scholarly journals TAp73β Can Promote Hepatocellular Carcinoma Dedifferentiation

Cancers ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 783
Author(s):  
Evin Iscan ◽  
Umut Ekin ◽  
Gokhan Yildiz ◽  
Ozden Oz ◽  
Umur Keles ◽  
...  

Hepatocyte dedifferentiation is a major source of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), but its mechanisms are unknown. We explored the p73 expression in HCC tumors and studied the effects of transcriptionally active p73β (TAp73β) in HCC cells. Expression profiles of p73 and patient clinical data were collected from the Genomic Data Commons (GDC) data portal and the TSVdb database, respectively. Global gene expression profiles were determined by pan-genomic 54K microarrays. The Gene Set Enrichment Analysis method was used to identify TAp73β-regulated gene sets. The effects of TAp73 isoforms were analyzed in monolayer cell culture, 3D-cell culture and xenograft models in zebrafish using western blot, flow cytometry, fluorescence imaging, real-time polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR), immunohistochemistry and morphological examination. TAp73 isoforms were significantly upregulated in HCC, and high p73 expression correlated with poor patient survival. The induced expression of TAp73β caused landscape expression changes in genes involved in growth signaling, cell cycle, stress response, immunity, metabolism and development. Hep3B cells overexpressing TAp73β had lost hepatocyte lineage biomarkers including ALB, CYP3A4, AFP, HNF4α. In contrast, TAp73β upregulated genes promoting cholangiocyte lineage such as YAP, JAG1 and ZO-1, accompanied with an increase in metastatic ability. Our findings suggest that TAp73β may promote malignant dedifferentiation of HCC cells.

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lingyu Zhang ◽  
Yu Li ◽  
Yibei Dai ◽  
Danhua Wang ◽  
Xuchu Wang ◽  
...  

Abstract Metabolic pattern reconstruction is an important element in tumor progression. The metabolism of tumor cells is characterized by the abnormal increase of anaerobic glycolysis, regardless of the higher oxygen concentration, resulting in a large accumulation of energy from glucose sources, and contributes to rapid cell proliferation and tumor growth which is further referenced as the Warburg effect. We tried to reconstruct the metabolic pattern in the progression of cancer to screen which genetic changes are specific in cancer cells. A total of 12 common types of solid tumors were enrolled in the prospective study. Gene set enrichment analysis (GSEA) was implemented to analyze 9 glycolysis-related gene sets, which are closely related to the glycolysis process. Univariate and multivariate analyses were used to identify independent prognostic variables for the construction of a nomogram based on clinicopathological characteristics and a glycolysis-related gene prognostic index (GRGPI). The prognostic model based on glycolysis genes has the highest area under the curve (AUC) in LIHC (Liver hepatocellular carcinoma). 8-gene signatures (AURKA, CDK1, CENPA, DEPDC1, HMMR, KIF20A, PFKFB4, STMN1) were related to overall survival (OS) and recurrence-free survival (RFS). Further analysis demonstrates that the prediction model can accurately distinguish between high- and low-risk cancer patients among patients in different clusters in LIHC. A nomogram with a well-fitted calibration curve based on gene expression profiles and clinical characteristics improves discrimination in internal and external cohorts. Furthermore, the altering expression of metabolic genes related to glycolysis may contribute to the reconstruction of the tumor-related microenvironment.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Lingyu Zhang ◽  
Yu Li ◽  
Yibei Dai ◽  
Danhua Wang ◽  
Xuchu Wang ◽  
...  

AbstractMetabolic pattern reconstruction is an important factor in tumor progression. Metabolism of tumor cells is characterized by abnormal increase in anaerobic glycolysis, regardless of high oxygen concentration, resulting in a significant accumulation of energy from glucose sources. These changes promotes rapid cell proliferation and tumor growth, which is further referenced a process known as the Warburg effect. The current study reconstructed the metabolic pattern in progression of cancer to identify genetic changes specific in cancer cells. A total of 12 common types of solid tumors were included in the current study. Gene set enrichment analysis (GSEA) was performed to analyze 9 glycolysis-related gene sets, which are implicated in the glycolysis process. Univariate and multivariate analyses were used to identify independent prognostic variables for construction of a nomogram based on clinicopathological characteristics and a glycolysis-related gene prognostic index (GRGPI). The prognostic model based on glycolysis genes showed high area under the curve (AUC) in LIHC (Liver hepatocellular carcinoma). The findings of the current study showed that 8 genes (AURKA, CDK1, CENPA, DEPDC1, HMMR, KIF20A, PFKFB4, STMN1) were correlated with overall survival (OS) and recurrence-free survival (RFS). Further analysis showed that the prediction model accurately distinguished between high- and low-risk cancer patients among patients in different clusters in LIHC. A nomogram with a well-fitted calibration curve based on gene expression profiles and clinical characteristics showed good discrimination based on internal and external cohorts. These findings indicate that changes in expression level of metabolic genes implicated in glycolysis can contribute to reconstruction of tumor-related microenvironment.


Cancers ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (11) ◽  
pp. 2809
Author(s):  
Paolo Uva ◽  
Maria Carla Bosco ◽  
Alessandra Eva ◽  
Massimo Conte ◽  
Alberto Garaventa ◽  
...  

Neuroblastoma (NB) is one of the deadliest pediatric cancers, accounting for 15% of deaths in childhood. Hypoxia is a condition of low oxygen tension occurring in solid tumors and has an unfavorable prognostic factor for NB. In the present study, we aimed to identify novel promising drugs for NB treatment. Connectivity Map (CMap), an online resource for drug repurposing, was used to identify connections between hypoxia-modulated genes in NB tumors and compounds. Two sets of 34 and 21 genes up- and down-regulated between hypoxic and normoxic primary NB tumors, respectively, were analyzed with CMap. The analysis reported a significant negative connectivity score across nine cell lines for 19 compounds mainly belonging to the class of PI3K/Akt/mTOR inhibitors. The gene expression profiles of NB cells cultured under hypoxic conditions and treated with the mTORC complex inhibitor PP242, referred to as the Mohlin dataset, was used to validate the CMap findings. A heat map representation of hypoxia-modulated genes in the Mohlin dataset and the gene set enrichment analysis (GSEA) showed an opposite regulation of these genes in the set of NB cells treated with the mTORC inhibitor PP242. In conclusion, our analysis identified inhibitors of the PI3K/Akt/mTOR signaling pathway as novel candidate compounds to treat NB patients with hypoxic tumors and a poor prognosis.


2020 ◽  
Vol 7 ◽  
Author(s):  
Saiyan Bian ◽  
Wenkai Ni ◽  
Mengqi Zhu ◽  
Qianqian Song ◽  
Jianping Zhang ◽  
...  

Purpose: N6-methyladenosine (m6A) RNA methylation has been implicated in various malignancies. This study aimed to identify the m6A methylation regulator-based prognostic signature for hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) as well as provide candidate targets for HCC treatment.Methods: The least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (LASSO) analyses were performed to identify a risk signature in The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) datasets. The risk signature was further validated in International Cancer Genome Consortium (ICGC) and Pan-Cancer Analysis of Whole Genomes (PCAWG) datasets. Following transfection of short hairpin RNA (shRNA) targeting YTHDF1, the biological activities of HCC cells were evaluated by Cell Counting Kit-8 (CCK-8), wound-healing, Transwell, flow cytometry, and xenograft tumor assays, respectively. The potential mechanisms mediated by YTHDF1 were predicted by overrepresentation enrichment analysis (ORA)/gene set enrichment analysis (GSEA) and validated by Western blotting.Results: Overexpression of m6A RNA methylation regulators was correlated with malignant clinicopathological characteristics of HCC patients. The Cox regression and LASSO analyses identified a risk signature with five m6A methylation regulators (KIAA1429, ZC3H13, YTHDF1, YTHDF2, and METTL3). In accordance with HCC cases in TCGA, the prognostic value of risk signature was also determined in ICGC and PCAWG datasets. Following analyzing the expression and clinical implications in TCGA and Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO), YTHDF1 was chosen for further experimental validation. Knockdown of YTHDF1 significantly inhibited the proliferation, migration, and invasion of HCC cells, as well as enhanced the apoptosis in vitro. Moreover, silencing YTHDF1 repressed the growth of xenograft tumors in vivo. Mechanism investigation indicated that YTHDF1 might promote the aggressive phenotypes by facilitating epithelial–mesenchymal transition (EMT) and activating AKT/glycogen synthase kinase (GSK)-3β/β-catenin signaling.Conclusion: The current study identified a robust risk signature consisting of m6A RNA methylation regulators for HCC prognosis. In addition, YTHDF1 was a potential molecular target for HCC treatment.


2008 ◽  
Vol 36 (04) ◽  
pp. 783-797 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wen-Yu Cheng ◽  
Shih-Lu Wu ◽  
Chien-Yun Hsiang ◽  
Chia-Cheng Li ◽  
Tung-Yuan Lai ◽  
...  

Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) has been used for thousands of years. Most Chinese herbal formulae consist of several herbal components and have been used to treat various diseases. However, the mechanisms of most formulae and the relationship between formulae and their components remain to be elucidated. Here we analyzed the putative mechanism of San-Huang-Xie-Xin-Tang (SHXXT) and defined the relationship between SHXXT and its herbal components by microarray technique. HepG2 cells were treated with SHXXT or its components and the gene expression profiles were analyzed by DNA microarray. Gene set enrichment analysis indicated that SHXXT and its components displayed a unique anti-proliferation pattern via p53 signaling, p53 activated, and DNA damage signaling pathways in HepG2 cells. Network analysis showed that most genes were regulated by one molecule, p53. In addition, hierarchical clustering analysis showed that Rhizoma Coptis shared a similar gene expression profile with SHXXT. These findings may explain why Rhizoma Coptis is the principle herb that exerts the major effect in the herbal formula, SHXXT. Moreover, this is the first report to reveal the relationship between formulae and their herbal components in TCM by microarray and bioinformatics tools.


Author(s):  
Si Cheng ◽  
Zhe Li ◽  
Wenhao Zhang ◽  
Zhiqiang Sun ◽  
Zhigang Fan ◽  
...  

Skin cutaneous melanoma (SKCM) is the major cause of death for skin cancer patients, its high metastasis often leads to poor prognosis of patients with malignant melanoma. However, the molecular mechanisms underlying metastatic melanoma remain to be elucidated. In this study we aim to identify and validate prognostic biomarkers associated with metastatic melanoma. We first construct a co-expression network using large-scale public gene expression profiles from GEO, from which candidate genes are screened out using weighted gene co-expression network analysis (WGCNA). A total of eight modules are established via the average linkage hierarchical clustering, and 111 hub genes are identified from the clinically significant modules. Next, two other datasets from GEO and TCGA are used for further screening of biomarker genes related to prognosis of metastatic melanoma, and identified 11 key genes via survival analysis. We find that IL10RA has the highest correlation with clinically important modules among all identified biomarker genes. Further in vitro biochemical experiments, including CCK8 assays, wound-healing assays and transwell assays, have verified that IL10RA can significantly inhibit the proliferation, migration and invasion of melanoma cells. Furthermore, gene set enrichment analysis shows that PI3K-AKT signaling pathway is significantly enriched in metastatic melanoma with highly expressed IL10RA, indicating that IL10RA mediates in metastatic melanoma via PI3K-AKT pathway.


2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Juexing Li ◽  
Lei Zhou ◽  
Zhenhua Li ◽  
Shangneng Yang ◽  
Liangyue Tang ◽  
...  

Sepsis-induced cardiomyopathy (SIC), with a possibly reversible cardiac dysfunction, is a potential complication of septic shock. Despite quite a few mechanisms including the inflammatory mediator, exosomes, and mitochondrial dysfunction, having been confirmed in the existing research studies we still find it obscure about the overall situation of gene co-expression that how they can affect the pathological process of SIC. Thus, we intended to find out the crucial hub genes, biological signaling pathways, and infiltration of immunocytes underlying SIC. It was weighted gene co-expression network analysis that worked as our major method on the ground of the gene expression profiles: hearts of those who died from sepsis were compared to hearts donated by non-failing humans which could not be transplanted for technical reasons (GSE79962). The top 25 percent of variant genes were abstracted to identify 10 co-expression modules. In these modules, brown and green modules showed the strongest negative and positive correlation with SIC, which were primarily enriched in the bioenergy metabolism, immunoreaction, and cell death. Next, nine genes (LRRC39, COQ10A, FSD2, PPP1R3A, TNFRSF11B, IL1RAP, DGKD, POR, and THBS1) including two downregulated and seven upregulated genes which were chosen as hub genes that meant the expressive level of which was higher than the counterparts in control groups. Then, the gene set enrichment analysis (GSEA) demonstrated a close relationship of hub genes to the cardiac metabolism and the necroptosis and apoptosis of cells in SIC. Concerning immune cells infiltration, a higher level of neutrophils and B cells native and a lower level of mast cells resting and plasma cells had been observed in patients with SIC. In general, nine candidate biomarkers were authenticated as a reliable signature for deeper exploration of basic and clinical research studies on SIC.


2020 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Qingyu Liang ◽  
Gefei Guan ◽  
Xue Li ◽  
Chunmi Wei ◽  
Jianqi Wu ◽  
...  

Abstract Background Molecular classification has laid the framework for exploring glioma biology and treatment strategies. Pro-neural to mesenchymal transition (PMT) of glioma is known to be associated with aggressive phenotypes, unfavorable prognosis, and treatment resistance. Recent studies have highlighted that long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) are key mediators in cancer mesenchymal transition. However, the relationship between lncRNAs and PMT in glioma has not been systematically investigated. Methods Gene expression profiles from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA), the Chinese Glioma Genome Atlas (CGGA), GSE16011, and Rembrandt with available clinical and genomic information were used for analyses. Bioinformatics methods such as weighted gene co-expression network analysis (WGCNA), gene set enrichment analysis (GSEA), Cox analysis, and least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (LASSO) analysis were performed. Results According to PMT scores, we confirmed that PMT status was positively associated with risky behaviors and poor prognosis in glioma. The 149 PMT-related lncRNAs were identified by WGCNA analysis, among which 10 (LINC01057, TP73-AS1, AP000695.4, LINC01503, CRNDE, OSMR-AS1, SNHG18, AC145343.2, RP11-25K21.6, RP11-38L15.2) with significant prognostic value were further screened to construct a PMT-related lncRNA risk signature, which could divide cases into two groups with distinct prognoses. Multivariate Cox regression analyses indicated that the signature was an independent prognostic factor for high-grade glioma. High-risk cases were more likely to be classified as the mesenchymal subtype, which confers enhanced immunosuppressive status by recruiting macrophages, neutrophils, and regulatory T cells. Moreover, six lncRNAs of the signature could act as competing endogenous RNAs to promote PMT in glioblastoma. Conclusions We profiled PMT status in glioma and established a PMT-related 10-lncRNA signature for glioma that could independently predict glioma survival and trigger PMT, which enhanced immunosuppression.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nejla Ozirmak Lermi ◽  
Stanton B. Gray ◽  
Charles M. Bowen ◽  
Laura Reyes-Uribe ◽  
Beth K. Dray ◽  
...  

AbstractColorectal cancer (CRC) remains the third most common cancer in the US with 15% of cases displaying Microsatellite Instability (MSI) secondary to Lynch Syndrome (LS) or somatic hypermethylation of the MLH1 promoter. A cohort of rhesus macaques from our institution developed spontaneous mismatch repair deficient (MMRd) CRC with a notable fraction harboring a pathogenic germline mutation in MLH1 (c.1029C<G, p.Tyr343Ter). Our study incorporated a detailed molecular characterization of rhesus CRC for cross-comparison with human MMRd CRC. We performed PCR-based MSI testing, transcriptomic analysis, and reduced-representation bisulfite sequencing (RRBS) of rhesus CRC (n=41 samples) using next-generation sequencing (NGS). Systems biology pipelines were used for gene set enrichment analysis (GSEA) for pathway discovery, consensus molecular subtyping (CMS), and somatic mutation profiling. Overall, the majority of rhesus tumors displayed high levels of MSI (MSI-high) and differential gene expression profiles that were consistent with known deregulated pathways in human CRC. DNA methylation analysis exposed differentially methylated patterns among MSI-H, MSI-L (MSI-low)/MSS (MS-stable) and LS tumors with MLH1 predominantly inactivated among sporadic MSI-H CRCs. The findings from this study support the use of rhesus macaques as the preferred animal model to study carcinogenesis, develop immunotherapies and vaccines, and implement chemoprevention approaches pertinent to sporadic MSI-H and LS CRC in humans.


2021 ◽  
pp. 1-12
Author(s):  
Li Luo ◽  
Rong Wang ◽  
Liaoyun Zhang ◽  
Piao Zhang ◽  
Dongmei Tian ◽  
...  

Background: Hepatocellular Carcinoma (HCC) is one of the highly malignant tumors threatening human health. The current research aimed to identify potential prognostic gene biomarkers for HCC. Materials and Methods: Microarray data of gene expression profiles of HCC from GEO were downloaded. After screening overlapping differentially expressed genes (DEGs) by R software. The STRING database and Cytoscape were used to identify hub genes. Cox proportional hazards regression was performed to screen the potential prognostic genes. Moreover, quantitative real-time PCR analyses were performed to detect the expression of ANLN in liver cancer cells and tissues. Finally, its possible pathways and functions were predicted using gene set enrichment analysis (GSEA). Result: A total of 566 DEGs were obtained from the overlapping analysis of three mRNA microarray dataset. Six key hub genes including RACGAP1, KIF20, DLGAP5, CDK1, BUB1B and ANLN, were associated with poor prognosis of patients with HCC. Higher expression of ANLN was associated with reduced overall survival and disease-free survival in patients with HCC. Multivariate analysis revealed that ANLN expression was an independent risk factor affecting overall survival. RT-PCR and Western blot analysis further demonstrated that ANLN expression was increased in HCC compared with patient-matched adjacent normal tissues. Notably, Gene enrichment analysis revealed that DEGs in ANLN-high patients were enriched in cell cycle, DNA duplication and p53 signaling pathway. Conclusion: The high expression of RACGAP1, KIF20, DLGAP5, CDK1, BUB1B and ANLN might be poor prognostic biomarkers in HCC patients, and may help to individualize the management of HCC.


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