Functional apoptosis profiling identifies MCL-1 and BCL-xL as prognostic markers and therapeutic targets in advanced thymomas and thymic carcinomas.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Multi-omics studies have shown a high and lack of common driver mutations in most thymomas (TH) and thymic carcinomas (TC) that hamper the development of novel treatment approaches. However, deregulation of apoptosis has been proposed as a common hallmark of TH and TC. BH3 profiling can be utilized to study the readiness of living cancer cells to undergo apoptosis and their dependency on pro-survival BCL-2 family proteins.

Methods

We screened a cohort of 62 TH and TC patient samples for expression of BCL-2 family proteins and used the TC cell line 1889c and native TH for dynamic BH3 profiling and treatment with BH3 mimetics.

Results

Immunohistochemical overexpression of MCL-1 and BCL-xL was a strong prognostic marker of TH and TC, and BH3 profiling indicate

SUBMITTER: Muller D 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8594228 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature