scholarly journals Enhancer RNA Profiling in Smoking and HPV Associated HNSCC Reveals Associations to Key Oncogenes

2021 ◽  
Vol 22 (22) ◽  
pp. 12546
Author(s):  
Neil Shende ◽  
Jingyue Xu ◽  
Wei Tse Li ◽  
Jeffrey Liu ◽  
Jaideep Chakladar ◽  
...  

Smoking and HPV infection are known causes for the vast majority of head and neck squamous cell carcinomas (HNSCC) due to their likelihood of causing gene dysregulation and genomic alterations. Enhancer RNAs (eRNAs) are non-coding RNAs that are known to increase nearby and target gene expression, and activity that has been suggested to be affected by genetic and epigenetic alterations. Here we sought to identify the effects of smoking and HPV status on eRNA expression in HNSCC tumors. We focused on four patient cohorts including smoking/HPV+, smoking/HPV−, non-smoking/HPV+, and non-smoking/HPV− patients. We used TCGA RNA-seq data from cancer tumors and adjacent normal tissue, extracted eRNA read counts, and correlated these to survival, clinical variables, immune infiltration, cancer pathways, and genomic alterations. We found a large number of differentially expressed eRNA in each patient cohort. We also found several dysregulated eRNA correlated to patient survival, clinical variables, immune pathways, and genomic alterations. Additionally, we were able to find dysregulated eRNA nearby seven key HNSCC-related oncogenes. For example, we found eRNA chr14:103272042–103272430 (eRNA-24036), which is located close to the TRAF3 gene to be differentially expressed and correlated with the pathologic N stage and immune cell populations. Using a separate validation dataset, we performed differential expression and immune infiltration analysis to validate our results from the TCGA data. Our findings may explain the association between eRNA expression, enhancer activity, and nearby gene dysregulation.

2014 ◽  
Vol 2014 ◽  
pp. 1-16 ◽  
Author(s):  
Géraldine Descamps ◽  
Ruddy Wattiez ◽  
Sven Saussez

Human papillomavirus (HPV) was recently recognized as a new risk factor for head and neck squamous cell carcinoma. For oropharyngeal cancers, an HPV+ status is associated with better prognosis in a subgroup of nonsmokers and nondrinkers. However, HPV infection is also involved in the biology of head and neck carcinoma (HNC) in patients with a history of tobacco use and/or alcohol consumption. Thus, the involvement of HPV infection in HN carcinogenesis remains unclear, and further studies are needed to identify and analyze HPV-specific pathways that are involved in this process. Using a quantitative proteomics-based approach, we compared the protein expression profiles of two HPV+ HNC cell lines and one HPV− HNC cell line. We identified 155 proteins that are differentially expressed (P<0.01) in these three lines. Among the identified proteins, prostate stem cell antigen (PSCA) was upregulated and eukaryotic elongation factor 1 alpha (EEF1α) was downregulated in the HPV+ cell lines. Immunofluorescence and western blotting analyses confirmed these results. Moreover, PSCA and EEF1αwere differentially expressed in two clinical series of 50 HPV+ and 50 HPV− oral cavity carcinomas. Thus, our study reveals for the first time that PSCA and EEF1αare associated with the HPV-status, suggesting that these proteins could be involved in HPV-associated carcinogenesis.


2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xin Hu ◽  
Liuxing Wu ◽  
Ben Liu ◽  
Kexin Chen

The incidence of adenocarcinoma of the esophagogastric junction (AEG) has markedly increased worldwide. However, the precise etiology of AEG is still unclear, and the therapeutic options thus remain limited. Growing evidence has implicated long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) in cancer immunomodulation. This study aimed to examine the tumor immune infiltration status and assess the prognostic value of immune-related lncRNAs in AEG. Using the ESTIMATE method and single-sample GSEA, we first evaluated the infiltration level of 28 immune cell types in AEG samples obtained from the TCGA dataset (N=201). Patients were assigned into high- and low-immune infiltration subtypes based on the immune cell infiltration’s enrichment score. GSEA and mutation pattern analysis revealed that these two immune infiltration subtypes had distinct phenotypes. We identified 1470 differentially expressed lncRNAs in two immune infiltration subtypes. From these differentially expressed lncRNAs, six prognosis-related lncRNAs were selected using the Cox regression analysis. Subsequently, an immune risk signature was constructed based on combining the values of the six prognosis-associated lncRNAs expression levels and multiple regression coefficients. To determine the risk model’s prognostic capability, we performed a series of survival analyses with Kaplan–Meier methods, Cox proportional hazards regression models, and the area under receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve. The results indicated that the immune-related risk signature could be an independent prognostic factor with a significant predictive value in patients with AEG. Furthermore, the immune-related risk signature can effectively predict the response to immunotherapy and chemotherapy in AEG patients. In conclusion, the proposed immune-related lncRNA prognostic signature is reliable and has high survival predictive value for patients with AEG and is a promising potential biomarker for immunotherapy.


Cancers ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (10) ◽  
pp. 3054
Author(s):  
Qizhan Luo ◽  
Thomas-Alexander Vögeli

Background: Bladder cancer is highly related to immune cell infiltration. This study aimed to develop a new classification of BC molecular subtypes based on immune-cell-associated CpG sites. Methods: The genes of 28 types of immune cells were obtained from previous studies. Then, methylation sites corresponding to immune-cell-associated genes were acquired. Differentially methylated sites (DMSs) were identified between normal samples and bladder cancer samples. Unsupervised clustering analysis of differentially methylated sites was performed to divide the sites into several subtypes. Then, the potential mechanism of different subtypes was explored. Results: Bladder cancer patients were divided into three groups. The cluster 3 subtype had the best prognosis. Cluster 1 had the poorest prognosis. The distribution of immune cells, level of expression of checkpoints, stromal score, immune score, ESTIMATEScore, tumor purity, APC co_inhibition, APC co_stimulation, HLA, MHC class_I, Type I IFN Response, Type II IFN Response, and DNAss presented significant differences among the three subgroups. The distribution of genomic alterations was also different. Conclusions: The proposed classification was accurate and stable. BC patients could be divided into three subtypes based on the immune-cell-associated CpG sites. Specific biological signaling pathways, immune mechanisms, and genomic alterations were varied among the three subgroups. High-level immune infiltration was correlated with high-level methylation. The lower RNAss was associated with higher immune infiltration. The study of the intratumoral immune microenvironment may provide a new perspective for BC therapy.


Cancers ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (14) ◽  
pp. 3513
Author(s):  
Gislaine Curty ◽  
Albert N. Menezes ◽  
Ayslan C. Brant ◽  
Miguel de Mulder Rougvie ◽  
Miguel Ângelo M. Moreira ◽  
...  

Retroelements are expressed in diverse types of cancer and are related to tumorigenesis and to cancer progression. We characterized the expression of retroelements in cervical cancer and explored their interplay with HPV infection and their association with expression of neighboring genes. Forty biopsies of invasive cervical carcinoma (squamous cell carcinomas and adenocarcinomas) with genotyped HPV were selected and analyzed for human endogenous retrovirus (HERV) and long interspersed nuclear element 1 (L1) expression through RNA-seq data. We found 8060 retroelements expressed in the samples and a negative correlation of DNA methyltransferase 1 expression with the two most expressed L1 elements. A total of 103 retroelements were found differentially expressed between tumor histological types and between HPV types, including several HERV families (HERV-K, HERV-H, HERV-E, HERV-I and HERV-L). The comparison between HPV mono- and co-infections showed the highest proportion of differentially expressed L1 elements. The location of retroelements affected neighboring gene expression, such as shown for the interleukin-20 gene family. Three HERVs and seven L1 were located close to this gene family and two L1 showed a positive association with IL20RB expression. This study describes the expression of retroelements in cervical cancer and shows their association with HPV status and host gene expression.


2021 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
Author(s):  
Huan Hu ◽  
Facai Zhang ◽  
Li Li ◽  
Jun Liu ◽  
Qin Ao ◽  
...  

Background: Although disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs (DMARDs) have significantly improved the prognosis of patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA), approximately 40% of RA patients have limited response. Therefore, it was essential to explore new biomarkers to improve the therapeutic effects on RA. This study aimed to develop a new biomarker and validate it by an in vitro study.Methods: The RNA-seq and the clinicopathologic data of RA patients were downloaded from Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) databases. Differentially expressed genes were screened in the GPL96 and GPL570 databases. Then, weighted gene co-expression network analysis (WGCNA) was used to explore the most correlated gene modules to normal and RA synovium in the GPL96 and GPL570 databases. After that, the differentially expressed genes were intersected with the correlated gene modules to find the potential biomarkers. The CIBERSORT tool was applied to investigate the relationship between activated transcription factor 3 (ATF3) expression and the immune cell infiltration, and Gene Set Enrichment Analysis (GSEA) was used to investigate the related signaling pathways of differentially expressed genes in the high and low ATF3 groups. Furthermore, the relationships between ATF3 expression and clinical parameters were also explored in the GEO database. Finally, the role of ATF3 was verified by in vitro cell experiments.Results: We intersected the differentially expressed genes and the most correlated gene modules in the GPL570 and GPL96 databases and identified that ATF3 is a significant potential biomarker and correlates with some clinical–pharmacological variables. Immune infiltration analysis showed that activated mast cells had a significant infiltration in the high ATF3 group in the two databases. GSEA showed that metabolism-associated pathways belonged to the high ATF3 groups and that inflammation and immunoregulation pathways were enriched in the low ATF3 group. Finally, we validated that ATF3 could promote the proliferation, migration, and invasion of RA fibroblast-like synoviocyte (FLS) and MH7A. Flow cytometry showed that ATF3 expression could decrease the proportion of apoptotic cells and increase the proportion of S and G2/M phase cells.Conclusion: We successfully identified and validated that ATF3 could serve as a novel biomarker in RA, which correlated with pharmacotherapy response and immune cell infiltration.


BMC Cancer ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Lijiang He ◽  
Hainan Yang ◽  
Jingshan Huang

Abstract Background Genome-wide expression profiles have been shown to predict the response to chemotherapy. The purpose of this study was to develop a novel predictive signature for chemotherapy in patients with osteosarcoma. Methods We analysed the relevance of immune cell infiltration and gene expression profiles of the tumor samples of good responders with those of poor responders from the TARGET and GEO databases. Immune cell infiltration was evaluated using a single-sample gene set enrichment analysis (ssGSEA) and the CIBERSORT algorithm between good and poor chemotherapy responders. Differentially expressed genes were identified based on the chemotherapy response. LASSO regression and binary logistic regression analyses were applied to select the differentially expressed immune-related genes (IRGs) and developed a predictive signature in the training cohort. A receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis was employed to assess and validate the predictive accuracy of the predictive signature in the validation cohort. Results The analysis of immune infiltration showed a positive relationship between high-level immune infiltration and good responders, and T follicular helper cells and CD8 T cells were significantly more abundant in good responders with osteosarcoma. Two hundred eighteen differentially expressed genes were detected between good and poor responders, and a five IRGs panel comprising TNFRSF9, CD70, EGFR, PDGFD and S100A6 was determined to show predictive power for the chemotherapy response. A chemotherapy-associated predictive signature was developed based on these five IRGs. The accuracy of the predictive signature was 0.832 for the training cohort and 0.720 for the validation cohort according to ROC analysis. Conclusions The novel predictive signature constructed with five IRGs can be effectively utilized to predict chemotherapy responsiveness and help improve the efficacy of chemotherapy in patients with osteosarcoma.


2020 ◽  
Vol 79 (Suppl 1) ◽  
pp. 178-179
Author(s):  
S. Alehashemi ◽  
M. Garg ◽  
B. Sellers ◽  
A. De Jesus ◽  
A. Biancotto ◽  
...  

Background:Systemic Autoinflammatory diseases present with sterile inflammation. NOMID (Neonatal-Onset Multisystem Inflammatory Disease) is caused by gain-of-function mutations inNLRP3and excess IL-1 production, presents with fever, neutrophilic dermatosis, aseptic meningitis, hearing loss and eye inflammation; CANDLE (Chronic Atypical Neutrophilic Dermatosis, Lipodystrophy and Elevated Temperature) is caused by loss-of-function mutations in proteasome genes that lead to type-1 interferon signaling, characterized by fever, panniculitis, lipodystrophy, cytopenia, systemic and pulmonary hypertension and basal ganglia calcification. IL-1 blockers are approved for NOMID and JAK-inhibitors show efficacy in CANDLE treatment.Objectives:We used proteomic analysis to compare differentially expressed proteins in active NOMID and CANDLE compared to healthy controls before and after treatment, and whole blood bulk RNA seq to identify the immune cell signatures.Methods:Serum samples from active NOMID (n=12) and CANDLE (n=7) before and after treatment (table 1) and age matched healthy controls (HC) (n=7) were profiled using the SomaLogic platform (n=1125 proteins). Differentially expressed proteins in NOMID and CANDLE were ranked after non-parametric tests for unpaired (NOMIDp<0.05, CANDLE,p<0.1) and paired (p<0.05) analysis and assessed by enriched Gene Ontology pathways and network visualization. Whole blood RNA seq was performed (NOMID=7, CANDLE=7, Controls =5) and RPKM values were used to assess immune cells signatures.Table 1.Patient’s characteristicsNOMIDN=12, Male =6CANDLEN=7, Male =6AgeMedian (range)12 (2, 28)16 (3, 20)Ethnicity%White (Hispanic)80 (20)100 (30)GeneticsNLRP3mutation(2 Somatic, 10 Germline)mutations in proteasome component genes(1 digenic, 6 Homozygous/compound Heterozygous)Before treatmentAfter treatmentBefore treatmentAfter treatmentCRPMedian (range) mg/L52 (16-110)5 (0-23)5 (0-101)1 (0-4)IFN scoremedian (range)0NA328 (211-1135)3 (0-548)Results:Compared to control, 205 proteins (127 upregulated, 78 downregulated) were significantly different at baseline in NOMID, compared to 163 proteins (101 upregulated, and 62 downregulated) in CANDLE. 134 dysregulated proteins (85 upregulated, 49 downregulated) overlapped in NOMID and CANDLE (Figure 1). Pathway analysis identified neutrophil and monocyte chemotaxis signature in both NOMID and CANDLE. NOMID patients had neutrophilia and active neutrophils. CANDLE patients exhibited active neutrophils in whole blood RNA. Endothelial cell activation was the most prominent non-hematopoietic signature and suggest distinct endothelial cell dysregulation in NOMID and CANDLE. In NOMID, the signature included neutrophil transmigration (SELE) endothelial cell motility in response to angiogenesis (HGF, VEGF), while in CANDLE the endothelial signatures included extracellular matrix protein deposition (COL8A) suggesting increased vascular stiffness. CANDLE patients had higher expression of Renin, 4 out of 7 had hypertension, NOMID patients did not have hypertension. Treatment with anakinra and baricitinib normalized 143 and 142 of dysregulated proteins in NOMID and CANDLE respectively.Conclusion:Differentially expressed proteins in NOMID and CANDLE are consistent with innate immune cell activation. Distinct endothelial cell signatures in NOMID and CANDLE may provide mechanistic insight into differences in vascular phenotypes. Treatment with anakinra and Baricitinib in NOMID and CANDLE leaves 30% and 13% of the dysregulated proteins unchanged.Acknowledgments:This work was supported by Intramural Research atNational Institute of Allergy Immunology and Infectious Diseases of National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland, the Center of Human Immunology and was approved by the IRB.Disclosure of Interests:None declared


Cancers ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (6) ◽  
pp. 1480
Author(s):  
Hiresh Ayoubian ◽  
Joana Heinzelmann ◽  
Sebastian Hölters ◽  
Oybek Khalmurzaev ◽  
Alexey Pryalukhin ◽  
...  

Although microRNAs are described as promising biomarkers in many tumor types, little is known about their role in PSCC. Thus, we attempted to identify miRNAs involved in tumor development and metastasis in distinct histological subtypes considering the impact of HPV infection. In a first step, microarray analyses were performed on RNA from formalin-fixed, paraffin-embedded tumor (22), and normal (8) tissue samples. Microarray data were validated for selected miRNAs by qRT-PCR on an enlarged cohort, including 27 tumor and 18 normal tissues. We found 876 significantly differentially expressed miRNAs (p ≤ 0.01) between HPV-positive and HPV-negative tumor samples by microarray analysis. Although no significant differences were detected between normal and tumor tissue in the whole cohort, specific expression patterns occurred in distinct histological subtypes, such as HPV-negative usual PSCC (95 differentially expressed miRNAs, p ≤ 0.05) and HPV-positive basaloid/warty subtypes (247 differentially expressed miRNAs, p ≤ 0.05). Selected miRNAs were confirmed by qRT-PCR. Furthermore, microarray data revealed 118 miRNAs (p ≤ 0.01) that were significantly differentially expressed in metastatic versus non-metastatic usual PSCC. The lower expression levels for miR-137 and miR-328-3p in metastatic usual PSCC were validated by qRT-PCR. The results of this study confirmed that specific miRNAs could serve as potential diagnostic and prognostic markers in single PSCC subtypes and are associated with HPV-dependent pathways.


2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Qin Huo ◽  
Zhenwei Li ◽  
Siqi Chen ◽  
Juan Wang ◽  
Jiaying Li ◽  
...  

Abstract Purpose Von Willebrand Factor C and EGF Domains (VWCE) is an important gene that regulates cell adhesion, migration, and interaction. However, the correlation between VWCE expression and immune infiltrating in breast cancer remain unclear. In this study, we investigated the correlation between VWCE expression and immune infiltration levels in breast cancer. Methods The expression of VWCE was analyzed by the tumor immune estimation resource (TIMER) and DriverDB databases. Furthermore, genes co-expressed with VWCE and gene ontology (GO) enrichment analysis were investigated by the STRING and Enrichr web servers. Also, we performed the single nucleotide variation (SNV), copy number variation (CNV), and pathway activity analysis through GSCALite. Subsequently, the relationship between VWCE expression and tumor immunity was analyzed by TIMER and TISIDB databases, and further verified the results using Quantitative Real-Time PCR (RT-PCR), Western blotting, and immunohistochemistry. Results The results showed that the expression of VWCE mRNA in breast cancer tissue was significantly lower than that in normal tissues. We found that the expression level of VWCE was associated with subtypes, estrogen receptor (ER), progesterone receptor (PR), and human epidermal growth factor receptor-2 (HER2) status of breast cancer patients, but there was no significant difference in the expression of VWCE was found in age and nodal status. Further analyses indicated that VWCE was correlated with the activation or inhibition of multiple oncogenic pathways. Additionally, VWCE expression was negatively correlated with the expression of STAT1 (Th1 marker, r = − 0.12, p = 6e−05), but positively correlated with the expression of MS4A4A (r = 0.28, p = 0). These results suggested that the expression of VWCE was correlated with immune infiltration levels of Th1 and M2 macrophage in breast cancer. Conclusions In our study, VWCE expression was associated with a better prognosis and was immune infiltration in breast cancer. These findings demonstrate that VWCE is a potential prognostic biomarker and correlated with tumor immune cell infiltration, and maybe a promising therapeutic target in breast cancer.


Biomolecules ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (5) ◽  
pp. 764
Author(s):  
Jaroslav Nunvar ◽  
Lucie Pagacova ◽  
Zuzana Vojtechova ◽  
Nayara Trevisan Doimo de Azevedo ◽  
Jana Smahelova ◽  
...  

Squamous cell carcinomas (SCCs) in the anogenital and head and neck regions are associated with high-risk types of human papillomaviruses (HR-HPV). Deregulation of miRNA expression is an important contributor to carcinogenesis. This study aimed to pinpoint commonly and uniquely deregulated miRNAs in cervical, anal, vulvar, and tonsillar tumors of viral or non-viral etiology, searching for a common set of deregulated miRNAs linked to HPV-induced carcinogenesis. RNA was extracted from tumors and nonmalignant tissues from the same locations. The miRNA expression level was determined by next-generation sequencing. Differential expression of miRNAs was calculated, and the patterns of miRNA deregulation were compared between tumors. The total of deregulated miRNAs varied between tumors of different locations by two orders of magnitude, ranging from 1 to 282. The deregulated miRNA pool was largely tumor-specific. In tumors of the same location, a low proportion of miRNAs were exclusively deregulated and no deregulated miRNA was shared by all four types of HPV-positive tumors. The most significant overlap of deregulated miRNAs was found between tumors which differed in location and HPV status (HPV-positive cervical tumors vs. HPV-negative vulvar tumors). Our results imply that HPV infection does not elicit a conserved miRNA deregulation in SCCs.


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