Project description:This study aims to identify combination treatments capable of inducing improved IO responses in lung tumours and thus, help guide decisions on the next combination arms for the HUDSON trial (post-IO). For that purpose, a lung tumour GEMM model was treated with either vehicle, PD-L1, ATR, ATR/PD-L1; Cisplatin/PD-L1/Ctla4 or VEGFR/PD-L1 and tumours collected for transcriptional profiling.
Project description:Characterization of RNA processing events dependent on U2AF-related proteins PUF60 and RBM39. PUF60 (poly-U-binding factor 60 kDa, also known as FIR, Hfp or Ro-bp1) is a splicing factor homologous to the 65 kD subunit of the auxiliary factor of U2 small nuclear ribonucleoprotein (U2AF65). PUF60 has two central RNA recognition motifs and a C-terminal U2AF homology motif (UHM), but lacks the N terminal arginine/serine-rich (RS) and UHM ligand motif (ULM) domains present in U2AF65. PUF60 activity, in conjunction with U2AF, facilitates the association of U2 snRNP with the pre-mRNA. PUF60 and U2AF65 can bind SF3b155 ULMs simultaneously and noncompetitively. RBM39 (also known as CAPERα, HCC1, FSAP59 or RNPC2) is an RNA processing factor and a hormone-dependent transcriptional coactivator. RBM39 domain structure is similar to PUF60, except for the extra N-terminal RS domain with unknown function. To understand function of the two proteins on a genome-wide scale, each protein was individually depleted from human embryonic kidney cell line 293 using RNAi to systematically characterize the PUF60- and RBM39-dependent exon usage.
Project description:RNA-seq analysis was performed to understand the role of type I IFN response during SARS CoV-2 infection using transgenic mice. Each sample was collected from an individual C57BL/6J mouse. The total RNA was extracted from uninfected and SARS-CoV-2 infected mice lung tissue using RNeasy mini kit (QIAGEN #74104). The quantity of RNA was determined using Qubit RNA assay kit with Qubit 4.0 and the quality of RNA was tested using agarose gel electrophoresis and High Sensitivity Tape station Kit (Agilent 2200, #5067-5576, #5067-5577 and #5067-5578). After assessing the quality of RNA, ~900 ng of total RNA was taken for library preparation using NEBNext®Ultra™ II Directional RNA Library kit for Illumina (# E7760L) and NEBNext Poly (A) mRNA Magnetic Isolation Module (# E7490L) as per manufacturer's protocol. The prepared library was quantified using Qubit dsDNA assay kit (Invitrogen, Q32851) followed by quality check (QC) and fragment size distribution using a High Sensitivity Tape station Kit (Agilent 2200, #5067-5584 and #5067-5585). The library was sequenced using the HiSeq 4000 Illumina platform. The paired-end (PE) reads quality checks for each sample were carried out using FastQC v.0.11.5 (http://www.bioinformatics.babraham.ac.uk/projects/fastqc/). The adapter sequence was trimmed using the BBDuk version 37.58 version 37.58 and the alignment was performed using STAR v.2.5.3a with default parameters with human hg38 genome build, gencode v21 gtf 9GRCh38) from the gencode. The duplicates were discarded using Picard-2.9.4 (https://broadinstitute.github.io/picard/) from the aligned bam files and read counts were generated using featureCount v.1.5.3 from subread-1.5.3 package (https://bioinf.wehi.edu.au/) with Q = 10 for mapping quality. The count files were used as input for downstream differential gene expression analysis with DESeq2 version 1.14.1 9. The genes with read counts of ≤ 10 in any comparison were discarded followed by count transformation and statistical analysis using DESeq “R”. The “P” value were adjusted using the Benjamini and Hochberg multiple testing correction and the differentially expressed genes were identified (fold change of ≥1.5, P-value < 0.05). A unified non-redundant gene list was made for different comparisons and subjected to gene ontology (GO) analysis using the reactome database (https://reactome.org/). The top pathways (p < 0.05) were used for generating heat maps using Complexheatmap (Version 2.0.0) through unsupervised hierarchical clustering. The expression clusters were annotated based on enriched GO terms. Normalized gene expression was used to generate the boxplots with a median depicting the trends in the expression across the different conditions using ggplot2 [version 3.3.5]. The pathways analysis was performed using Metascape database (https://metascape.org/gp/index.html#/main/step1). The top pathways (p < 0.05) were taken for constructing bubble plots using ggplot2 [version 3.3.5].
Project description:Understanding MoA of ceralasertib (AZD6738) in driving efficacy through immune regulation via T-cells and tumour intrinsic pathways (STING/IFN) for AZD6738 driven efficacy.
Project description:KRAS mutations frequently co-occur with alterations in STK11/LKB1 and/or KEAP1, defining an aggressive subset of tumors associated with resistance to immuno- and chemotherapy. While LKB1 loss is associated with vulnerability to DNA-damage response (DDR)-based therapies, the impact of KEAP1 alterations remains unknown. Here we demonstrate that KEAP1/NRF2 pathway drives a compensatory modulation of ATR-CHK1 signaling, enhancing vulnerability to ATR inhibitors (ATRi) particularly in the setting of increased replication stress associated with LKB1 loss. ATRis show enhanced anti-tumor activity in LKB1 and/or KEAP1-deficient NSCLC models and synergy combined with gemcitabine. ATRi also enhances antitumor immunity and helps mitigate the immunosuppressed phenotype of LKB1 and/or KEAP1-deficient tumors. Finally, in the HUDSON trial, LKB1/KEAP1-deficient NSCLC patients demonstrate enhanced benefits to the ATRi ceralasertib plus durvalumab. These findings suggest that alterations in the KEAP1/NRF2 pathway and/or LKB1 are associated with enhanced sensitivity to ATRi and could serve as useful biomarkers for predicting response to ATRi combination regimens.
Project description:UPF1 is a multi-domain RNA helicase that constantly monitors the transcriptome by non-specifically binding to mRNAs, dissociating from non-target transcripts, and initiating degradation on selected target RNAs via multiple proposed pathways such as nonsense-mediated decay (NMD). NMD is a translation-coupled mechanism that targets mRNAs harboring a premature stop codon (PTC) for degradation, thereby serving as a quality control and gene regulatory pathway ensuring transcriptome integrity. The execution of NMD requires the phosphorylation of N- and C-terminal tails of the key NMD factor UPF1, which thereby serve as binding platforms for the degradation factors SMG5, SMG6 and SMG7. UPF1 phosphorylation is mediated by the kinase SMG1, which catalytic activity can be inhibited with the SMG1 inhibitor SMG1i, a small molecule that functions as an ATP-competitive inhibitor and binds to the active site of SMG1. We wanted to assess the transcriptome-wide expression changes upon inhibition of SMG1. To this end, we treated human foreskin fibroblast (HFF) and human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVEC) with 1 µM SMG1i inhibitor for 24h. As controls, cells were treated with DMSO for 24h.
Project description:UPF1 is a multi-domain RNA helicase that constantly monitors the transcriptome by non-specifically binding to mRNAs, dissociating from non-target transcripts, and initiating degradation on selected target RNAs via multiple proposed pathways such as nonsense-mediated decay (NMD). NMD is a translation-coupled mechanism that targets mRNAs harboring a premature stop codon (PTC) for degradation, thereby serving as a quality control and gene regulatory pathway ensuring transcriptome integrity. The UPF1 gene is essential in cultured human cells and previous studies relied mostly on RNA interference to downregulate UPF1. Here we established an auxin-inducible UPF1 degron system in the human colorectal adenocarcinoma cell line HCT116 by first inserting the auxin receptor F-box protein-encoding AtAFB2-mCherry in the AAVS1 locus, followed by tagging UPF1 at the N-terminus or C-terminus with an V5-AID-tag (AID = miniIAA7 = AtIAA7 amino acids 37–104). With these cell lines we wanted to assess the transcriptome-wide expression changes upon rapid depletion of UPF1, estimate the effects of auxin treatment and compare N-terminal versus C-terminal tagging. To this end, depletion of UPF1 was induced with 500 µM indole-3-acetic acid (IAA) for various time periods (0-12h). As controls, the parental cell line (with AtAFB2-mCherry in the AAVS1 locus) or untreated cells were used.
Project description:To check cyd-1-dependent gene expression changes in different genetic backgrounds. We have collected the synchronized late L4 worms and isolated the total RNA and performed mRNA sequencing.
Project description:We generated human induced pluripotent cells from intellectual disability patients carrying the c.2T>C mutation in KDM5C (Called “Mutant”). We generated a paired, isogenic human iPS cell line (called “Corrected”) using CRISPR/Cas9 and PiggyBac gene-editing technologies and conducted neuronal differentiation based on “Yichen Shi et al. Nat. Protoc. 7, 1836–1846 (2012)” to define differences in gene expression between the Mutant and Corrected during neurodevelopment.