states. Machine learning analyses of genome-wide repeat landscapes and fragmentation profiles in cfDNA detected patients with early-stage lung or liver cancer in cross-validated and externally validated cohorts. In addition, these repeat landscapes could be used to noninvasively identify the tissue of origin of tumors. These analyses reveal widespread changes in repeat landscapes of human cancers and provide an approach for their detection and characterization that could benefit early detection and disease monitoring of patients with cancer.
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Affiliation(s)
- Akshaya V Annapragada
- Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD 21287, USA
| | - Noushin Niknafs
- Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD 21287, USA
| | - James R White
- Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD 21287, USA
| | - Daniel C Bruhm
- Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD 21287, USA
| | - Christopher Cherry
- Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD 21287, USA
| | - Jamie E Medina
- Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD 21287, USA
| | - Vilmos Adleff
- Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD 21287, USA
| | - Carolyn Hruban
- Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD 21287, USA
| | - Dimitrios Mathios
- Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD 21287, USA
| | - Zachariah H Foda
- Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD 21287, USA
- Department of Medicine, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD 21287, USA
| | - Jillian Phallen
- Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD 21287, USA
| | - Robert B Scharpf
- Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD 21287, USA
| | - Victor E Velculescu
- Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD 21287, USA
- Department of Medicine, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD 21287, USA
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9
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Lynn N, Tuller T. Detecting and understanding meaningful cancerous mutations based on computational models of mRNA splicing. NPJ Syst Biol Appl 2024; 10:25. [PMID: 38453965 PMCID: PMC10920900 DOI: 10.1038/s41540-024-00351-7] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/10/2023] [Accepted: 02/22/2024] [Indexed: 03/09/2024] Open
Abstract
Cancer research has long relied on non-silent mutations. Yet, it has become overwhelmingly clear that silent mutations can affect gene expression and cancer cell fitness. One fundamental mechanism that apparently silent mutations can severely disrupt is alternative splicing. Here we introduce Oncosplice, a tool that scores mutations based on models of proteomes generated using aberrant splicing predictions. Oncosplice leverages a highly accurate neural network that predicts splice sites within arbitrary mRNA sequences, a greedy transcript constructor that considers alternate arrangements of splicing blueprints, and an algorithm that grades the functional divergence between proteins based on evolutionary conservation. By applying this tool to 12M somatic mutations we identify 8K deleterious variants that are significantly depleted within the healthy population; we demonstrate the tool's ability to identify clinically validated pathogenic variants with a positive predictive value of 94%; we show strong enrichment of predicted deleterious mutations across pan-cancer drivers. We also achieve improved patient survival estimation using a proposed set of novel cancer-involved genes. Ultimately, this pipeline enables accelerated insight-gathering of sequence-specific consequences for a class of understudied mutations and provides an efficient way of filtering through massive variant datasets - functionalities with immediate experimental and clinical applications.
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Affiliation(s)
- Nicolas Lynn
- Department of Biomedical Engineering, the Engineering Faculty, Tel Aviv University, Tel-Aviv, 69978, Israel
| | - Tamir Tuller
- Department of Biomedical Engineering, the Engineering Faculty, Tel Aviv University, Tel-Aviv, 69978, Israel.
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10
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Chen L, Zhang C, Xue R, Liu M, Bai J, Bao J, Wang Y, Jiang N, Li Z, Wang W, Wang R, Zheng B, Yang A, Hu J, Liu K, Shen S, Zhang Y, Bai M, Wang Y, Zhu Y, Yang S, Gao Q, Gu J, Gao D, Wang XW, Nakagawa H, Zhang N, Wu L, Rozen SG, Bai F, Wang H. Deep whole-genome analysis of 494 hepatocellular carcinomas. Nature 2024; 627:586-593. [PMID: 38355797 DOI: 10.1038/s41586-024-07054-3] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/13/2022] [Accepted: 01/10/2024] [Indexed: 02/16/2024]
Abstract
Over half of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) cases diagnosed worldwide are in China1-3. However, whole-genome analysis of hepatitis B virus (HBV)-associated HCC in Chinese individuals is limited4-8, with current analyses of HCC mainly from non-HBV-enriched populations9,10. Here we initiated the Chinese Liver Cancer Atlas (CLCA) project and performed deep whole-genome sequencing (average depth, 120×) of 494 HCC tumours. We identified 6 coding and 28 non-coding previously undescribed driver candidates. Five previously undescribed mutational signatures were found, including aristolochic-acid-associated indel and doublet base signatures, and a single-base-substitution signature that we termed SBS_H8. Pentanucleotide context analysis and experimental validation confirmed that SBS_H8 was distinct to the aristolochic-acid-associated SBS22. Notably, HBV integrations could take the form of extrachromosomal circular DNA, resulting in elevated copy numbers and gene expression. Our high-depth data also enabled us to characterize subclonal clustered alterations, including chromothripsis, chromoplexy and kataegis, suggesting that these catastrophic events could also occur in late stages of hepatocarcinogenesis. Pathway analysis of all classes of alterations further linked non-coding mutations to dysregulation of liver metabolism. Finally, we performed in vitro and in vivo assays to show that fibrinogen alpha chain (FGA), determined as both a candidate coding and non-coding driver, regulates HCC progression and metastasis. Our CLCA study depicts a detailed genomic landscape and evolutionary history of HCC in Chinese individuals, providing important clinical implications.
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Affiliation(s)
- Lei Chen
- National Center for Liver Cancer/Eastern Hepatobiliary Surgery Hospital, Shanghai, China.
| | - Chong Zhang
- Biomedical Pioneering Innovation Center (BIOPIC), Beijing Advanced Innovation Center for Genomics (ICG), School of Life Sciences, Peking University, Beijing, China
| | - Ruidong Xue
- Peking University-Yunnan Baiyao International Medical Research Center, International Cancer Institute, Department of Medical Bioinformatics, School of Basic Medical Sciences, Peking University Health Science Center, Beijing, China
- Translational Cancer Research Center, Peking University First Hospital, Beijing, China
| | - Mo Liu
- Centre for Computational Biology and Programme in Cancer & Stem Cell Biology, Duke-NUS Medical School, Singapore, Singapore
| | - Jian Bai
- Berry Oncology Corporation, Beijing, China
| | - Jinxia Bao
- Model Animal Research Center, Medical School, Nanjing University, Nanjing, China
| | - Yin Wang
- Berry Oncology Corporation, Beijing, China
| | - Nanhai Jiang
- Centre for Computational Biology and Programme in Cancer & Stem Cell Biology, Duke-NUS Medical School, Singapore, Singapore
| | - Zhixuan Li
- National Center for Liver Cancer/Eastern Hepatobiliary Surgery Hospital, Shanghai, China
| | - Wenwen Wang
- The International Cooperation Laboratory on Signal Transduction, Eastern Hepatobiliary Surgery Hospital, Shanghai, China
| | - Ruiru Wang
- Berry Oncology Corporation, Beijing, China
| | - Bo Zheng
- National Center for Liver Cancer/Eastern Hepatobiliary Surgery Hospital, Shanghai, China
- The International Cooperation Laboratory on Signal Transduction, Eastern Hepatobiliary Surgery Hospital, Shanghai, China
| | | | - Ji Hu
- National Center for Liver Cancer/Eastern Hepatobiliary Surgery Hospital, Shanghai, China
- The International Cooperation Laboratory on Signal Transduction, Eastern Hepatobiliary Surgery Hospital, Shanghai, China
| | - Ke Liu
- Berry Oncology Corporation, Beijing, China
| | - Siyun Shen
- National Center for Liver Cancer/Eastern Hepatobiliary Surgery Hospital, Shanghai, China
- The International Cooperation Laboratory on Signal Transduction, Eastern Hepatobiliary Surgery Hospital, Shanghai, China
| | - Yangqianwen Zhang
- National Center for Liver Cancer/Eastern Hepatobiliary Surgery Hospital, Shanghai, China
| | - Mixue Bai
- National Center for Liver Cancer/Eastern Hepatobiliary Surgery Hospital, Shanghai, China
| | - Yan Wang
- Berry Oncology Corporation, Beijing, China
| | - Yanjing Zhu
- National Center for Liver Cancer/Eastern Hepatobiliary Surgery Hospital, Shanghai, China
- The International Cooperation Laboratory on Signal Transduction, Eastern Hepatobiliary Surgery Hospital, Shanghai, China
| | - Shuai Yang
- National Center for Liver Cancer/Eastern Hepatobiliary Surgery Hospital, Shanghai, China
- The International Cooperation Laboratory on Signal Transduction, Eastern Hepatobiliary Surgery Hospital, Shanghai, China
| | - Qiang Gao
- Department of Liver Surgery and Transplantation, Liver Cancer Institute, Zhongshan Hospital, Fudan University, Shanghai, China
| | - Jin Gu
- MOE Key Laboratory for Bioinformatics, Department of Automation, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China
| | - Dong Gao
- State Key Laboratory of Cell Biology, Shanghai Institute of Biochemistry and Cell Biology, Center for Excellence in Molecular Cell Science, CAS, Shanghai, China
| | - Xin Wei Wang
- Laboratory of Human Carcinogenesis, Center for Cancer Research, National Cancer Institute, Bethesda, MD, USA
| | - Hidewaki Nakagawa
- Laboratory for Cancer Genomics, RIKEN Center for Integrative Medical Sciences, Yokohama, Japan
| | - Ning Zhang
- Peking University-Yunnan Baiyao International Medical Research Center, International Cancer Institute, Department of Medical Bioinformatics, School of Basic Medical Sciences, Peking University Health Science Center, Beijing, China
- Translational Cancer Research Center, Peking University First Hospital, Beijing, China
| | - Lin Wu
- Berry Oncology Corporation, Beijing, China.
| | - Steven G Rozen
- Centre for Computational Biology and Programme in Cancer & Stem Cell Biology, Duke-NUS Medical School, Singapore, Singapore.
| | - Fan Bai
- Biomedical Pioneering Innovation Center (BIOPIC), Beijing Advanced Innovation Center for Genomics (ICG), School of Life Sciences, Peking University, Beijing, China.
| | - Hongyang Wang
- National Center for Liver Cancer/Eastern Hepatobiliary Surgery Hospital, Shanghai, China.
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11
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Coan M, Haefliger S, Ounzain S, Johnson R. Targeting and engineering long non-coding RNAs for cancer therapy. Nat Rev Genet 2024:10.1038/s41576-024-00693-2. [PMID: 38424237 DOI: 10.1038/s41576-024-00693-2] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Accepted: 01/17/2024] [Indexed: 03/02/2024]
Abstract
RNA therapeutics (RNATx) aim to treat diseases, including cancer, by targeting or employing RNA molecules for therapeutic purposes. Amongst the most promising targets are long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs), which regulate oncogenic molecular networks in a cell type-restricted manner. lncRNAs are distinct from protein-coding genes in important ways that increase their therapeutic potential yet also present hurdles to conventional clinical development. Advances in genome editing, oligonucleotide chemistry, multi-omics and RNA engineering are paving the way for efficient and cost-effective lncRNA-focused drug discovery pipelines. In this Review, we present the emerging field of lncRNA therapeutics for oncology, with emphasis on the unique strengths and challenges of lncRNAs within the broader RNATx framework. We outline the necessary steps for lncRNA therapeutics to deliver effective, durable, tolerable and personalized treatments for cancer.
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Affiliation(s)
- Michela Coan
- School of Biology and Environmental Science, University College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland
- Conway Institute of Biomedical and Biomolecular Research, University College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland
- School of Medicine, University College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland
| | - Simon Haefliger
- Department of Medical Oncology, Inselspital, Bern University Hospital, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland
- Department for BioMedical Research, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland
| | | | - Rory Johnson
- School of Biology and Environmental Science, University College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland.
- Conway Institute of Biomedical and Biomolecular Research, University College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland.
- Department of Medical Oncology, Inselspital, Bern University Hospital, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland.
- Department for BioMedical Research, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland.
- FutureNeuro, SFI Research Centre for Chronic and Rare Neurological Diseases, Dublin, Ireland.
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12
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Suszynska M, Machowska M, Fraszczyk E, Michalczyk M, Philips A, Galka-Marciniak P, Kozlowski P. CMC: Cancer miRNA Census - a list of cancer-related miRNA genes. Nucleic Acids Res 2024; 52:1628-1644. [PMID: 38261968 PMCID: PMC10899758 DOI: 10.1093/nar/gkae017] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/26/2023] [Accepted: 01/03/2024] [Indexed: 01/25/2024] Open
Abstract
A growing body of evidence indicates an important role of miRNAs in cancer; however, there is no definitive, convenient-to-use list of cancer-related miRNAs or miRNA genes that may serve as a reference for analyses of miRNAs in cancer. To this end, we created a list of 165 cancer-related miRNA genes called the Cancer miRNA Census (CMC). The list is based on a score, built on various types of functional and genetic evidence for the role of particular miRNAs in cancer, e.g. miRNA-cancer associations reported in databases, associations of miRNAs with cancer hallmarks, or signals of positive selection of genetic alterations in cancer. The presence of well-recognized cancer-related miRNA genes, such as MIR21, MIR155, MIR15A, MIR17 or MIRLET7s, at the top of the CMC ranking directly confirms the accuracy and robustness of the list. Additionally, to verify and indicate the reliability of CMC, we performed a validation of criteria used to build CMC, comparison of CMC with various cancer data (publications and databases), and enrichment analyses of biological pathways and processes such as Gene Ontology or DisGeNET. All validation steps showed a strong association of CMC with cancer/cancer-related processes confirming its usefulness as a reference list of miRNA genes associated with cancer.
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Affiliation(s)
- Malwina Suszynska
- Department of Molecular Genetics, Institute of Bioorganic Chemistry, Polish Academy of Sciences, Poznan, 61-704, Poland
| | - Magdalena Machowska
- Department of Molecular Genetics, Institute of Bioorganic Chemistry, Polish Academy of Sciences, Poznan, 61-704, Poland
| | - Eliza Fraszczyk
- Department of Molecular Genetics, Institute of Bioorganic Chemistry, Polish Academy of Sciences, Poznan, 61-704, Poland
| | - Maciej Michalczyk
- Laboratory of Bioinformatics, Institute of Bioorganic Chemistry, Polish Academy of Sciences, Poznan, Poland
| | - Anna Philips
- Laboratory of Bioinformatics, Institute of Bioorganic Chemistry, Polish Academy of Sciences, Poznan, Poland
| | - Paulina Galka-Marciniak
- Department of Molecular Genetics, Institute of Bioorganic Chemistry, Polish Academy of Sciences, Poznan, 61-704, Poland
| | - Piotr Kozlowski
- Department of Molecular Genetics, Institute of Bioorganic Chemistry, Polish Academy of Sciences, Poznan, 61-704, Poland
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13
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Liu J, Ashuach T, Inoue F, Ahituv N, Yosef N, Kreimer A. Optimizing sequence design strategies for perturbation MPRAs: a computational evaluation framework. Nucleic Acids Res 2024; 52:1613-1627. [PMID: 38296821 PMCID: PMC10939410 DOI: 10.1093/nar/gkae012] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/25/2023] [Revised: 12/26/2023] [Accepted: 01/12/2024] [Indexed: 02/02/2024] Open
Abstract
The advent of perturbation-based massively parallel reporter assays (MPRAs) technique has facilitated the delineation of the roles of non-coding regulatory elements in orchestrating gene expression. However, computational efforts remain scant to evaluate and establish guidelines for sequence design strategies for perturbation MPRAs. In this study, we propose a framework for evaluating and comparing various perturbation strategies for MPRA experiments. Within this framework, we benchmark three different perturbation approaches from the perspectives of alteration in motif-based profiles, consistency of MPRA outputs, and robustness of models that predict the activities of putative regulatory motifs. While our analyses show very similar results across multiple benchmarking metrics, the predictive modeling for the approach involving random nucleotide shuffling shows significant robustness compared with the other two approaches. Thus, we recommend designing sequences by randomly shuffling the nucleotides of the perturbed site in perturbation-MPRA, followed by a coherence check to prevent the introduction of other variations of the target motifs. In summary, our evaluation framework and the benchmarking findings create a resource of computational pipelines and highlight the potential of perturbation-MPRA in predicting non-coding regulatory activities.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jiayi Liu
- Graduate Program in Cell & Developmental Biology, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, 604 Allison Rd, Piscataway, NJ 08854, USA
- Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, 604 Allison Road, Piscataway, NJ 08854, USA
- Center for Advanced Biotechnology and Medicine, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, 679 Hoes Lane West, Piscataway, Piscataway, NJ 08854, USA
| | - Tal Ashuach
- Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences and Center for Computational Biology, University of California, Berkeley, 387 Soda Hall, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA
| | - Fumitaka Inoue
- Institute for the Advanced Study of Human Biology (WPI-ASHBi), Kyoto University, Faculty of Medicine Building B, Yoshidatachibanacho, Sakyo Ward, Kyoto 606-8303, Japan
| | - Nadav Ahituv
- Department of Bioengineering and Therapeutic Sciences, University of California, 1700 4th Street, San Francisco, CA 94158, USA
- Institute for Human Genetics, University of California, 513 Parnassus Ave, San Francisco, CA 94143, USA
| | - Nir Yosef
- Department of Systems Immunology, Weizmann Institute of Science, 234 Herzl Street, Rehovot 7610001, Israel
- Chan-Zuckerberg Biohub, 499 Illinois St, San Francisco, CA 94158, USA
- Department of Systems Immunology, Ragon Institute of MGH, MIT, and Harvard Institute of Science, 400 Technology Square, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA
| | - Anat Kreimer
- Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, 604 Allison Road, Piscataway, NJ 08854, USA
- Center for Advanced Biotechnology and Medicine, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, 679 Hoes Lane West, Piscataway, Piscataway, NJ 08854, USA
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14
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Katsuya Y. Current and future trends in whole genome sequencing in cancer. Cancer Biol Med 2024; 21:j.issn.2095-3941.2023.0420. [PMID: 38356245 PMCID: PMC10875287 DOI: 10.20892/j.issn.2095-3941.2023.0420] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/01/2023] [Accepted: 11/30/2023] [Indexed: 02/16/2024] Open
Affiliation(s)
- Yuki Katsuya
- Department of Experimental Therapeutics, National Cancer Center Hospital, 5-1-1 Tsukiji, Chuo-ku, Tokyo 104-0045, Japan
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15
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Lorbeer FK, Rieser G, Goel A, Wang M, Oh A, Yeh I, Bastian BC, Hockemeyer D. Distinct senescence mechanisms restrain progression of dysplastic nevi. PNAS Nexus 2024; 3:pgae041. [PMID: 38371417 PMCID: PMC10873501 DOI: 10.1093/pnasnexus/pgae041] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/09/2023] [Accepted: 01/16/2024] [Indexed: 02/20/2024]
Abstract
Telomerase reverse transcriptase (TERT) promoter mutations (TPMs) are frequently found in different cancer types, including ∼70% of sun-exposed skin melanomas. In melanoma, TPMs are among the earliest mutations and can be present during the transition from nevus to melanoma. However, the specific factors that contribute to the selection of TPMs in certain nevi subsets are not well understood. To investigate this, we analyzed a group of dysplastic nevi (DN) by sequencing genes commonly mutated in melanocytic neoplasms. We examined the relationship between the identified mutations, patient age, telomere length, histological features, and the expression of p16. Our findings reveal that TPMs are more prevalent in DN from older patients and are associated with shorter telomeres. Importantly, these TPMs were not found in nevi with BRAF V600E mutations. Conversely, DN with BRAF V600E mutations were observed in younger patients, had longer telomeres and a higher proportion of p16-positive cells. This suggests that these nevi arrest growth independently of telomere shortening through a mechanism known as oncogene-induced senescence (OIS). These characteristics extend to melanoma-sequencing datasets, where melanomas with BRAF V600E mutations were more likely to have a CDKN2A inactivation, overriding OIS. In contrast, melanomas without BRAF V600E mutations showed a higher frequency of TPMs. Our data imply that TPMs are selected to bypass replicative senescence (RS) in cells that were not arrested by OIS. Overall, our results indicate that a subset of melanocytic neoplasms face constraints from RS, while others encounter OIS and RS. The order in which these barriers are overcome during progression to melanoma depends on the mutational context.
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Affiliation(s)
- Franziska K Lorbeer
- Department of Molecular and Cell Biology, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA
| | - Gabrielle Rieser
- Department of Molecular and Cell Biology, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA
| | - Aditya Goel
- Department of Molecular and Cell Biology, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA
| | - Meng Wang
- Department of Dermatology, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, CA 94143, USA
| | - Areum Oh
- Rebus Biosystems, Santa Clara, CA 95050, USA
| | - Iwei Yeh
- Department of Dermatology, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, CA 94143, USA
- Department of Pathology, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, CA 94143, USA
- Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, CA 94143, USA
| | - Boris C Bastian
- Department of Dermatology, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, CA 94143, USA
- Department of Pathology, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, CA 94143, USA
- Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, CA 94143, USA
| | - Dirk Hockemeyer
- Department of Molecular and Cell Biology, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA
- Chan Zuckerberg Biohub, San Francisco, CA 94158, USA
- Innovative Genomics Institute, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA
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16
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Landa I, Cabanillas ME. Genomic alterations in thyroid cancer: biological and clinical insights. Nat Rev Endocrinol 2024; 20:93-110. [PMID: 38049644 DOI: 10.1038/s41574-023-00920-6] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Accepted: 10/25/2023] [Indexed: 12/06/2023]
Abstract
Tumours can arise from thyroid follicular cells if they acquire driver mutations that constitutively activate the MAPK signalling pathway. In addition, a limited set of additional mutations in key genes drive tumour progression towards more aggressive and less differentiated disease. Unprecedented insights into thyroid tumour biology have come from the breadth of thyroid tumour sequencing data from patients and the wide range of mutation-specific mechanisms identified in experimental models, in combination with the genomic simplicity of thyroid cancers. This knowledge is gradually being translated into refined strategies to stratify, manage and treat patients with thyroid cancer. This Review summarizes the biological underpinnings of the genetic alterations involved in thyroid cancer initiation and progression. We also provide a rationale for and discuss specific examples of how to implement genomic information to inform both recommended and investigational approaches to improve thyroid cancer prognosis, redifferentiation strategies and targeted therapies.
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Affiliation(s)
- Iñigo Landa
- Division of Endocrinology, Diabetes and Hypertension, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston, MA, USA.
- Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA.
| | - Maria E Cabanillas
- Department of Endocrine Neoplasia & Hormonal Disorders, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX, USA
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17
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Taraszka K, Groha S, King D, Tell R, White K, Ziv E, Zaitlen N, Gusev A. A comprehensive analysis of clinical and polygenic germline influences on somatic mutational burden. Am J Hum Genet 2024; 111:242-258. [PMID: 38211585 PMCID: PMC10870141 DOI: 10.1016/j.ajhg.2023.12.010] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/18/2023] [Revised: 12/04/2023] [Accepted: 12/06/2023] [Indexed: 01/13/2024] Open
Abstract
Tumor mutational burden (TMB), the total number of somatic mutations in the tumor, and copy number burden (CNB), the corresponding measure of aneuploidy, are established fundamental somatic features and emerging biomarkers for immunotherapy. However, the genetic and non-genetic influences on TMB/CNB and, critically, the manner by which they influence patient outcomes remain poorly understood. Here, we present a large germline-somatic study of TMB/CNB with >23,000 individuals across 17 cancer types, of which 12,000 also have extensive clinical, treatment, and overall survival (OS) measurements available. We report dozens of clinical associations with TMB/CNB, observing older age and male sex to have a strong effect on TMB and weaker impact on CNB. We additionally identified significant germline influences on TMB/CNB, including fine-scale European ancestry and germline polygenic risk scores (PRSs) for smoking, tanning, white blood cell counts, and educational attainment. We quantify the causal effect of exposures on somatic mutational processes using Mendelian randomization. Many of the identified features associated with TMB/CNB were additionally associated with OS for individuals treated at a single tertiary cancer center. For individuals receiving immunotherapy, we observed a complex relationship between PRSs for educational attainment, self-reported college attainment, TMB, and survival, suggesting that the influence of this biomarker may be substantially modified by socioeconomic status. While the accumulation of somatic alterations is a stochastic process, our work demonstrates that it can be shaped by host characteristics including germline genetics.
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Affiliation(s)
- Kodi Taraszka
- Department of Computer Science, University of California, Los Angeles, CA 90095, USA; Department of Medical Oncology, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute & Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02215, USA.
| | - Stefan Groha
- Department of Medical Oncology, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute & Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02215, USA; Program in Medical and Population Genetics, Broad Institute, Cambridge, MA 02142, USA
| | - David King
- Tempus Labs, Inc, Chicago, IL 60654, USA
| | | | | | - Elad Ziv
- Department of Medicine, University of California San Francisco Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center, San Francisco, CA 94158, USA
| | - Noah Zaitlen
- Department of Neurology, University of California, Los Angeles, CA 90095, USA
| | - Alexander Gusev
- Department of Medical Oncology, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute & Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02215, USA; Program in Medical and Population Genetics, Broad Institute, Cambridge, MA 02142, USA.
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18
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Mortenson KL, Dawes C, Wilson ER, Patchen NE, Johnson HE, Gertz J, Bailey SD, Liu Y, Varley KE, Zhang X. 3D genomic analysis reveals novel enhancer-hijacking caused by complex structural alterations that drive oncogene overexpression. bioRxiv 2024:2024.01.23.576965. [PMID: 38328209 PMCID: PMC10849656 DOI: 10.1101/2024.01.23.576965] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 02/09/2024]
Abstract
Enhancer hijacking, caused by structural alterations on chromosomes as well as extrachromosomal DNA (ecDNA), is a common cancer driver event. The complexity and ubiquity of structural alterations in cancer genomes make it difficult to identify enhancer hijacking using genome sequencing alone. Here we describe a 3D genomics-based analysis called HAPI (Highly Active Promoter Interactions) to characterize enhancer hijacking caused by structural alterations. HAPI analysis of HiChIP data from 34 cancer cell lines identified novel enhancer hijacking events that involve chromosomal rearrangements and activate both known and potentially novel oncogenes such as MYC, CCND1, ETV1, CRKL, and ID4, which we validated using CRISPRi assays and RNA-seq analysis. Furthermore, we found that ecDNAs often contain multiple oncogenes from different chromosomes, which causes nested enhancer hijacking among them. We found that ecDNAs containing MYC often harbor additional oncogenes from other chromosomes such as CDX2, ERBB2, or CD44 that co-opt MYC's enhancers for their overexpression, which we validated using dual-color DNA FISH and CRISPRi assays. These enhancer hijacking events involving multiple oncogenes on ecDNAs have important implications for therapeutic strategies that either target the co-opting oncogenes or the hijacked enhancers. Our publicly available HAPI analysis tool provides a robust strategy to detect enhancer hijacking and reveals novel insights into oncogene activation caused by chromosomal and extrachromosomal structural alterations.
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Affiliation(s)
- Katelyn L. Mortenson
- Department of Oncological Sciences, Huntsman Cancer Institute, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah, USA
| | - Courtney Dawes
- Department of Biochemistry, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah, USA
| | - Emily R. Wilson
- Department of Oncological Sciences, Huntsman Cancer Institute, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah, USA
| | - Nathan E. Patchen
- Department of Biochemistry, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah, USA
| | - Hailey E. Johnson
- Department of Oncological Sciences, Huntsman Cancer Institute, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah, USA
- Department of Cell Biology and Physiology, Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah, USA
| | - Jason Gertz
- Department of Oncological Sciences, Huntsman Cancer Institute, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah, USA
| | - Swneke D. Bailey
- Cancer Research Program, Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre, Montreal, QC, Canada
- Departments of Surgery and Human Genetics, McGill University, Montreal, QC, Canada
| | - Yang Liu
- Department of Biochemistry, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah, USA
| | - Katherine E. Varley
- Department of Oncological Sciences, Huntsman Cancer Institute, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah, USA
| | - Xiaoyang Zhang
- Department of Oncological Sciences, Huntsman Cancer Institute, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah, USA
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19
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Sizer RE, Butterfield SP, Hancocks LA, Gato De Sousa L, White RJ. Selective Occupation by E2F and RB of Loci Expressed by RNA Polymerase III. Cancers (Basel) 2024; 16:481. [PMID: 38339234 PMCID: PMC10854548 DOI: 10.3390/cancers16030481] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/19/2023] [Revised: 01/15/2024] [Accepted: 01/15/2024] [Indexed: 02/12/2024] Open
Abstract
In all cases tested, TFIIIB is responsible for recruiting pol III to its genetic templates. In mammalian cells, RB binds TFIIIB and prevents its interactions with both promoter DNA and pol III, thereby suppressing transcription. As TFIIIB is not recruited to its target genes when bound by RB, the mechanism predicts that pol III-dependent templates will not be occupied by RB; this contrasts with the situation at most genes controlled by RB, where it can be tethered by promoter-bound sequence-specific DNA-binding factors such as E2F. Contrary to this prediction, however, ChIP-seq data reveal the presence of RB in multiple cell types and the related protein p130 at many loci that rely on pol III for their expression, including RMRP, RN7SL, and a variety of tRNA genes. The sets of genes targeted varies according to cell type and growth state. In such cases, recruitment of RB and p130 can be explained by binding of E2F1, E2F4 and/or E2F5. Genes transcribed by pol III had not previously been identified as common targets of E2F family members. The data provide evidence that E2F may allow for the selective regulation of specific non-coding RNAs by RB, in addition to its influence on overall pol III output through its interaction with TFIIIB.
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Affiliation(s)
| | | | | | | | - Robert J. White
- Department of Biology, University of York, York YO10 5DD, UK; (R.E.S.)
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20
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Duan M, Song S, Wasserman H, Lee PH, Liu KJ, Gordân R, He Y, Mao P. High UV damage and low repair, but not cytosine deamination, stimulate mutation hotspots at ETS binding sites in melanoma. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 2024; 121:e2310854121. [PMID: 38241433 PMCID: PMC10823218 DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2310854121] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/27/2023] [Accepted: 11/20/2023] [Indexed: 01/21/2024] Open
Abstract
Noncoding mutation hotspots have been identified in melanoma and many of them occur at the binding sites of E26 transformation-specific (ETS) proteins; however, their formation mechanism and functional impacts are not fully understood. Here, we used UV (Ultraviolet) damage sequencing data and analyzed cyclobutane pyrimidine dimer (CPD) formation, DNA repair, and CPD deamination in human cells at single-nucleotide resolution. Our data show prominent CPD hotspots immediately after UV irradiation at ETS binding sites, particularly at sites with a conserved TTCCGG motif, which correlate with mutation hotspots identified in cutaneous melanoma. Additionally, CPDs are repaired slower at ETS binding sites than in flanking DNA. Cytosine deamination in CPDs to uracil is suggested as an important step for UV mutagenesis. However, we found that CPD deamination is significantly suppressed at ETS binding sites, particularly for the CPD hotspot on the 5' side of the ETS motif, arguing against a role for CPD deamination in promoting ETS-associated UV mutations. Finally, we analyzed a subset of frequently mutated promoters, including the ribosomal protein genes RPL13A and RPS20, and found that mutations in the ETS motif can significantly reduce the promoter activity. Thus, our data identify high UV damage and low repair, but not CPD deamination, as the main mechanism for ETS-associated mutations in melanoma and uncover important roles of often-overlooked mutation hotspots in perturbing gene transcription.
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Affiliation(s)
- Mingrui Duan
- Department of Internal Medicine, University of New Mexico Comprehensive Cancer Center, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM87131
| | - Shenghan Song
- Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM87131
- Translational Informatics Division, Department of Internal Medicine, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM87131
| | - Hana Wasserman
- Program in Computational Biology and Bioinformatics, Department of Biostatistics and Bioinformatics, Duke University, Durham, NC27708
| | - Po-Hsuen Lee
- Department of Internal Medicine, University of New Mexico Comprehensive Cancer Center, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM87131
| | - Ke Jian Liu
- Department of Pathology, Stony Brook Cancer Center, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, NY11794-7263
| | - Raluca Gordân
- Department of Biostatistics and Bioinformatics, Duke University, Durham, NC27708
- Department of Computer Science, Duke University, Durham, NC27708
- Department of Molecular Genetics and Microbiology, Duke University, Durham, NC27708
| | - Yi He
- Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM87131
- Translational Informatics Division, Department of Internal Medicine, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM87131
| | - Peng Mao
- Department of Internal Medicine, University of New Mexico Comprehensive Cancer Center, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM87131
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21
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Zang Y, Ran X, Yuan J, Wu H, Wang Y, Li H, Teng H, Sun Z. Genomic hallmarks and therapeutic targets of ribosome biogenesis in cancer. Brief Bioinform 2024; 25:bbae023. [PMID: 38343327 PMCID: PMC10859687 DOI: 10.1093/bib/bbae023] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/26/2023] [Revised: 01/11/2024] [Accepted: 01/15/2024] [Indexed: 02/15/2024] Open
Abstract
Hyperactive ribosome biogenesis (RiboSis) fuels unrestricted cell proliferation, whereas genomic hallmarks and therapeutic targets of RiboSis in cancers remain elusive, and efficient approaches to quantify RiboSis activity are still limited. Here, we have established an in silico approach to conveniently score RiboSis activity based on individual transcriptome data. By employing this novel approach and RNA-seq data of 14 645 samples from TCGA/GTEx dataset and 917 294 single-cell expression profiles across 13 cancer types, we observed the elevated activity of RiboSis in malignant cells of various human cancers, and high risk of severe outcomes in patients with high RiboSis activity. Our mining of pan-cancer multi-omics data characterized numerous molecular alterations of RiboSis, and unveiled the predominant somatic alteration in RiboSis genes was copy number variation. A total of 128 RiboSis genes, including EXOSC4, BOP1, RPLP0P6 and UTP23, were identified as potential therapeutic targets. Interestingly, we observed that the activity of RiboSis was associated with TP53 mutations, and hyperactive RiboSis was associated with poor outcomes in lung cancer patients without TP53 mutations, highlighting the importance of considering TP53 mutations during therapy by impairing RiboSis. Moreover, we predicted 23 compounds, including methotrexate and CX-5461, associated with the expression signature of RiboSis genes. The current study generates a comprehensive blueprint of molecular alterations in RiboSis genes across cancers, which provides a valuable resource for RiboSis-based anti-tumor therapy.
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Affiliation(s)
- Yue Zang
- HIM-BGI Omics Center, Hangzhou Institute of Medicine (HIM), Chinese Academy of Sciences and Institute of Genomic Medicine, Wenzhou Medical University, China
| | - Xia Ran
- Liangzhu Laboratory, Zhejiang University Medical Center, China
| | - Jie Yuan
- BGI Education Center, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, China
| | - Hao Wu
- Institute of Genomic Medicine, Wenzhou Medical University, China
| | - Youya Wang
- Institute of Genomic Medicine, Wenzhou Medical University, China
| | - He Li
- Institute of Genomic Medicine, Wenzhou Medical University, China
| | - Huajing Teng
- Department of Radiation Oncology, Key Laboratory of Carcinogenesis and Translational Research (Ministry of Education) at Peking University Cancer Hospital and Institute, Beijing 100142, China
| | - Zhongsheng Sun
- HIM-BGI Omics Center, Hangzhou Institute of Medicine (HIM), Chinese Academy of Sciences, Institute of Genomic Medicine, Wenzhou Medical University, and Beijing Institutes of Life Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Hangzhou, China
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22
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Ciriello G, Magnani L, Aitken SJ, Akkari L, Behjati S, Hanahan D, Landau DA, Lopez-Bigas N, Lupiáñez DG, Marine JC, Martin-Villalba A, Natoli G, Obenauf AC, Oricchio E, Scaffidi P, Sottoriva A, Swarbrick A, Tonon G, Vanharanta S, Zuber J. Cancer Evolution: A Multifaceted Affair. Cancer Discov 2024; 14:36-48. [PMID: 38047596 PMCID: PMC10784746 DOI: 10.1158/2159-8290.cd-23-0530] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/04/2023] [Revised: 08/29/2023] [Accepted: 10/23/2023] [Indexed: 12/05/2023]
Abstract
Cancer cells adapt and survive through the acquisition and selection of molecular modifications. This process defines cancer evolution. Building on a theoretical framework based on heritable genetic changes has provided insights into the mechanisms supporting cancer evolution. However, cancer hallmarks also emerge via heritable nongenetic mechanisms, including epigenetic and chromatin topological changes, and interactions between tumor cells and the tumor microenvironment. Recent findings on tumor evolutionary mechanisms draw a multifaceted picture where heterogeneous forces interact and influence each other while shaping tumor progression. A comprehensive characterization of the cancer evolutionary toolkit is required to improve personalized medicine and biomarker discovery. SIGNIFICANCE Tumor evolution is fueled by multiple enabling mechanisms. Importantly, genetic instability, epigenetic reprogramming, and interactions with the tumor microenvironment are neither alternative nor independent evolutionary mechanisms. As demonstrated by findings highlighted in this perspective, experimental and theoretical approaches must account for multiple evolutionary mechanisms and their interactions to ultimately understand, predict, and steer tumor evolution.
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Affiliation(s)
- Giovanni Ciriello
- Swiss Cancer Center Leman, Lausanne, Switzerland
- Department of Computational Biology, University of Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland
| | - Luca Magnani
- The Breast Cancer Now Toby Robins Research Centre, The Institute of Cancer Research, London, United Kingdom
- Breast Epigenetic Plasticity and Evolution Laboratory, Division of Breast Cancer Research, The Institute of Cancer Research, London, United Kingdom
- Department of Surgery and Cancer, Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom
| | - Sarah J. Aitken
- Medical Research Council Toxicology Unit, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, United Kingdom
- Department of Histopathology, Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, Cambridge, United Kingdom
| | - Leila Akkari
- Division of Tumor Biology and Immunology, Oncode Institute, The Netherlands Cancer Institute, Amsterdam, the Netherlands
| | - Sam Behjati
- Wellcome Sanger Institute, Hinxton, United Kingdom
- Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, Cambridge, United Kingdom
- Department of Paediatrics, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, United Kingdom
| | - Douglas Hanahan
- Swiss Cancer Center Leman, Lausanne, Switzerland
- Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research, Lausanne, Switzerland
| | - Dan A. Landau
- New York Genome Center, New York, New York
- Division of Hematology and Medical Oncology, Department of Medicine and Meyer Cancer Center, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York, New York
- Institute for Computational Biomedicine, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York, New York
| | - Nuria Lopez-Bigas
- Institute for Research in Biomedicine (IRB Barcelona), The Barcelona Institute of Science and Technology, Barcelona, Spain
- Centro de Investigación Biomédica en Red en Cáncer (CIBERONC), Instituto de Salud Carlos III, Madrid, Spain
- Institució Catalana de Recerca i Estudis Avançats (ICREA), Barcelona, Spain
| | - Darío G. Lupiáñez
- Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine in the Helmholtz Association, Berlin Institute for Medical Systems Biology, Berlin, Germany
| | - Jean-Christophe Marine
- Laboratory for Molecular Cancer Biology, Center for Cancer Biology, VIB, Leuven, Belgium
- Laboratory for Molecular Cancer Biology, Department of Oncology, KULeuven, Leuven, Belgium
| | - Ana Martin-Villalba
- Department of Molecular Neurobiology, German Cancer Research Center (DFKZ), Heidelberg, Germany
| | - Gioacchino Natoli
- Department of Experimental Oncology, European Institute of Oncology IRCCS, Milan, Italy
| | - Anna C. Obenauf
- Research Institute of Molecular Pathology, Vienna Biocenter, Vienna, Austria
| | - Elisa Oricchio
- Swiss Cancer Center Leman, Lausanne, Switzerland
- Swiss Institute for Experimental Cancer Research (ISREC), School of Life Sciences, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL), Lausanne, Switzerland
| | - Paola Scaffidi
- Department of Experimental Oncology, European Institute of Oncology IRCCS, Milan, Italy
- Cancer Epigenetic Laboratory, The Francis Crick Institute, London, United Kingdom
| | - Andrea Sottoriva
- Computational Biology Research Centre, Human Technopole, Milan, Italy
| | - Alexander Swarbrick
- Cancer Ecosystems Program, Garvan Institute of Medical Research, Darlinghurst, Australia
- School of Clinical Medicine, Faculty of Medicine and Health, UNSW Sydney, Sydney, Australia
| | - Giovanni Tonon
- Vita-Salute San Raffaele University, Milan, Italy
- Center for Omics Sciences, IRCCS San Raffaele Scientific Institute, Milan, Italy
| | - Sakari Vanharanta
- Translational Cancer Medicine Program, Faculty of Medicine, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland
- Department of Biochemistry and Developmental Biology, Faculty of Medicine, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland
| | - Johannes Zuber
- Research Institute of Molecular Pathology, Vienna Biocenter, Vienna, Austria
- Medical University of Vienna, Vienna BioCenter (VBC), Vienna, Austria
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23
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Hariprakash JM, Salviato E, La Mastra F, Sebestyén E, Tagliaferri I, Silva RS, Lucini F, Farina L, Cinquanta M, Rancati I, Riboni M, Minardi SP, Roz L, Gorini F, Lanzuolo C, Casola S, Ferrari F. Leveraging Tissue-Specific Enhancer-Target Gene Regulatory Networks Identifies Enhancer Somatic Mutations That Functionally Impact Lung Cancer. Cancer Res 2024; 84:133-153. [PMID: 37855660 PMCID: PMC10758689 DOI: 10.1158/0008-5472.can-23-1129] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/13/2023] [Revised: 08/29/2023] [Accepted: 10/17/2023] [Indexed: 10/20/2023]
Abstract
Enhancers are noncoding regulatory DNA regions that modulate the transcription of target genes, often over large distances along with the genomic sequence. Enhancer alterations have been associated with various pathological conditions, including cancer. However, the identification and characterization of somatic mutations in noncoding regulatory regions with a functional effect on tumorigenesis and prognosis remain a major challenge. Here, we present a strategy for detecting and characterizing enhancer mutations in a genome-wide analysis of patient cohorts, across three lung cancer subtypes. Lung tissue-specific enhancers were defined by integrating experimental data and public epigenomic profiles, and the genome-wide enhancer-target gene regulatory network of lung cells was constructed by integrating chromatin three-dimensional architecture data. Lung cancers possessed a similar mutation burden at tissue-specific enhancers and exons but with differences in their mutation signatures. Functionally relevant alterations were prioritized on the basis of the pathway-level integration of the effect of a mutation and the frequency of mutations on individual enhancers. The genes enriched for mutated enhancers converged on the regulation of key biological processes and pathways relevant to tumor biology. Recurrent mutations in individual enhancers also affected the expression of target genes, with potential relevance for patient prognosis. Together, these findings show that noncoding regulatory mutations have a potential relevance for cancer pathogenesis and can be exploited for patient classification. SIGNIFICANCE Mapping enhancer-target gene regulatory interactions and analyzing enhancer mutations at the level of their target genes and pathways reveal convergence of recurrent enhancer mutations on biological processes involved in tumorigenesis and prognosis.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Elisa Salviato
- IFOM-ETS, the AIRC Institute of Molecular Oncology, Milan, Italy
| | | | - Endre Sebestyén
- IFOM-ETS, the AIRC Institute of Molecular Oncology, Milan, Italy
| | | | | | - Federica Lucini
- IFOM-ETS, the AIRC Institute of Molecular Oncology, Milan, Italy
| | - Lorenzo Farina
- IFOM-ETS, the AIRC Institute of Molecular Oncology, Milan, Italy
| | | | - Ilaria Rancati
- IFOM-ETS, the AIRC Institute of Molecular Oncology, Milan, Italy
| | | | | | - Luca Roz
- Fondazione IRCCS—Istituto Nazionale Tumori, Milan, Italy
| | - Francesca Gorini
- INGM, National Institute of Molecular Genetics “Romeo ed Enrica Invernizzi,” Milan, Italy
| | - Chiara Lanzuolo
- INGM, National Institute of Molecular Genetics “Romeo ed Enrica Invernizzi,” Milan, Italy
- Institute of Biomedical Technologies, National Research Council (ITB-CNR), Segrate, Italy
| | - Stefano Casola
- IFOM-ETS, the AIRC Institute of Molecular Oncology, Milan, Italy
| | - Francesco Ferrari
- IFOM-ETS, the AIRC Institute of Molecular Oncology, Milan, Italy
- Institute of Molecular Genetics “Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza,” National Research Council (IGM-CNR), Pavia, Italy
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24
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Arnedo-Pac C, Muiños F, Gonzalez-Perez A, Lopez-Bigas N. Hotspot propensity across mutational processes. Mol Syst Biol 2024; 20:6-27. [PMID: 38177930 PMCID: PMC10883281 DOI: 10.1038/s44320-023-00001-w] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/05/2023] [Revised: 10/30/2023] [Accepted: 11/09/2023] [Indexed: 01/06/2024] Open
Abstract
The sparsity of mutations observed across tumours hinders our ability to study mutation rate variability at nucleotide resolution. To circumvent this, here we investigated the propensity of mutational processes to form mutational hotspots as a readout of their mutation rate variability at single base resolution. Mutational signatures 1 and 17 have the highest hotspot propensity (5-78 times higher than other processes). After accounting for trinucleotide mutational probabilities, sequence composition and mutational heterogeneity at 10 Kbp, most (94-95%) signature 17 hotspots remain unexplained, suggesting a significant role of local genomic features. For signature 1, the inclusion of genome-wide distribution of methylated CpG sites into models can explain most (80-100%) of the hotspot propensity. There is an increased hotspot propensity of signature 1 in normal tissues and de novo germline mutations. We demonstrate that hotspot propensity is a useful readout to assess the accuracy of mutation rate models at nucleotide resolution. This new approach and the findings derived from it open up new avenues for a range of somatic and germline studies investigating and modelling mutagenesis.
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Affiliation(s)
- Claudia Arnedo-Pac
- Institute for Research in Biomedicine (IRB Barcelona), The Barcelona Institute of Science and Technology, Barcelona, Spain
- Centro de Investigación Biomédica en Red en Cáncer (CIBERONC), Instituto de Salud Carlos III, Madrid, Spain
| | - Ferran Muiños
- Institute for Research in Biomedicine (IRB Barcelona), The Barcelona Institute of Science and Technology, Barcelona, Spain
- Centro de Investigación Biomédica en Red en Cáncer (CIBERONC), Instituto de Salud Carlos III, Madrid, Spain
| | - Abel Gonzalez-Perez
- Institute for Research in Biomedicine (IRB Barcelona), The Barcelona Institute of Science and Technology, Barcelona, Spain.
- Centro de Investigación Biomédica en Red en Cáncer (CIBERONC), Instituto de Salud Carlos III, Madrid, Spain.
| | - Nuria Lopez-Bigas
- Institute for Research in Biomedicine (IRB Barcelona), The Barcelona Institute of Science and Technology, Barcelona, Spain.
- Centro de Investigación Biomédica en Red en Cáncer (CIBERONC), Instituto de Salud Carlos III, Madrid, Spain.
- Institució Catalana de Recerca i Estudis Avançats (ICREA), Barcelona, Spain.
- Department of Medicine and Life Sciences (MELIS), Universitat Pompeu Fabra (UPF), Barcelona, Spain.
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25
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Huang W, Paul D, Calin GA, Bayraktar R. miR-142: A Master Regulator in Hematological Malignancies and Therapeutic Opportunities. Cells 2023; 13:84. [PMID: 38201290 PMCID: PMC10778542 DOI: 10.3390/cells13010084] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/25/2023] [Revised: 11/29/2023] [Accepted: 12/15/2023] [Indexed: 01/12/2024] Open
Abstract
MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are a type of non-coding RNA whose dysregulation is frequently associated with the onset and progression of human cancers. miR-142, an ultra-conserved miRNA with both active -3p and -5p mature strands and wide-ranging physiological targets, has been the subject of countless studies over the years. Due to its preferential expression in hematopoietic cells, miR-142 has been found to be associated with numerous types of lymphomas and leukemias. This review elucidates the multifaceted role of miR-142 in human physiology, its influence on hematopoiesis and hematopoietic cells, and its intriguing involvement in exosome-mediated miR-142 transport. Moreover, we offer a comprehensive exploration of the genetic and molecular landscape of the miR-142 genomic locus, highlighting its mutations and dysregulation within hematological malignancies. Finally, we discuss potential avenues for harnessing the therapeutic potential of miR-142 in the context of hematological malignancies.
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Affiliation(s)
- Wilson Huang
- Department of Translational Molecular Pathology, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX 77030, USA; (W.H.); (G.A.C.)
| | - Doru Paul
- Division of Hematology and Medical Oncology, Department of Medicine, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York, NY 10065, USA;
| | - George A. Calin
- Department of Translational Molecular Pathology, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX 77030, USA; (W.H.); (G.A.C.)
- Center for RNA Interference and Non-Coding RNAs, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX 77030, USA
- Department of Leukemia, Division of Cancer Medicine, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX 77030, USA
| | - Recep Bayraktar
- Center for RNA Interference and Non-Coding RNAs, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX 77030, USA
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26
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Fukagawa A, Hama N, Totoki Y, Nakamura H, Arai Y, Saito-Adachi M, Maeshima A, Matsui Y, Yachida S, Ushiku T, Shibata T. Genomic and epigenomic integrative subtypes of renal cell carcinoma in a Japanese cohort. Nat Commun 2023; 14:8383. [PMID: 38104198 PMCID: PMC10725467 DOI: 10.1038/s41467-023-44159-1] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/06/2023] [Accepted: 12/01/2023] [Indexed: 12/19/2023] Open
Abstract
Renal cell carcinoma (RCC) comprises several histological types characterised by different genomic and epigenomic aberrations; however, the molecular pathogenesis of each type still requires further exploration. We perform whole-genome sequencing of 128 Japanese RCC cases of different histology to elucidate the significant somatic alterations and mutagenesis processes. We also perform transcriptomic and epigenomic sequencing to identify distinguishing features, including assay for transposase-accessible chromatin sequencing (ATAC-seq) and methyl sequencing. Genomic analysis reveals that the mutational signature differs among the histological types, suggesting that different carcinogenic factors drive each histology. From the ATAC-seq results, master transcription factors are identified for each histology. Furthermore, clear cell RCC is classified into three epi-subtypes, one of which expresses highly immune checkpoint molecules with frequent loss of chromosome 14q. These genomic and epigenomic features may lead to the development of effective therapeutic strategies for RCC.
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Affiliation(s)
- Akihiko Fukagawa
- Division of Cancer Genomics, National Cancer Center Research Institute, Tokyo, Japan
- Department of Pathology, Graduate School of Medicine, The University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan
| | - Natsuko Hama
- Division of Cancer Genomics, National Cancer Center Research Institute, Tokyo, Japan
| | - Yasushi Totoki
- Division of Cancer Genomics, National Cancer Center Research Institute, Tokyo, Japan
- Department of Cancer Genome Informatics, Graduate School of Medicine, Osaka University, Osaka, Japan
| | - Hiromi Nakamura
- Division of Cancer Genomics, National Cancer Center Research Institute, Tokyo, Japan
| | - Yasuhito Arai
- Division of Cancer Genomics, National Cancer Center Research Institute, Tokyo, Japan
| | - Mihoko Saito-Adachi
- Division of Cancer Genomics, National Cancer Center Research Institute, Tokyo, Japan
| | - Akiko Maeshima
- Department of Diagnostic Pathology, National Cancer Center Hospital, Tokyo, Japan
| | - Yoshiyuki Matsui
- Department of Urology, National Cancer Center Hospital, Tokyo, Japan
| | - Shinichi Yachida
- Department of Cancer Genome Informatics, Graduate School of Medicine, Osaka University, Osaka, Japan
| | - Tetsuo Ushiku
- Department of Pathology, Graduate School of Medicine, The University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan
| | - Tatsuhiro Shibata
- Division of Cancer Genomics, National Cancer Center Research Institute, Tokyo, Japan.
- Laboratory of Molecular Medicine, The Institute of Medical Science, The University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan.
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27
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Rao Y, Ahmed N, Pritchard J, O'Brien EP. Incorporating mutational heterogeneity to identify genes that are enriched for synonymous mutations in cancer. BMC Bioinformatics 2023; 24:462. [PMID: 38062391 PMCID: PMC10704839 DOI: 10.1186/s12859-023-05521-8] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/31/2023] [Accepted: 10/05/2023] [Indexed: 12/18/2023] Open
Abstract
BACKGROUND Synonymous mutations, which change the DNA sequence but not the encoded protein sequence, can affect protein structure and function, mRNA maturation, and mRNA half-lives. The possibility that synonymous mutations might be enriched in cancer has been explored in several recent studies. However, none of these studies control for all three types of mutational heterogeneity (patient, histology, and gene) that are known to affect the accurate identification of non-synonymous cancer-associated genes. Our goal is to adopt the current standard for non-synonymous mutations in an investigation of synonymous mutations. RESULTS Here, we create an algorithm, MutSigCVsyn, an adaptation of MutSigCV, to identify cancer-associated genes that are enriched for synonymous mutations based on a non-coding background model that takes into account the mutational heterogeneity across these levels. Using MutSigCVsyn, we first analyzed 2572 cancer whole-genome samples from the Pan-cancer Analysis of Whole Genomes (PCAWG) to identify non-synonymous cancer drivers as a quality control. Indicative of the algorithm accuracy we find that 58.6% of these candidate genes were also found in Cancer Census Gene (CGC) list, and 66.2% were found within the PCAWG cancer driver list. We then applied it to identify 30 putative cancer-associated genes that are enriched for synonymous mutations within the same samples. One of the promising gene candidates is the B cell lymphoma 2 (BCL-2) gene. BCL-2 regulates apoptosis by antagonizing the action of proapoptotic BCL-2 family member proteins. The synonymous mutations in BCL2 are enriched in its anti-apoptotic domain and likely play a role in cancer cell proliferation. CONCLUSION Our study introduces MutSigCVsyn, an algorithm that accounts for mutational heterogeneity at patient, histology, and gene levels, to identify cancer-associated genes that are enriched for synonymous mutations using whole genome sequencing data. We identified 30 putative candidate genes that will benefit from future experimental studies on the role of synonymous mutations in cancer biology.
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Affiliation(s)
- Yiyun Rao
- Huck Institute of the Life Sciences, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, State College, PA, 16802, USA
| | - Nabeel Ahmed
- Huck Institute of the Life Sciences, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, State College, PA, 16802, USA
- Moderna, Inc., Cambridge, USA
| | - Justin Pritchard
- Department of Biomedical Engineering, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, State College, PA, 16802, USA.
| | - Edward P O'Brien
- Department of Chemistry, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, State College, PA, 16802, USA.
- Institute for Computational and Data Sciences, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, State College, PA, 16802, USA.
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28
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Chukwu W, Lee S, Crane A, Zhang S, Mittra I, Imielinski M, Beroukhim R, Dubois F, Dalin S. Genomic sequence context differs between germline and somatic structural variants allowing for their differentiation in tumor samples without paired normals. bioRxiv 2023:2023.10.09.561462. [PMID: 38106141 PMCID: PMC10723258 DOI: 10.1101/2023.10.09.561462] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/19/2023]
Abstract
There is currently no method to distinguish between germline and somatic structural variants (SVs) in tumor samples that lack a matched normal sample. In this study, we analyzed several features of germline and somatic SVs from a cohort of 974 patients from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA). We identified a total of 21 features that differed significantly between germline and somatic SVs. Several of the germline SV features were associated with each other, as were several of the somatic SV features. We also found that these associations differed between the germline and somatic classes, for example, we found that somatic inversions were more likely to be longer events than their germline counterparts. Using these features we trained a support vector machine (SVM) classifier on 555,849 TCGA SVs to computationally distinguish germline from somatic SVs in the absence of a matched normal. This classifier had an ROC curve AUC of 0.984 when tested on an independent test set of 277,925 TCGA SVs. In this dataset, we achieved a positive predictive value (PPV) of 0.81 for an SV called somatic by the classifier being truly somatic. We further tested the classifier on a separate set of 7,623 SVs from pediatric high-grade gliomas (pHGG). In this non-TCGA cohort, our classifier achieved a PPV of 0.828, showing robust performance across datasets.
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Affiliation(s)
- Wolu Chukwu
- Cancer Program, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, MA 02142, USA
- Departments of Cancer Biology and Medical Oncology, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, MA 02215, USA
| | - Siyun Lee
- Cancer Program, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, MA 02142, USA
- Departments of Cancer Biology and Medical Oncology, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, MA 02215, USA
| | - Alexander Crane
- Cancer Program, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, MA 02142, USA
- Departments of Cancer Biology and Medical Oncology, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, MA 02215, USA
| | - Shu Zhang
- Cancer Program, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, MA 02142, USA
- Departments of Cancer Biology and Medical Oncology, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, MA 02215, USA
| | - Ipsa Mittra
- Cancer Program, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, MA 02142, USA
| | - Marcin Imielinski
- Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York, NY, USA; New York Genome Center, New York, NY, USA; Englander Institute for Precision Medicine, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York, NY, USA; Meyer Cancer Center, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York, NY, USA; Institute for Computational Biomedicine, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York, NY, USA; Department of Pathology and Perlmutter Cancer Center, NYU Grossman School of Medicine, New York, NY, USA
| | - Rameen Beroukhim
- Cancer Program, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, MA 02142, USA
- Departments of Cancer Biology and Medical Oncology, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, MA 02215, USA
| | - Frank Dubois
- Cancer Program, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, MA 02142, USA
- Departments of Cancer Biology and Medical Oncology, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, MA 02215, USA
- Charité-Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Corporate Member of Freie Universität Berlin; Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Institute of Pathology; Berlin Institute of Health at Charité-Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Berlin, Germany
| | - Simona Dalin
- Cancer Program, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, MA 02142, USA
- Departments of Cancer Biology and Medical Oncology, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, MA 02215, USA
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29
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Mularoni V, Donati B, Tameni A, Manicardi V, Reggiani F, Sauta E, Zanelli M, Tigano M, Vitale E, Torricelli F, Ascani S, Martino G, Inghirami G, Sanguedolce F, Ruffini A, Bavieri A, Luminari S, Pizzi M, Dei Tos AP, Fesce C, Neri A, Ciarrocchi A, Fragliasso V. Long non-coding RNA mitophagy and ALK-negative anaplastic lymphoma-associated transcript: a novel regulator of mitophagy in T-cell lymphoma. Haematologica 2023; 108:3333-3346. [PMID: 37381763 PMCID: PMC10690924 DOI: 10.3324/haematol.2022.282552] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/14/2022] [Accepted: 06/20/2023] [Indexed: 06/30/2023] Open
Abstract
Long non-coding RNA (lncRNA) are emerging as powerful and versatile regulators of transcriptional programs and distinctive biomarkers of progression of T-cell lymphoma. Their role in the aggressive anaplastic lymphoma kinase-negative (ALK-) subtype of anaplastic large cell lymphoma (ALCL) has been elucidated only in part. Starting from our previously identified ALCL-associated lncRNA signature and performing digital gene expression profiling of a retrospective cohort of ALCL, we defined an 11 lncRNA signature able to discriminate among ALCL subtypes. We selected a not previously characterized lncRNA, MTAAT, with preferential expression in ALK- ALCL, for molecular and functional studies. We demonstrated that lncRNA MTAAT contributes to an aberrant mitochondrial turnover restraining mitophagy and promoting cellular proliferation. Functionally, lncRNA MTAAT acts as a repressor of a set of genes related to mitochondrial quality control via chromatin reorganization. Collectively, our work demonstrates the transcriptional role of lncRNA MTAAT in orchestrating a complex transcriptional program sustaining the progression of ALK- ALCL.
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Affiliation(s)
- Valentina Mularoni
- Laboratory of Translational Research, Azienda USL-IRCCS di Reggio Emilia, Viale Risorgimento 80, 42123, Reggio Emilia
| | - Benedetta Donati
- Laboratory of Translational Research, Azienda USL-IRCCS di Reggio Emilia, Viale Risorgimento 80, 42123, Reggio Emilia
| | - Annalisa Tameni
- Laboratory of Translational Research, Azienda USL-IRCCS di Reggio Emilia, Viale Risorgimento 80, 42123, Reggio Emilia
| | - Veronica Manicardi
- Laboratory of Translational Research, Azienda USL-IRCCS di Reggio Emilia, Viale Risorgimento 80, 42123, Reggio Emilia
| | - Francesca Reggiani
- Laboratory of Translational Research, Azienda USL-IRCCS di Reggio Emilia, Viale Risorgimento 80, 42123, Reggio Emilia
| | - Elisabetta Sauta
- IRCCS Humanitas Clinical and Research Center, via Manzoni 56, 20089, Rozzano, Milan
| | - Magda Zanelli
- Pathology Unit, Department of Oncology, Azienda Unità Sanitaria Locale - IRCCS di Reggio Emilia, Reggio Emilia, 42123
| | - Marco Tigano
- Sidney Kimmel Medical College, Thomas Jefferson University, Philadelphia, PA, 19144
| | - Emanuele Vitale
- Laboratory of Translational Research, Azienda USL-IRCCS di Reggio Emilia, Viale Risorgimento 80, 42123, Reggio Emilia, Italy; Clinical and Experimental Medicine Ph.D. Program, University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, Modena, 41125
| | - Federica Torricelli
- Laboratory of Translational Research, Azienda USL-IRCCS di Reggio Emilia, Viale Risorgimento 80, 42123, Reggio Emilia
| | - Stefano Ascani
- Pathology Unit, Azienda Ospedaliera Santa Maria di Terni, University of Perugia, 05100 Terni
| | - Giovanni Martino
- Pathology Unit, Azienda Ospedaliera Santa Maria di Terni, University of Perugia, 05100 Terni, Italy; Institute of Hematology and CREO, University of Perugia, Perugia 06129
| | - Giorgio Inghirami
- Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York, NY, 10065
| | | | - Alessia Ruffini
- Hematology Unit, Azienda USL-IRCCS di Reggio Emilia, 42123 Reggio Emilia
| | - Alberto Bavieri
- Hematology Unit, Azienda USL-IRCCS di Reggio Emilia, 42123 Reggio Emilia
| | - Stefano Luminari
- Hematology Unit, Azienda USL-IRCCS di Reggio Emilia, 42123 Reggio Emilia
| | - Marco Pizzi
- Surgical Pathology and Cytopathology Unit, Department of Medicine-DIMED, University of Padova, 35128 Padova
| | - Angelo Paolo Dei Tos
- Surgical Pathology and Cytopathology Unit, Department of Medicine-DIMED, University of Padova, 35128 Padova
| | - Cinzia Fesce
- Hematology Unit, University Hospital, 71122 Foggia
| | - Antonino Neri
- Scientific Directorate, Azienda USL-IRCCS di Reggio Emilia, Viale Umberto I 50, 42123, Reggio Emilia
| | - Alessia Ciarrocchi
- Laboratory of Translational Research, Azienda USL-IRCCS di Reggio Emilia, Viale Risorgimento 80, 42123, Reggio Emilia
| | - Valentina Fragliasso
- Laboratory of Translational Research, Azienda USL-IRCCS di Reggio Emilia, Viale Risorgimento 80, 42123, Reggio Emilia.
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Muench A, Teichmann D, Spille D, Kuzman P, Perez E, May SA, Mueller WC, Kombos T, Nazari-Dehkordi S, Onken J, Vajkoczy P, Ntoulias G, Bettencourt C, von Deimling A, Paulus W, Heppner FL, Koch A, Capper D, Kaul D, Thomas C, Schweizer L. A Novel Type of IDH-wildtype Glioma Characterized by Gliomatosis Cerebri-like Growth Pattern, TERT Promoter Mutation, and Distinct Epigenetic Profile. Am J Surg Pathol 2023; 47:1364-1375. [PMID: 37737691 DOI: 10.1097/pas.0000000000002118] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 09/23/2023]
Abstract
Diffuse gliomas in adults encompass a heterogenous group of central nervous system neoplasms. In recent years, extensive (epi-)genomic profiling has identified several glioma subgroups characterized by distinct molecular characteristics, most importantly IDH1/2 and histone H3 mutations. A group of 16 diffuse gliomas classified as "adult-type diffuse high-grade glioma, IDH-wildtype, subtype F (HGG-F)" was identified by the DKFZ v12.5 Brain Tumor Classifier . Histopathologic characterization, exome sequencing, and review of clinical data was performed in all cases. Based on unsupervised t -distributed stochastic neighbor embedding and clustering analysis of genome-wide DNA methylation data, HGG-F shows distinct epigenetic profiles separate from established central nervous system tumors. Exome sequencing demonstrated frequent TERT promoter (12/15 cases), PIK3R1 (11/16), and TP53 mutations (5/16). Radiologic characteristics were reminiscent of gliomatosis cerebri in 9/14 cases (64%). Histopathologically, most cases were classified as diffuse gliomas (7/16, 44%) or were suspicious for the infiltration zone of a diffuse glioma (5/16, 31%). None of the cases demonstrated microvascular proliferation or necrosis. Outcome of 14 patients with follow-up data was better compared to IDH-wildtype glioblastomas with a median progression-free survival of 58 months and overall survival of 74 months (both P <0.0001). Our series represents a novel type of adult-type diffuse glioma with distinct molecular and clinical features. Importantly, we provide evidence that TERT promoter mutations in diffuse gliomas without further morphologic or molecular signs of high-grade glioma should be interpreted in the context of the clinicoradiologic presentation as well as epigenetic profile and may not be suitable as a standalone marker for glioblastoma, IDH-wildtype.
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Affiliation(s)
- Amos Muench
- Edinger Institute, Institute of Neurology, University of Frankfurt am Main
| | | | | | - Peter Kuzman
- Institute of Neuropathology, University Hospital Leipzig, Leipzig
| | | | - Sven-Axel May
- Department of Neurosurgery, Klinikum Chemnitz, Chemnitz
| | - Wolf C Mueller
- Institute of Neuropathology, University Hospital Leipzig, Leipzig
| | | | | | | | | | - Georgios Ntoulias
- Department of Neurosurgery, Schlosspark-Klinik Charlottenburg, Berlin
| | - Conceição Bettencourt
- Queen Square Brain Bank, UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology, University College London, London, UK
| | | | - Werner Paulus
- Institute of Neuropathology, University Hospital Münster, Münster
| | - Frank L Heppner
- Departments of Neuropathology
- Cluster of Excellence, NeuroCure
- German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases (DZNE)
- German Cancer Consortium (DKTK), Partner Site Berlin, German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ)
| | - Arend Koch
- Departments of Neuropathology
- German Cancer Consortium (DKTK), Partner Site Berlin, German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ)
| | - David Capper
- Departments of Neuropathology
- German Cancer Consortium (DKTK), Partner Site Berlin, German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ)
| | - David Kaul
- Radiation Oncology and Radiotherapy, Charité-Universitätsmedizin Berlin, corporate member of Freie Universität Berlin and Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin
| | - Christian Thomas
- Institute of Neuropathology, University Hospital Münster, Münster
| | - Leonille Schweizer
- Edinger Institute, Institute of Neurology, University of Frankfurt am Main
- Frankfurt Cancer Institute (FCI), Frankfurt am Main
- Departments of Neuropathology
- German Cancer Consortium (DKTK), Partner Site Berlin, German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ)
- German Cancer Consortium (DKTK), Partner Site Frankfurt/Mainz, German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ), Heidelberg, Germany
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31
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Edrei Y, Levy R, Kaye D, Marom A, Radlwimmer B, Hellman A. Methylation-directed regulatory networks determine enhancing and silencing of mutation disease driver genes and explain inter-patient expression variation. Genome Biol 2023; 24:264. [PMID: 38012713 PMCID: PMC10683314 DOI: 10.1186/s13059-023-03094-6] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/23/2022] [Accepted: 10/23/2023] [Indexed: 11/29/2023] Open
Abstract
BACKGROUND Common diseases manifest differentially between patients, but the genetic origin of this variation remains unclear. To explore possible involvement of gene transcriptional-variation, we produce a DNA methylation-oriented, driver-gene-wide dataset of regulatory elements in human glioblastomas and study their effect on inter-patient gene expression variation. RESULTS In 175 of 177 analyzed gene regulatory domains, transcriptional enhancers and silencers are intermixed. Under experimental conditions, DNA methylation induces enhancers to alter their enhancing effects or convert into silencers, while silencers are affected inversely. High-resolution mapping of the association between DNA methylation and gene expression in intact genomes reveals methylation-related regulatory units (average size = 915.1 base-pairs). Upon increased methylation of these units, their target-genes either increased or decreased in expression. Gene-enhancing and silencing units constitute cis-regulatory networks of genes. Mathematical modeling of the networks highlights indicative methylation sites, which signified the effect of key regulatory units, and add up to make the overall transcriptional effect of the network. Methylation variation in these sites effectively describe inter-patient expression variation and, compared with DNA sequence-alterations, appears as a major contributor of gene-expression variation among glioblastoma patients. CONCLUSIONS We describe complex cis-regulatory networks, which determine gene expression by summing the effects of positive and negative transcriptional inputs. In these networks, DNA methylation induces both enhancing and silencing effects, depending on the context. The revealed mechanism sheds light on the regulatory role of DNA methylation, explains inter-individual gene-expression variation, and opens the way for monitoring the driving forces behind deferential courses of cancer and other diseases.
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Affiliation(s)
- Yifat Edrei
- Department of Developmental Biology and Cancer Research, The Institute for Medical Research Israel-Canada (IMRIC), The Hebrew University-Hadassah Medical School, 9112102, Jerusalem, Israel
| | - Revital Levy
- Department of Developmental Biology and Cancer Research, The Institute for Medical Research Israel-Canada (IMRIC), The Hebrew University-Hadassah Medical School, 9112102, Jerusalem, Israel
| | - Daniel Kaye
- Department of Developmental Biology and Cancer Research, The Institute for Medical Research Israel-Canada (IMRIC), The Hebrew University-Hadassah Medical School, 9112102, Jerusalem, Israel
| | - Anat Marom
- Department of Developmental Biology and Cancer Research, The Institute for Medical Research Israel-Canada (IMRIC), The Hebrew University-Hadassah Medical School, 9112102, Jerusalem, Israel
| | - Bernhard Radlwimmer
- Division of Molecular Genetics, German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ), Heidelberg, Germany
| | - Asaf Hellman
- Department of Developmental Biology and Cancer Research, The Institute for Medical Research Israel-Canada (IMRIC), The Hebrew University-Hadassah Medical School, 9112102, Jerusalem, Israel.
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Xu Z, Li Q, Marchionni L, Wang K. PhenoSV: interpretable phenotype-aware model for the prioritization of genes affected by structural variants. Nat Commun 2023; 14:7805. [PMID: 38016949 PMCID: PMC10684511 DOI: 10.1038/s41467-023-43651-y] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/05/2023] [Accepted: 11/15/2023] [Indexed: 11/30/2023] Open
Abstract
Structural variants (SVs) represent a major source of genetic variation associated with phenotypic diversity and disease susceptibility. While long-read sequencing can discover over 20,000 SVs per human genome, interpreting their functional consequences remains challenging. Existing methods for identifying disease-related SVs focus on deletion/duplication only and cannot prioritize individual genes affected by SVs, especially for noncoding SVs. Here, we introduce PhenoSV, a phenotype-aware machine-learning model that interprets all major types of SVs and genes affected. PhenoSV segments and annotates SVs with diverse genomic features and employs a transformer-based architecture to predict their impacts under a multiple-instance learning framework. With phenotype information, PhenoSV further utilizes gene-phenotype associations to prioritize phenotype-related SVs. Evaluation on extensive human SV datasets covering all SV types demonstrates PhenoSV's superior performance over competing methods. Applications in diseases suggest that PhenoSV can determine disease-related genes from SVs. A web server and a command-line tool for PhenoSV are available at https://phenosv.wglab.org .
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Affiliation(s)
- Zhuoran Xu
- Graduate Group in Genomics and Computational Biology, University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine, Philadelphia, PA, 19104, USA
- Raymond G. Perelman Center for Cellular and Molecular Therapeutics, Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA, 19104, USA
- Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York, NY, 10065, USA
| | - Quan Li
- Princess Margaret Cancer Centre, University Health Network, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, M5G2C1, Canada
| | - Luigi Marchionni
- Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York, NY, 10065, USA
| | - Kai Wang
- Raymond G. Perelman Center for Cellular and Molecular Therapeutics, Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA, 19104, USA.
- Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, 19104, USA.
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Chen Y, Paramo MI, Zhang Y, Yao L, Shah SR, Jin Y, Zhang J, Pan X, Yu H. Finding Needles in the Haystack: Strategies for Uncovering Noncoding Regulatory Variants. Annu Rev Genet 2023; 57:201-222. [PMID: 37562413 DOI: 10.1146/annurev-genet-030723-120717] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 08/12/2023]
Abstract
Despite accumulating evidence implicating noncoding variants in human diseases, unraveling their functionality remains a significant challenge. Systematic annotations of the regulatory landscape and the growth of sequence variant data sets have fueled the development of tools and methods to identify causal noncoding variants and evaluate their regulatory effects. Here, we review the latest advances in the field and discuss potential future research avenues to gain a more in-depth understanding of noncoding regulatory variants.
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Affiliation(s)
- You Chen
- Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, USA
- Weill Institute for Cell and Molecular Biology, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, USA;
| | - Mauricio I Paramo
- Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, USA
- Weill Institute for Cell and Molecular Biology, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, USA;
| | - Yingying Zhang
- Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, USA
- Weill Institute for Cell and Molecular Biology, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, USA;
| | - Li Yao
- Weill Institute for Cell and Molecular Biology, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, USA;
- Department of Computational Biology, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, USA
| | - Sagar R Shah
- Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, USA
- Weill Institute for Cell and Molecular Biology, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, USA;
| | - Yiyang Jin
- Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, USA
- Weill Institute for Cell and Molecular Biology, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, USA;
| | - Junke Zhang
- Weill Institute for Cell and Molecular Biology, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, USA;
- Department of Computational Biology, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, USA
| | - Xiuqi Pan
- Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, USA
- Weill Institute for Cell and Molecular Biology, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, USA;
| | - Haiyuan Yu
- Weill Institute for Cell and Molecular Biology, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, USA;
- Department of Computational Biology, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, USA
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Salido-Guadarrama I, Romero-Cordoba SL, Rueda-Zarazua B. Multi-Omics Mining of lncRNAs with Biological and Clinical Relevance in Cancer. Int J Mol Sci 2023; 24:16600. [PMID: 38068923 PMCID: PMC10706612 DOI: 10.3390/ijms242316600] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/28/2023] [Revised: 11/14/2023] [Accepted: 11/15/2023] [Indexed: 12/18/2023] Open
Abstract
In this review, we provide a general overview of the current panorama of mining strategies for multi-omics data to investigate lncRNAs with an actual or potential role as biological markers in cancer. Several multi-omics studies focusing on lncRNAs have been performed in the past with varying scopes. Nevertheless, many questions remain regarding the pragmatic application of different molecular technologies and bioinformatics algorithms for mining multi-omics data. Here, we attempt to address some of the less discussed aspects of the practical applications using different study designs for incorporating bioinformatics and statistical analyses of multi-omics data. Finally, we discuss the potential improvements and new paradigms aimed at unraveling the role and utility of lncRNAs in cancer and their potential use as molecular markers for cancer diagnosis and outcome prediction.
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Affiliation(s)
- Ivan Salido-Guadarrama
- Departamento de Bioinformatìca y Análisis Estadísticos, Instituto Nacional de Perinatología Isidro Espinosa de los Reyes, Mexico City 11000, Mexico
| | - Sandra L. Romero-Cordoba
- Departamento de Medicina Genómica y Toxicología Ambiental, Instituto de Investigaciones Biomédicas, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Mexico City 04510, Mexico;
- Biochemistry Department, Instituto Nacional de Ciencias Médicas y Nutrición Salvador Zubirán, Mexico City 14080, Mexico
| | - Bertha Rueda-Zarazua
- Posgrado en Ciencias Biológicas, Facultad de Medicina, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Mexico City 04510, Mexico;
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Kouroukli AG, Rajaram N, Bashtrykov P, Kretzmer H, Siebert R, Jeltsch A, Bens S. Targeting oncogenic TERT promoter variants by allele-specific epigenome editing. Clin Epigenetics 2023; 15:183. [PMID: 37993930 PMCID: PMC10666398 DOI: 10.1186/s13148-023-01599-2] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/24/2023] [Accepted: 11/10/2023] [Indexed: 11/24/2023] Open
Abstract
BACKGROUND Activation of dominant oncogenes by small or structural genomic alterations is a common driver mechanism in many cancers. Silencing of such dominantly activated oncogenic alleles, thus, is a promising strategy to treat cancer. Recently, allele-specific epigenome editing (ASEE) has been described as a means to reduce transcription of genes in an allele-specific manner. In cancer, specificity to an oncogenic allele can be reached by either targeting directly a pathogenic single-nucleotide variant or a polymorphic single-nucleotide variant linked to the oncogenic allele. To investigate the potential of ASEE in cancer, we here explored this approach by targeting variants at the TERT promoter region. The TERT promoter region has been described as one of the most frequently mutated non-coding cancer drivers. RESULTS Sequencing of the TERT promoter in cancer cell lines showed 53% (41/77) to contain at least one heterozygous sequence variant allowing allele distinction. We chose the hepatoblastoma cell line Hep-G2 and the lung cancer cell line A-549 for this proof-of-principle study, as they contained two different kinds of variants, namely the activating mutation C228T in the TERT core promoter and the common SNP rs2853669 in the THOR region, respectively. These variants were targeted in an allele-specific manner using sgRNA-guided dCas9-DNMT3A-3L complexes. In both cell lines, we successfully introduced DNA methylation specifically to the on-target allele of the TERT promoter with limited background methylation on the off-target allele or an off-target locus (VEGFA), respectively. We observed a maximum CpG methylation gain of 39% and 76% on the target allele when targeting the activating mutation and the common SNP, respectively. The epigenome editing translated into reduced TERT RNA expression in Hep-G2. CONCLUSIONS We applied an ASEE-mediated approach to silence TERT allele specifically. Our results show that the concept of dominant oncogene inactivation by allele-specific epigenome editing can be successfully translated into cancer models. This new strategy may have important advantages in comparison with existing therapeutic approaches, e.g., targeting telomerase, especially with regard to reducing adverse side effects.
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Affiliation(s)
- Alexandra G Kouroukli
- Institute of Human Genetics, Ulm University and Ulm University Medical Center, Albert-Einstein-Allee 11, 89081, Ulm, Germany
| | - Nivethika Rajaram
- Department of Biochemistry, Institute of Biochemistry and Technical Biochemistry, University of Stuttgart, Allmandring 31, 70569, Stuttgart, Germany
| | - Pavel Bashtrykov
- Department of Biochemistry, Institute of Biochemistry and Technical Biochemistry, University of Stuttgart, Allmandring 31, 70569, Stuttgart, Germany
| | - Helene Kretzmer
- Computational Genomics, Department of Genome Regulation, Max Planck Institute for Molecular Genetics, Berlin, Germany
| | - Reiner Siebert
- Institute of Human Genetics, Ulm University and Ulm University Medical Center, Albert-Einstein-Allee 11, 89081, Ulm, Germany
| | - Albert Jeltsch
- Department of Biochemistry, Institute of Biochemistry and Technical Biochemistry, University of Stuttgart, Allmandring 31, 70569, Stuttgart, Germany
| | - Susanne Bens
- Institute of Human Genetics, Ulm University and Ulm University Medical Center, Albert-Einstein-Allee 11, 89081, Ulm, Germany.
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Wang Y, Armendariz D, Wang L, Zhao H, Xie S, Hon GC. Enhancer regulatory networks globally connect non-coding breast cancer loci to cancer genes. bioRxiv 2023:2023.11.20.567880. [PMID: 38045327 PMCID: PMC10690208 DOI: 10.1101/2023.11.20.567880] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/05/2023]
Abstract
Genetic studies have associated thousands of enhancers with breast cancer. However, the vast majority have not been functionally characterized. Thus, it remains unclear how variant-associated enhancers contribute to cancer. Here, we perform single-cell CRISPRi screens of 3,512 regulatory elements associated with breast cancer to measure the impact of these regions on transcriptional phenotypes. Analysis of >500,000 single-cell transcriptomes in two breast cancer cell lines shows that perturbation of variant-associated enhancers disrupts breast cancer gene programs. We observe variant-associated enhancers that directly or indirectly regulate the expression of cancer genes. We also find one-to-multiple and multiple-to-one network motifs where enhancers indirectly regulate cancer genes. Notably, multiple variant-associated enhancers indirectly regulate TP53. Comparative studies illustrate sub-type specific functions between enhancers in ER+ and ER- cells. Finally, we developed the pySpade package to facilitate analysis of single-cell enhancer screens. Overall, we demonstrate that enhancers form regulatory networks that link cancer genes in the genome, providing a more comprehensive understanding of the contribution of enhancers to breast cancer development.
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Affiliation(s)
- Yihan Wang
- Cecil H. and Ida Green Center for Reproductive Biology Sciences
| | | | - Lei Wang
- Cecil H. and Ida Green Center for Reproductive Biology Sciences
| | - Huan Zhao
- Cecil H. and Ida Green Center for Reproductive Biology Sciences
| | - Shiqi Xie
- Cecil H. and Ida Green Center for Reproductive Biology Sciences
- Current address: Genentech, 1 DNA Way, South San Francisco, CA 94080, USA
| | - Gary C Hon
- Cecil H. and Ida Green Center for Reproductive Biology Sciences
- Division of Basic Reproductive Biology Research, Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Department of Bioinformatics, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, TX 75390
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37
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Della Chiara G, Jiménez C, Virdi M, Crosetto N, Bienko M. Enhancers dysfunction in the 3D genome of cancer cells. Front Cell Dev Biol 2023; 11:1303862. [PMID: 38020908 PMCID: PMC10657884 DOI: 10.3389/fcell.2023.1303862] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/28/2023] [Accepted: 10/23/2023] [Indexed: 12/01/2023] Open
Abstract
Eukaryotic genomes are spatially organized inside the cell nucleus, forming a threedimensional (3D) architecture that allows for spatial separation of nuclear processes and for controlled expression of genes required for cell identity specification and tissue homeostasis. Hence, it is of no surprise that mis-regulation of genome architecture through rearrangements of the linear genome sequence or epigenetic perturbations are often linked to aberrant gene expression programs in tumor cells. Increasing research efforts have shed light into the causes and consequences of alterations of 3D genome organization. In this review, we summarize the current knowledge on how 3D genome architecture is dysregulated in cancer, with a focus on enhancer highjacking events and their contribution to tumorigenesis. Studying the functional effects of genome architecture perturbations on gene expression in cancer offers a unique opportunity for a deeper understanding of tumor biology and sets the basis for the discovery of novel therapeutic targets.
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Affiliation(s)
| | | | | | - Nicola Crosetto
- Human Technopole, Milan, Italy
- Department of Microbiology, Tumor and Cell Biology, Karolinska Institutet, Solna, Sweden
- Science for Life Laboratory, Solna, Sweden
| | - Magda Bienko
- Human Technopole, Milan, Italy
- Department of Microbiology, Tumor and Cell Biology, Karolinska Institutet, Solna, Sweden
- Science for Life Laboratory, Solna, Sweden
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Liu J, Wang Y, Zhao Z, Ge Y. Bioinformatics analysis and experimental validation of tumorigenic role of PPIA in gastric cancer. Sci Rep 2023; 13:19116. [PMID: 37926757 PMCID: PMC10625987 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-023-46508-y] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/08/2023] [Accepted: 11/01/2023] [Indexed: 11/07/2023] Open
Abstract
Gastric cancer (GC) is a malignant tumor with high incidence rate and mortality. Due to the lack of effective diagnostic indicators, most patients are diagnosed in late stage and have a poor prognosis. An increasing number of studies have proved that Peptidylprolyl isomerase A (PPIA) can play an oncogene role in various cancer types. However, the precise mechanism of PPIA in GC is still unclear. Herein, we analyzed the mRNA levels of PPIA in pan-cancer. The prognostic value of PPIA on GC was also evaluated using multiple databases. Additionally, the relationship between PPIA expression and clinical factors in GC was also examined. We further confirmed that PPIA expression was not affected by genetic alteration and DNA methylation. Moreover, the upstream regulator miRNA and lncRNA of PPIA were identified, which suggested that LINC10232/miRNA-204-5p/PPIA axis might act as a potential biological pathway in GC. Finally, this study revealed that PPIA was negatively correlated with immune checkpoint expression, immune cell biomarkers, and immune cell infiltration in GC.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jichao Liu
- Department of Gastrointestinal Surgery, The First Affiliated Hospital of Zhengzhou University, Zhengzhou University, Henan, China
| | - Yanjun Wang
- Department of Vascular Surgery, The First Affiliated Hospital of Zhengzhou University, Zhengzhou University, Henan, China
| | - Zhiwei Zhao
- Department of Gastrointestinal Surgery, The First Affiliated Hospital of Zhengzhou University, Zhengzhou University, Henan, China
| | - Yanhui Ge
- Department of Pharmacy, The First Affiliated Hospital of Zhengzhou University, Zhengzhou University, Henan, China.
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Zhou H, Hao X, Zhang P, He S. Noncoding RNA mutations in cancer. Wiley Interdiscip Rev RNA 2023; 14:e1812. [PMID: 37544928 DOI: 10.1002/wrna.1812] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/03/2022] [Revised: 07/14/2023] [Accepted: 07/17/2023] [Indexed: 08/08/2023]
Abstract
Cancer is driven by both germline and somatic genetic changes. Efforts have been devoted to characterizing essential genetic variations in cancer initiation and development. Most attention has been given to mutations in protein-coding genes and associated regulatory elements such as promoters and enhancers. The development of sequencing technologies and in silico and experimental methods has allowed further exploration of cancer predisposition variants and important somatic mutations in noncoding RNAs, mainly for long noncoding RNAs and microRNAs. Association studies including GWAS have revealed hereditary variations including SNPs and indels in lncRNA or miRNA genes and regulatory regions. These mutations altered RNA secondary structures, expression levels, and target recognition and then conferred cancer predisposition to carriers. Whole-exome/genome sequencing comparing cancer and normal tissues has revealed important somatic mutations in noncoding RNA genes. Mutation hotspots and somatic copy number alterations have been identified in various tumor-associated noncoding RNAs. Increasing focus and effort have been devoted to studying the noncoding region of the genome. The complex genetic network of cancer initiation is being unveiled. This article is categorized under: RNA in Disease and Development > RNA in Disease.
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Affiliation(s)
- Honghong Zhou
- Key Laboratory of RNA Biology, Center for Big Data Research in Health, Institute of Biophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China
| | - Xinpei Hao
- Key Laboratory of RNA Biology, Center for Big Data Research in Health, Institute of Biophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China
- University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China
| | - Peng Zhang
- Key Laboratory of RNA Biology, Center for Big Data Research in Health, Institute of Biophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China
| | - Shunmin He
- Key Laboratory of RNA Biology, Center for Big Data Research in Health, Institute of Biophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China
- University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China
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40
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Landa I, Thornton CEM, Xu B, Haase J, Krishnamoorthy GP, Hao J, Knauf JA, Herbert ZT, Martínez P, Blasco MA, Ghossein R, Fagin JA. Telomerase Upregulation Induces Progression of Mouse BrafV600E-Driven Thyroid Cancers and Triggers Nontelomeric Effects. Mol Cancer Res 2023; 21:1163-1175. [PMID: 37478162 DOI: 10.1158/1541-7786.mcr-23-0144] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/07/2023] [Revised: 06/15/2023] [Accepted: 07/18/2023] [Indexed: 07/23/2023]
Abstract
Mutations in the promoter of the telomerase reverse transcriptase (TERT) gene are the paradigm of a cross-cancer alteration in a noncoding region. TERT promoter mutations (TPM) are biomarkers of poor prognosis in cancer, including thyroid tumors. TPMs enhance TERT transcription, which is otherwise silenced in adult tissues, thus reactivating a bona fide oncoprotein. To study TERT deregulation and its downstream consequences, we generated a Tert mutant promoter mouse model via CRISPR/Cas9 engineering of the murine equivalent locus (Tert-123C>T) and crossed it with thyroid-specific BrafV600E-mutant mice. We also employed an alternative model of Tert overexpression (K5-Tert). Whereas all BrafV600E animals developed well-differentiated papillary thyroid tumors, 29% and 36% of BrafV600E+Tert-123C>T and BrafV600E+K5-Tert mice progressed to poorly differentiated cancers at week 20, respectively. Tert-upregulated tumors showed increased mitosis and necrosis in areas of solid growth, and older animals displayed anaplastic-like features, that is, spindle cells and macrophage infiltration. Murine TPM increased Tert transcription in vitro and in vivo, but temporal and intratumoral heterogeneity was observed. RNA-sequencing of thyroid tumor cells showed that processes other than the canonical Tert-mediated telomere maintenance role operate in these specimens. Pathway analysis showed that MAPK and PI3K/AKT signaling, as well as processes not previously associated with this tumor etiology, involving cytokine, and chemokine signaling, were overactivated. These models constitute useful preclinical tools to understand the cell-autonomous and microenvironment-related consequences of Tert-mediated progression in advanced thyroid cancers and other aggressive tumors carrying TPMs. IMPLICATIONS Telomerase-driven cancer progression activates pathways that can be dissected and perhaps therapeutically exploited.
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Affiliation(s)
- Iñigo Landa
- Division of Endocrinology, Diabetes and Hypertension, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts
- Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts
| | - Caitlin E M Thornton
- Division of Endocrinology, Diabetes and Hypertension, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts
- Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts
| | - Bin Xu
- Department of Pathology, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York, New York
| | - Jacob Haase
- Division of Endocrinology, Diabetes and Hypertension, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts
- Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts
| | - Gnana P Krishnamoorthy
- Human Oncology and Pathogenesis Program, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York, New York
| | - Jingzhu Hao
- Division of Endocrinology, Diabetes and Hypertension, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts
- Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts
| | - Jeffrey A Knauf
- Lerner Research Institute, Cleveland Clinic, Cleveland, Ohio
| | - Zachary T Herbert
- Molecular Biology Core Facilities, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, Massachusetts
| | - Paula Martínez
- Telomeres and Telomerase Group, Molecular Oncology Program, Spanish National Cancer Centre (CNIO), Madrid, Spain
| | - María A Blasco
- Telomeres and Telomerase Group, Molecular Oncology Program, Spanish National Cancer Centre (CNIO), Madrid, Spain
| | - Ronald Ghossein
- Department of Pathology, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York, New York
| | - James A Fagin
- Human Oncology and Pathogenesis Program, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York, New York
- Department of Medicine, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York, New York
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41
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Wang Z, Luo M, Liang Q, Zhao K, Hu Y, Wang W, Feng X, Hu B, Teng J, You T, Li R, Bao Z, Pan W, Yang T, Zhang C, Li T, Dong X, Yi X, Liu B, Zhao L, Li M, Chen K, Song W, Yang J, Li MJ. Landscape of enhancer disruption and functional screen in melanoma cells. Genome Biol 2023; 24:248. [PMID: 37904237 PMCID: PMC10614365 DOI: 10.1186/s13059-023-03087-5] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/18/2022] [Accepted: 10/12/2023] [Indexed: 11/01/2023] Open
Abstract
BACKGROUND The high mutation rate throughout the entire melanoma genome presents a major challenge in stratifying true driver events from the background mutations. Numerous recurrent non-coding alterations, such as those in enhancers, can shape tumor evolution, thereby emphasizing the importance in systematically deciphering enhancer disruptions in melanoma. RESULTS Here, we leveraged 297 melanoma whole-genome sequencing samples to prioritize highly recurrent regions. By performing a genome-scale CRISPR interference (CRISPRi) screen on highly recurrent region-associated enhancers in melanoma cells, we identified 66 significant hits which could have tumor-suppressive roles. These functional enhancers show unique mutational patterns independent of classical significantly mutated genes in melanoma. Target gene analysis for the essential enhancers reveal many known and hidden mechanisms underlying melanoma growth. Utilizing extensive functional validation experiments, we demonstrate that a super enhancer element could modulate melanoma cell proliferation by targeting MEF2A, and another distal enhancer is able to sustain PTEN tumor-suppressive potential via long-range interactions. CONCLUSIONS Our study establishes a catalogue of crucial enhancers and their target genes in melanoma growth and progression, and illuminates the identification of novel mechanisms of dysregulation for melanoma driver genes and new therapeutic targeting strategies.
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Affiliation(s)
- Zhao Wang
- Oujiang Laboratory (Zhejiang Lab for Regenerative Medicine, Vision and Brain Health), Institute of Aging, Key Laboratory of Alzheimer's Disease of Zhejiang Province, The Second Affiliated Hospital, Wenzhou Medical University, Wenzhou, China.
- Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Tianjin Key Laboratory of Molecular Cancer Epidemiology, The Province and Ministry Co-Sponsored Collaborative Innovation Center for Medical Epigenetics, National Clinical Research Center for Cancer, Tianjin Medical University Cancer Institute and Hospital, Tianjin Medical University, Tianjin, China.
| | - Menghan Luo
- Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Tianjin Key Laboratory of Molecular Cancer Epidemiology, The Province and Ministry Co-Sponsored Collaborative Innovation Center for Medical Epigenetics, National Clinical Research Center for Cancer, Tianjin Medical University Cancer Institute and Hospital, Tianjin Medical University, Tianjin, China
- Department of Bioinformatics, School of Basic Medical Sciences, Tianjin Medical University, Tianjin, China
| | - Qian Liang
- Oujiang Laboratory (Zhejiang Lab for Regenerative Medicine, Vision and Brain Health), Institute of Aging, Key Laboratory of Alzheimer's Disease of Zhejiang Province, The Second Affiliated Hospital, Wenzhou Medical University, Wenzhou, China
- Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Tianjin Key Laboratory of Molecular Cancer Epidemiology, The Province and Ministry Co-Sponsored Collaborative Innovation Center for Medical Epigenetics, National Clinical Research Center for Cancer, Tianjin Medical University Cancer Institute and Hospital, Tianjin Medical University, Tianjin, China
- Scientific Research Center, Wenzhou Medical University, Wenzhou, China
| | - Ke Zhao
- Department of Bioinformatics, School of Basic Medical Sciences, Tianjin Medical University, Tianjin, China
| | - Yuelin Hu
- Oujiang Laboratory (Zhejiang Lab for Regenerative Medicine, Vision and Brain Health), Institute of Aging, Key Laboratory of Alzheimer's Disease of Zhejiang Province, The Second Affiliated Hospital, Wenzhou Medical University, Wenzhou, China
| | - Wei Wang
- Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Tianjin Key Laboratory of Molecular Cancer Epidemiology, The Province and Ministry Co-Sponsored Collaborative Innovation Center for Medical Epigenetics, National Clinical Research Center for Cancer, Tianjin Medical University Cancer Institute and Hospital, Tianjin Medical University, Tianjin, China
| | - Xiangling Feng
- Department of Bioinformatics, School of Basic Medical Sciences, Tianjin Medical University, Tianjin, China
| | - Bolang Hu
- Oujiang Laboratory (Zhejiang Lab for Regenerative Medicine, Vision and Brain Health), Institute of Aging, Key Laboratory of Alzheimer's Disease of Zhejiang Province, The Second Affiliated Hospital, Wenzhou Medical University, Wenzhou, China
| | - Jianjin Teng
- Department of Bioinformatics, School of Basic Medical Sciences, Tianjin Medical University, Tianjin, China
| | - Tianyi You
- Department of Bioinformatics, School of Basic Medical Sciences, Tianjin Medical University, Tianjin, China
| | - Ran Li
- Oujiang Laboratory (Zhejiang Lab for Regenerative Medicine, Vision and Brain Health), Institute of Aging, Key Laboratory of Alzheimer's Disease of Zhejiang Province, The Second Affiliated Hospital, Wenzhou Medical University, Wenzhou, China
| | - Zhengkai Bao
- Oujiang Laboratory (Zhejiang Lab for Regenerative Medicine, Vision and Brain Health), Institute of Aging, Key Laboratory of Alzheimer's Disease of Zhejiang Province, The Second Affiliated Hospital, Wenzhou Medical University, Wenzhou, China
| | - Wenhao Pan
- Oujiang Laboratory (Zhejiang Lab for Regenerative Medicine, Vision and Brain Health), Institute of Aging, Key Laboratory of Alzheimer's Disease of Zhejiang Province, The Second Affiliated Hospital, Wenzhou Medical University, Wenzhou, China
| | - Tielong Yang
- Department of Bone and Soft Tissue Tumor, Tianjin Medical University Cancer Institute and Hospital, Tianjin Medical University, Tianjin, China
| | - Chao Zhang
- Department of Bone and Soft Tissue Tumor, Tianjin Medical University Cancer Institute and Hospital, Tianjin Medical University, Tianjin, China
| | - Ting Li
- Department of Bone and Soft Tissue Tumor, Tianjin Medical University Cancer Institute and Hospital, Tianjin Medical University, Tianjin, China
| | - Xiaobao Dong
- Department of Bioinformatics, School of Basic Medical Sciences, Tianjin Medical University, Tianjin, China
| | - Xianfu Yi
- Department of Bioinformatics, School of Basic Medical Sciences, Tianjin Medical University, Tianjin, China
| | - Ben Liu
- Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Tianjin Key Laboratory of Molecular Cancer Epidemiology, The Province and Ministry Co-Sponsored Collaborative Innovation Center for Medical Epigenetics, National Clinical Research Center for Cancer, Tianjin Medical University Cancer Institute and Hospital, Tianjin Medical University, Tianjin, China
| | - Li Zhao
- Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, School of Basic Medical Sciences, Tianjin Medical University, Tianjin, China
| | - Miaoxin Li
- Zhongshan School of Medicine, Sun Yat-Sen University, Guangzhou, China
| | - Kexin Chen
- Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Tianjin Key Laboratory of Molecular Cancer Epidemiology, The Province and Ministry Co-Sponsored Collaborative Innovation Center for Medical Epigenetics, National Clinical Research Center for Cancer, Tianjin Medical University Cancer Institute and Hospital, Tianjin Medical University, Tianjin, China
| | - Weihong Song
- Oujiang Laboratory (Zhejiang Lab for Regenerative Medicine, Vision and Brain Health), Institute of Aging, Key Laboratory of Alzheimer's Disease of Zhejiang Province, The Second Affiliated Hospital, Wenzhou Medical University, Wenzhou, China.
| | - Jilong Yang
- Department of Bone and Soft Tissue Tumor, Tianjin Medical University Cancer Institute and Hospital, Tianjin Medical University, Tianjin, China.
| | - Mulin Jun Li
- Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Tianjin Key Laboratory of Molecular Cancer Epidemiology, The Province and Ministry Co-Sponsored Collaborative Innovation Center for Medical Epigenetics, National Clinical Research Center for Cancer, Tianjin Medical University Cancer Institute and Hospital, Tianjin Medical University, Tianjin, China.
- Department of Bioinformatics, School of Basic Medical Sciences, Tianjin Medical University, Tianjin, China.
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Fernández-Garnacho EM, Nadeu F, Martín S, Mozas P, Rivero A, Delgado J, Giné E, López-Guillermo A, Duran-Ferrer M, Salaverria I, López C, Beà S, Demajo S, Jares P, Puente XS, Martín-Subero JI, Campo E, Hernández L. MALAT1 expression is associated with aggressive behavior in indolent B-cell neoplasms. Sci Rep 2023; 13:16839. [PMID: 37803049 PMCID: PMC10558466 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-023-44174-8] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/15/2022] [Accepted: 10/04/2023] [Indexed: 10/08/2023] Open
Abstract
MALAT1 long non-coding RNA has oncogenic roles but has been poorly studied in indolent B-cell neoplasms. Here, MALAT1 expression was analyzed using RNA-seq, microarrays or qRT-PCR in primary samples from clinico-biological subtypes of chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL, n = 266), paired Richter transformation (RT, n = 6) and follicular lymphoma (FL, n = 61). In peripheral blood (PB) CLL samples, high MALAT1 expression was associated with a significantly shorter time to treatment independently from other known prognostic factors. Coding genes expressed in association with MALAT1 in CLL were predominantly related to oncogenic pathways stimulated in the lymph node (LN) microenvironment. In RT paired samples, MALAT1 levels were lower, concordant with their acquired increased independency of external signals. Moreover, MALAT1 levels in paired PB/LN CLLs were similar, suggesting that the prognostic value of MALAT1 expression in PB is mirroring expression differences already present in LN. Similarly, high MALAT1 expression in FL predicted for a shorter progression-free survival, in association with expression pathways promoting FL pathogenesis. In summary, MALAT1 expression is related to pathophysiology and more aggressive clinical behavior of indolent B-cell neoplasms. Particularly in CLL, its levels could be a surrogate marker of the microenvironment stimulation and may contribute to refine the clinical management of these patients.
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Affiliation(s)
- Elena María Fernández-Garnacho
- Lymphoid Neoplasm Program, Institut d'Investigacions Biomèdiques August Pi I Sunyer (IDIBAPS), Centre Esther Koplowitz (CEK), Rosselló 153, 08036, Barcelona, Spain
| | - Ferran Nadeu
- Lymphoid Neoplasm Program, Institut d'Investigacions Biomèdiques August Pi I Sunyer (IDIBAPS), Centre Esther Koplowitz (CEK), Rosselló 153, 08036, Barcelona, Spain
- Centro de Investigación Biomédica en Red de Cáncer (CIBERONC), Madrid, Spain
| | - Silvia Martín
- Lymphoid Neoplasm Program, Institut d'Investigacions Biomèdiques August Pi I Sunyer (IDIBAPS), Centre Esther Koplowitz (CEK), Rosselló 153, 08036, Barcelona, Spain
| | - Pablo Mozas
- Lymphoid Neoplasm Program, Institut d'Investigacions Biomèdiques August Pi I Sunyer (IDIBAPS), Centre Esther Koplowitz (CEK), Rosselló 153, 08036, Barcelona, Spain
- Hospital Clínic of Barcelona, Universitat de Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain
| | - Andrea Rivero
- Lymphoid Neoplasm Program, Institut d'Investigacions Biomèdiques August Pi I Sunyer (IDIBAPS), Centre Esther Koplowitz (CEK), Rosselló 153, 08036, Barcelona, Spain
- Hospital Clínic of Barcelona, Universitat de Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain
| | - Julio Delgado
- Lymphoid Neoplasm Program, Institut d'Investigacions Biomèdiques August Pi I Sunyer (IDIBAPS), Centre Esther Koplowitz (CEK), Rosselló 153, 08036, Barcelona, Spain
- Centro de Investigación Biomédica en Red de Cáncer (CIBERONC), Madrid, Spain
- Hospital Clínic of Barcelona, Universitat de Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain
| | - Eva Giné
- Lymphoid Neoplasm Program, Institut d'Investigacions Biomèdiques August Pi I Sunyer (IDIBAPS), Centre Esther Koplowitz (CEK), Rosselló 153, 08036, Barcelona, Spain
- Centro de Investigación Biomédica en Red de Cáncer (CIBERONC), Madrid, Spain
- Hospital Clínic of Barcelona, Universitat de Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain
| | - Armando López-Guillermo
- Lymphoid Neoplasm Program, Institut d'Investigacions Biomèdiques August Pi I Sunyer (IDIBAPS), Centre Esther Koplowitz (CEK), Rosselló 153, 08036, Barcelona, Spain
- Centro de Investigación Biomédica en Red de Cáncer (CIBERONC), Madrid, Spain
- Hospital Clínic of Barcelona, Universitat de Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain
| | - Martí Duran-Ferrer
- Lymphoid Neoplasm Program, Institut d'Investigacions Biomèdiques August Pi I Sunyer (IDIBAPS), Centre Esther Koplowitz (CEK), Rosselló 153, 08036, Barcelona, Spain
| | - Itziar Salaverria
- Lymphoid Neoplasm Program, Institut d'Investigacions Biomèdiques August Pi I Sunyer (IDIBAPS), Centre Esther Koplowitz (CEK), Rosselló 153, 08036, Barcelona, Spain
- Centro de Investigación Biomédica en Red de Cáncer (CIBERONC), Madrid, Spain
| | - Cristina López
- Lymphoid Neoplasm Program, Institut d'Investigacions Biomèdiques August Pi I Sunyer (IDIBAPS), Centre Esther Koplowitz (CEK), Rosselló 153, 08036, Barcelona, Spain
- Centro de Investigación Biomédica en Red de Cáncer (CIBERONC), Madrid, Spain
| | - Sílvia Beà
- Lymphoid Neoplasm Program, Institut d'Investigacions Biomèdiques August Pi I Sunyer (IDIBAPS), Centre Esther Koplowitz (CEK), Rosselló 153, 08036, Barcelona, Spain
- Centro de Investigación Biomédica en Red de Cáncer (CIBERONC), Madrid, Spain
- Hospital Clínic of Barcelona, Universitat de Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain
| | - Santiago Demajo
- Lymphoid Neoplasm Program, Institut d'Investigacions Biomèdiques August Pi I Sunyer (IDIBAPS), Centre Esther Koplowitz (CEK), Rosselló 153, 08036, Barcelona, Spain
| | - Pedro Jares
- Lymphoid Neoplasm Program, Institut d'Investigacions Biomèdiques August Pi I Sunyer (IDIBAPS), Centre Esther Koplowitz (CEK), Rosselló 153, 08036, Barcelona, Spain
- Centro de Investigación Biomédica en Red de Cáncer (CIBERONC), Madrid, Spain
- Hospital Clínic of Barcelona, Universitat de Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain
| | - Xose S Puente
- Centro de Investigación Biomédica en Red de Cáncer (CIBERONC), Madrid, Spain
- University of Oviedo, Oviedo, Spain
| | - José Ignacio Martín-Subero
- Lymphoid Neoplasm Program, Institut d'Investigacions Biomèdiques August Pi I Sunyer (IDIBAPS), Centre Esther Koplowitz (CEK), Rosselló 153, 08036, Barcelona, Spain
- Centro de Investigación Biomédica en Red de Cáncer (CIBERONC), Madrid, Spain
- Institució Catalana de Recerca i Estudis Avançats (ICREA), Barcelona, Spain
| | - Elías Campo
- Lymphoid Neoplasm Program, Institut d'Investigacions Biomèdiques August Pi I Sunyer (IDIBAPS), Centre Esther Koplowitz (CEK), Rosselló 153, 08036, Barcelona, Spain
- Centro de Investigación Biomédica en Red de Cáncer (CIBERONC), Madrid, Spain
- Hospital Clínic of Barcelona, Universitat de Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain
| | - Lluís Hernández
- Lymphoid Neoplasm Program, Institut d'Investigacions Biomèdiques August Pi I Sunyer (IDIBAPS), Centre Esther Koplowitz (CEK), Rosselló 153, 08036, Barcelona, Spain.
- Centro de Investigación Biomédica en Red de Cáncer (CIBERONC), Madrid, Spain.
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43
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Chen J, Zhang X, Tan X, Liu P. Somatic gain-of-function mutations in BUD13 promote oncogenesis by disrupting Fbw7 function. J Exp Med 2023; 220:e20222056. [PMID: 37382881 PMCID: PMC10309187 DOI: 10.1084/jem.20222056] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/30/2022] [Revised: 04/13/2023] [Accepted: 05/19/2023] [Indexed: 06/30/2023] Open
Abstract
Somatic mutations occurring on key enzymes are extensively studied and targeted therapies are developed with clinical promises. However, context-dependent enzyme function through distinct substrates complicated targeting a given enzyme. Here, we develop an algorithm to elucidate a new class of somatic mutations occurring on enzyme-recognizing motifs that cancer may hijack to facilitate tumorigenesis. We validate BUD13-R156C and -R230Q mutations evading RSK3-mediated phosphorylation with enhanced oncogenicity in promoting colon cancer growth. Further mechanistic studies reveal BUD13 as an endogenous Fbw7 inhibitor that stabilizes Fbw7 oncogenic substrates, while cancerous BUD13-R156C or -R230Q interferes with Fbw7Cul1 complex formation. We also find this BUD13 regulation plays a critical role in responding to mTOR inhibition, which can be used to guide therapy selections. We hope our studies reveal the landscape of enzyme-recognizing motif mutations with a publicly available resource and provide novel insights for somatic mutations cancer hijacks to promote tumorigenesis with the potential for patient stratification and cancer treatment.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jianfeng Chen
- Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill , Chapel Hill, NC, USA
- Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, USA
| | - Xinyi Zhang
- Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill , Chapel Hill, NC, USA
| | - Xianming Tan
- Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill , Chapel Hill, NC, USA
- Department of Biostatistics, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, USA
| | - Pengda Liu
- Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill , Chapel Hill, NC, USA
- Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, USA
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44
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Rao N, Starrett GJ, Piaskowski ML, Butler KE, Golubeva Y, Yan W, Lawrence SM, Dean M, Garcia-Closas M, Baris D, Johnson A, Schwenn M, Malats N, Real FX, Kogevinas M, Rothman N, Silverman DT, Dyrskjøt L, Buck CB, Koutros S, Prokunina-Olsson L. Analysis of Several Common APOBEC-type Mutations in Bladder Tumors Suggests Links to Viral Infection. Cancer Prev Res (Phila) 2023; 16:561-570. [PMID: 37477495 PMCID: PMC10592262 DOI: 10.1158/1940-6207.capr-23-0112] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/30/2023] [Revised: 06/16/2023] [Accepted: 07/18/2023] [Indexed: 07/22/2023]
Abstract
FGFR3 and PIK3CA are among the most frequently mutated genes in bladder tumors. We hypothesized that recurrent mutations in these genes might be caused by common carcinogenic exposures such as smoking and other factors. We analyzed 2,816 bladder tumors with available data on FGFR3 and/or PIK3CA mutations, focusing on the most recurrent mutations detected in ≥10% of tumors. Compared to tumors with other FGFR3/PIK3CA mutations, FGFR3-Y375C was more common in tumors from smokers than never-smokers (P = 0.009), while several APOBEC-type driver mutations were enriched in never-smokers: FGFR3-S249C (P = 0.013) and PIK3CA-E542K/PIK3CA-E545K (P = 0.009). To explore possible causes of these APOBEC-type mutations, we analyzed RNA sequencing (RNA-seq) data from 798 bladder tumors and detected several viruses, with BK polyomavirus (BKPyV) being the most common. We then performed IHC staining for polyomavirus (PyV) Large T-antigen (LTAg) in an independent set of 211 bladder tumors. Overall, by RNA-seq or IHC-LTAg, we detected PyV in 26 out of 1,010 bladder tumors with significantly higher detection (P = 4.4 × 10-5), 25 of 554 (4.5%) in non-muscle-invasive bladder cancers (NMIBC) versus 1 of 456 (0.2%) of muscle-invasive bladder cancers (MIBC). In the NMIBC subset, the FGFR3/PIK3CA APOBEC-type driver mutations were detected in 94.7% (18/19) of PyV-positive versus 68.3% (259/379) of PyV-negative tumors (P = 0.011). BKPyV tumor positivity in the NMIBC subset with FGFR3- or PIK3CA-mutated tumors was also associated with a higher risk of progression to MIBC (P = 0.019). In conclusion, our results support smoking and BKPyV infection as risk factors contributing to bladder tumorigenesis in the general patient population through distinct molecular mechanisms. PREVENTION RELEVANCE Tobacco smoking likely causes one of the most common mutations in bladder tumors (FGFR3-Y375C), while viral infections might contribute to three others (FGFR3-S249C, PIK3CA-E542K, and PIK3CA-E545K). Understanding the causes of these mutations may lead to new prevention and treatment strategies, such as viral screening and vaccination.
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Affiliation(s)
- Nina Rao
- Laboratory of Translational Genomics, Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics, National Cancer Institute, NIH, Bethesda, MD, USA
- Department of Biology, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, USA
| | - Gabriel J Starrett
- Laboratory of Cellular Oncology, Center for Cancer Research, National Cancer Institute, NIH, Bethesda, MD, USA
| | - Mary L Piaskowski
- Laboratory of Cellular Oncology, Center for Cancer Research, National Cancer Institute, NIH, Bethesda, MD, USA
| | - Kelly E Butler
- Laboratory of Translational Genomics, Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics, National Cancer Institute, NIH, Bethesda, MD, USA
| | - Yelena Golubeva
- Molecular Digital Pathology Laboratory, Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics, National Cancer Institute, NIH, Bethesda, MD, USA
| | - Wusheng Yan
- Laboratory of Translational Genomics, Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics, National Cancer Institute, NIH, Bethesda, MD, USA
| | - Scott M Lawrence
- Molecular Digital Pathology Laboratory, Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics, National Cancer Institute, NIH, Bethesda, MD, USA
| | - Michael Dean
- Laboratory of Translational Genomics, Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics, National Cancer Institute, NIH, Bethesda, MD, USA
| | | | - Dalsu Baris
- Occupational and Environmental Epidemiology Branch, Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics, National Cancer Institute, NIH, Bethesda, MD, USA
| | | | | | | | - Francisco X Real
- CNIO, Madrid, Spain
- CIBERONC, Madrid, Spain
- Department of Medicine and Life Sciences, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona, Spain
| | | | - Nathaniel Rothman
- Occupational and Environmental Epidemiology Branch, Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics, National Cancer Institute, NIH, Bethesda, MD, USA
| | - Debra T Silverman
- Occupational and Environmental Epidemiology Branch, Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics, National Cancer Institute, NIH, Bethesda, MD, USA
| | - Lars Dyrskjøt
- Department of Molecular Medicine, Aarhus University Hospital, Aarhus, Denmark
- Department of Clinical Medicine, Aarhus University Hospital, Aarhus, Denmark
| | - Christopher B Buck
- Laboratory of Cellular Oncology, Center for Cancer Research, National Cancer Institute, NIH, Bethesda, MD, USA
| | - Stella Koutros
- Occupational and Environmental Epidemiology Branch, Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics, National Cancer Institute, NIH, Bethesda, MD, USA
| | - Ludmila Prokunina-Olsson
- Laboratory of Translational Genomics, Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics, National Cancer Institute, NIH, Bethesda, MD, USA
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45
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Aldea M, Friboulet L, Apcher S, Jaulin F, Mosele F, Sourisseau T, Soria JC, Nikolaev S, André F. Precision medicine in the era of multi-omics: can the data tsunami guide rational treatment decision? ESMO Open 2023; 8:101642. [PMID: 37769400 PMCID: PMC10539962 DOI: 10.1016/j.esmoop.2023.101642] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/11/2023] [Accepted: 08/14/2023] [Indexed: 09/30/2023] Open
Abstract
Precision medicine for cancer is rapidly moving to an approach that integrates multiple dimensions of the biology in order to model mechanisms of cancer progression in each patient. The discovery of multiple drivers per tumor challenges medical decision that faces several treatment options. Drug sensitivity depends on the actionability of the target, its clonal or subclonal origin and coexisting genomic alterations. Sequencing has revealed a large diversity of drivers emerging at treatment failure, which are potential targets for clinical trials or drug repurposing. To effectively prioritize therapies, it is essential to rank genomic alterations based on their proven actionability. Moving beyond primary drivers, the future of precision medicine necessitates acknowledging the intricate spatial and temporal heterogeneity inherent in cancer. The advent of abundant complex biological data will make artificial intelligence algorithms indispensable for thorough analysis. Here, we will discuss the advancements brought by the use of high-throughput genomics, the advantages and limitations of precision medicine studies and future perspectives in this field.
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Affiliation(s)
- M Aldea
- Department of Medical Oncology, Gustave Roussy, Villejuif; PRISM, INSERM, Gustave Roussy, Villejuif.
| | | | - S Apcher
- PRISM, INSERM, Gustave Roussy, Villejuif
| | - F Jaulin
- PRISM, INSERM, Gustave Roussy, Villejuif
| | - F Mosele
- Department of Medical Oncology, Gustave Roussy, Villejuif; PRISM, INSERM, Gustave Roussy, Villejuif
| | | | - J-C Soria
- Paris Saclay University, Orsay; Drug Development Department, Gustave Roussy, Villejuif, France
| | - S Nikolaev
- PRISM, INSERM, Gustave Roussy, Villejuif
| | - F André
- Department of Medical Oncology, Gustave Roussy, Villejuif; PRISM, INSERM, Gustave Roussy, Villejuif; Paris Saclay University, Orsay
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46
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Liu J, Ashuach T, Inoue F, Ahituv N, Yosef N, Kreimer A. Best practices for perturbation MPRA-a computational evaluation framework of sequence design strategies. bioRxiv 2023:2023.09.27.559768. [PMID: 37808807 PMCID: PMC10557651 DOI: 10.1101/2023.09.27.559768] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/10/2023]
Abstract
The advent of the perturbation-based massively parallel reporter assays (MPRAs) technique has enabled delineating of the roles of non-coding regulatory elements in orchestrating gene expression. However, computational efforts remain scant to evaluate and establish guidelines for sequence design strategies for perturbation MPRAs. Here, we propose a framework for evaluating and comparing various perturbation strategies for MPRA experiments. Under this framework, we benchmark three different perturbation approaches from the perspectives of alteration in motif-based profiles, consistency of MPRA outputs, and robustness of models that predict the activities of putative regulatory motifs. Although our analyses show similar while significant results in multiple metrics, the method of randomly shuffling nucleotides outperform the other two methods. Thus, we still recommend designing sequences by randomly shuffling the nucleotides of the perturbed site in perturbation-MPRA. The evaluation framework, together with the benchmarking findings in our work, creates a resource of computational pipelines and illustrates the promise of perturbation-MPRA for predicting non-coding regulatory activities.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jiayi Liu
- Graduate Programs in Molecular Biosciences, Rutgers, The State
University of New Jersey, 604 Allison Rd, Piscataway, NJ, 08854, USA
- Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Rutgers, The
State University of New Jersey, 604 Allison Road, Piscataway, NJ, 08854, USA
- Center for Advanced Biotechnology and Medicine, Rutgers, The
State University of New Jersey, 679 Hoes Lane West, Piscataway, Piscataway, NJ, 08854,
USA
| | - Tal Ashuach
- Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences and
Center for Computational Biology, University of California, Berkeley, 387 Soda Hall,
Berkeley, CA, 94720, USA
| | - Fumitaka Inoue
- Institute for the Advanced Study of Human Biology (WPI-ASHBi),
Kyoto University, Faculty of Medicine Building B, Yoshidatachibanacho, Sakyo Ward, Kyoto,
606-8303, Japan
| | - Nadav Ahituv
- Department of Bioengineering and Therapeutic Sciences, University
of California, San Francisco, 513 Parnassus Ave, CA, 94143, USA
- Institute for Human Genetics, University of California, San
Francisco, 513 Parnassus Ave, CA, 94143, USA
| | - Nir Yosef
- Department of Systems Immunology, Weizmann Institute of Science,
234 Herzl Street, Rehovot 7610001 Israel
- Chan-Zuckerberg Biohub, 499 Illinois St, San Francisco, CA,
94158, USA
- Department of Systems Immunology, Ragon Institute of MGH, MIT,
and Harvard Institute of Science, 400 Technology Square, Cambridge, MA, 02139, USA
| | - Anat Kreimer
- Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Rutgers, The
State University of New Jersey, 604 Allison Road, Piscataway, NJ, 08854, USA
- Center for Advanced Biotechnology and Medicine, Rutgers, The
State University of New Jersey, 679 Hoes Lane West, Piscataway, Piscataway, NJ, 08854,
USA
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47
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Xu D, Forbes AN, Cohen S, Palladino A, Karadimitriou T, Khurana E. Recapitulation of patient-specific 3D chromatin conformation using machine learning. Cell Rep Methods 2023; 3:100578. [PMID: 37673071 PMCID: PMC10545938 DOI: 10.1016/j.crmeth.2023.100578] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/09/2022] [Revised: 04/05/2023] [Accepted: 08/10/2023] [Indexed: 09/08/2023]
Abstract
Regulatory networks containing enhancer-gene edges define cellular states. Multiple efforts have revealed these networks for reference tissues and cell lines by integrating multi-omics data. However, the methods developed cannot be applied for large patient cohorts due to the infeasibility of chromatin immunoprecipitation sequencing (ChIP-seq) for limited biopsy material. We trained machine-learning models using chromatin interaction analysis with paired-end tag sequencing (ChIA-PET) and high-throughput chromosome conformation capture combined with chromatin immunoprecipitation (HiChIP) data that can predict connections using only assay for transposase-accessible chromatin using sequencing (ATAC-seq) and RNA-seq data as input, which can be generated from biopsies. Our method overcomes limitations of correlation-based approaches that cannot distinguish between distinct target genes of given enhancers or between active vs. poised states in different samples, a hallmark of network rewiring in cancer. Application of our model on 371 samples across 22 cancer types revealed 1,780 enhancer-gene connections for 602 cancer genes. Using CRISPR interference (CRISPRi), we validated enhancers predicted to regulate ESR1 in estrogen receptor (ER)+ breast cancer and A1CF in liver hepatocellular carcinoma.
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Affiliation(s)
- Duo Xu
- Sandra and Edward Meyer Cancer Center, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York, NY, USA; Institute for Computational Biomedicine, Weill Cornell Medical College, New York, NY, USA; Department of Physiology and Biophysics, Weill Cornell Medical College, New York, NY, USA; Englander Institute for Precision Medicine, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York, NY, USA
| | - Andre Neil Forbes
- Sandra and Edward Meyer Cancer Center, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York, NY, USA; Institute for Computational Biomedicine, Weill Cornell Medical College, New York, NY, USA; Weill Cornell Graduate School of Medical Sciences, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York, NY, USA
| | - Sandra Cohen
- Sandra and Edward Meyer Cancer Center, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York, NY, USA
| | - Ann Palladino
- Sandra and Edward Meyer Cancer Center, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York, NY, USA; Institute for Computational Biomedicine, Weill Cornell Medical College, New York, NY, USA
| | | | - Ekta Khurana
- Sandra and Edward Meyer Cancer Center, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York, NY, USA; Institute for Computational Biomedicine, Weill Cornell Medical College, New York, NY, USA; Department of Physiology and Biophysics, Weill Cornell Medical College, New York, NY, USA; Englander Institute for Precision Medicine, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York, NY, USA.
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48
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Li Y, Zhang SW, Xie MY, Zhang T. PhenoDriver: interpretable framework for studying personalized phenotype-associated driver genes in breast cancer. Brief Bioinform 2023; 24:bbad291. [PMID: 37738403 DOI: 10.1093/bib/bbad291] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/02/2023] [Revised: 07/12/2023] [Accepted: 07/27/2023] [Indexed: 09/24/2023] Open
Abstract
Identifying personalized cancer driver genes and further revealing their oncogenic mechanisms is critical for understanding the mechanisms of cell transformation and aiding clinical diagnosis. Almost all existing methods primarily focus on identifying driver genes at the cohort or individual level but fail to further uncover their underlying oncogenic mechanisms. To fill this gap, we present an interpretable framework, PhenoDriver, to identify personalized cancer driver genes, elucidate their roles in cancer development and uncover the association between driver genes and clinical phenotypic alterations. By analyzing 988 breast cancer patients, we demonstrate the outstanding performance of PhenoDriver in identifying breast cancer driver genes at the cohort level compared to other state-of-the-art methods. Otherwise, our PhenoDriver can also effectively identify driver genes with both recurrent and rare mutations in individual patients. We further explore and reveal the oncogenic mechanisms of some known and unknown breast cancer driver genes (e.g. TP53, MAP3K1, HTT, etc.) identified by PhenoDriver, and construct their subnetworks for regulating clinical abnormal phenotypes. Notably, most of our findings are consistent with existing biological knowledge. Based on the personalized driver profiles, we discover two existing and one unreported breast cancer subtypes and uncover their molecular mechanisms. These results intensify our understanding for breast cancer mechanisms, guide therapeutic decisions and assist in the development of targeted anticancer therapies.
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Affiliation(s)
- Yan Li
- School of Automation from Northwestern Polytechnical University, China
| | - Shao-Wu Zhang
- School of Automation from Northwestern Polytechnical University, China
- Key Laboratory of Information Fusion Technology of Ministry of Education, School of Automation, Northwestern Polytechnical University, China
| | - Ming-Yu Xie
- School of Automation from Northwestern Polytechnical University, China
| | - Tong Zhang
- School of Automation from Northwestern Polytechnical University, China
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49
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Torres-Montaner A. Interactions between the DNA Damage Response and the Telomere Complex in Carcinogenesis: A Hypothesis. Curr Issues Mol Biol 2023; 45:7582-7616. [PMID: 37754262 PMCID: PMC10527771 DOI: 10.3390/cimb45090478] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/02/2023] [Revised: 09/12/2023] [Accepted: 09/14/2023] [Indexed: 09/28/2023] Open
Abstract
Contrary to what was once thought, direct cancer originating from normal stem cells seems to be extremely rare. This is consistent with a preneoplastic period of telomere length reduction/damage in committed cells that becomes stabilized in transformation. Multiple observations suggest that telomere damage is an obligatory step preceding its stabilization. During tissue turnover, the telomeres of cells undergoing differentiation can be damaged as a consequence of defective DNA repair caused by endogenous or exogenous agents. This may result in the emergence of new mechanism of telomere maintenance which is the final outcome of DNA damage and the initial signal that triggers malignant transformation. Instead, transformation of stem cells is directly induced by primary derangement of telomere maintenance mechanisms. The newly modified telomere complex may promote survival of cancer stem cells, independently of telomere maintenance. An inherent resistance of stem cells to transformation may be linked to specific, robust mechanisms that help maintain telomere integrity.
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Affiliation(s)
- Antonio Torres-Montaner
- Department of Pathology, Queen’s Hospital, Rom Valley Way, Romford, London RM7 OAG, UK;
- Departamento de Bioquímica y Biologia Molecular, Universidad de Cadiz, Puerto Real, 11510 Cadiz, Spain
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50
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Zhu W, Huang H, Ming W, Zhang R, Gu Y, Bai Y, Liu X, Liu H, Liu Y, Gu W, Sun X. Delineating highly transcribed noncoding elements landscape in breast cancer. Comput Struct Biotechnol J 2023; 21:4432-4445. [PMID: 37731598 PMCID: PMC10507584 DOI: 10.1016/j.csbj.2023.09.009] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/03/2023] [Revised: 08/27/2023] [Accepted: 09/10/2023] [Indexed: 09/22/2023] Open
Abstract
Highly transcribed noncoding elements (HTNEs) are critical noncoding elements with high levels of transcriptional capacity in particular cohorts involved in multiple cellular biological processes. Investigation of HTNEs with persistent aberrant expression in abnormal tissues could be of benefit in exploring their roles in disease occurrence and progression. Breast cancer is a highly heterogeneous disease for which early screening and prognosis are exceedingly crucial. In this study, we developed a HTNE identification framework to systematically investigate HTNE landscapes in breast cancer patients and identified over ten thousand HTNEs. The robustness and rationality of our framework were demonstrated via public datasets. We revealed that HTNEs had significant chromatin characteristics of enhancers and long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) and were significantly enriched with RNA-binding proteins as well as targeted by miRNAs. Further, HTNE-associated genes were significantly overexpressed and exhibited strong correlations with breast cancer. Ultimately, we explored the subtype-specific transcriptional processes associated with HTNEs and uncovered the HTNE signatures that could classify breast cancer subtypes based on the properties of hormone receptors. Our results highlight that the identified HTNEs as well as their associated genes play crucial roles in breast cancer progression and correlate with subtype-specific transcriptional processes of breast cancer.
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Affiliation(s)
- Wenyong Zhu
- State Key Laboratory of Digital Medical Engineering, School of Biological Science and Medical Engineering, Southeast University, Nanjing, China
| | - Hao Huang
- State Key Laboratory of Digital Medical Engineering, School of Biological Science and Medical Engineering, Southeast University, Nanjing, China
| | - Wenlong Ming
- State Key Laboratory of Digital Medical Engineering, School of Biological Science and Medical Engineering, Southeast University, Nanjing, China
| | - Rongxin Zhang
- State Key Laboratory of Digital Medical Engineering, School of Biological Science and Medical Engineering, Southeast University, Nanjing, China
| | - Yu Gu
- State Key Laboratory of Digital Medical Engineering, School of Biological Science and Medical Engineering, Southeast University, Nanjing, China
| | - Yunfei Bai
- State Key Laboratory of Digital Medical Engineering, School of Biological Science and Medical Engineering, Southeast University, Nanjing, China
| | - Xiaoan Liu
- Department of Breast Surgery, The First Affiliated Hospital of Nanjing Medical University, Nanjing, China
| | - Hongde Liu
- State Key Laboratory of Digital Medical Engineering, School of Biological Science and Medical Engineering, Southeast University, Nanjing, China
| | - Yun Liu
- Department of Information, The First Affiliated Hospital of Nanjing Medical University, Nanjing, China
| | - Wanjun Gu
- State Key Laboratory of Digital Medical Engineering, School of Biological Science and Medical Engineering, Southeast University, Nanjing, China
- Collaborative Innovation Center of Jiangsu Province of Cancer Prevention and Treatment of Chinese Medicine, School of Artificial Intelligence and Information Technology, Nanjing University of Chinese Medicine, Nanjing, China
| | - Xiao Sun
- State Key Laboratory of Digital Medical Engineering, School of Biological Science and Medical Engineering, Southeast University, Nanjing, China
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