Project description:The ASAC trial is a Scandinavian, multi-center, double-blinded, randomized, placebo-controlled study to determine whether adjuvant treatment with low-dose acetylsalicylic acid (ASA) can improve disease free survival in patients treated with resection for colorectal cancer liver metastases (CRCLM).
Several studies have shown beneficial effect of ASA on primary prevention of CRC and the investigators group and others have shown a potential association of ASA also taken after the diagnosis on CRC survival in registry-based studies (secondary prevention). Up to 800 patients operated for CRCLM will be randomized to Arm#1 ASA 160 mg once daily or Arm#2 Placebo for a period of 3 years or till disease recurrence. The patients will be treated and followed up according to standard of care and the National Guidelines.
The ASAC trial will be the first clinical interventional trial to assess the beneficial role of ASA in recurrence of CRC liver metastases and survival. ASA is an inexpensive, well tolerated, and easily accessible drug that will be highly potential as adjuvant drug in secondary prevention of CRC liver metastases if the study shows a beneficial effect. This trial will also investigate the effect of ASA as adjuvant treatment on Health-related Quality of Life and the cost-effectiveness.
Project description:RATIONALE: Chemoprevention therapy is the use of certain drugs to try to prevent the development or recurrence of cancer. The use of aspirin and/or folic acid may be effective in preventing recurrent polyps in patients who have had polyps removed previously.
PURPOSE: Randomized clinical trial to determine the effectiveness of aspirin and/or folic acid in preventing the recurrence of colorectal polyps.
Project description:The objectives of this study were to measure effects of an aspirin intervention on gene expression in normal colonic epithelial and stromal tissue in healthy humans and to determine whether response differed by UGT1A6*2 genotype. We also sought to characterize gene expression differences within colonic tissue microenvironments by identifying genes that were differentially expressed between epithelial and stromal tissue. No statistically significant differences in gene expression were observed in response to aspirin or UGT1A6 genotype, but tissue PGE2 levels were lower with aspirin compared to placebo (p <0.001). Transcripts differentially expressed between epithelium and stroma (N = 4916, P <0.01, false discovery rate <0.001), included a high proportion of genes involved in cell signaling, cellular movement, and cancer. Genes preferentially expressed in epithelium were involved in drug and xenobiotic metabolism, fatty acid and lipid metabolism, apoptosis signaling, and ion transport. Genes preferentially expressed in stroma included those involved in inflammation, cellular adhesion, and extracellular matrix production. Wnt-Tcf4 pathway genes were expressed in both epithelium and stroma but differed by subcellular location. Our results suggest that, in healthy individuals, subtle effects of aspirin on gene expression in normal colon tissue are likely overwhelmed by inter-individual variability in microarray analyses. Differential expression of critical genes between colonic epithelium and stroma suggest that these tissue types need to be considered separately.
Project description:Primary objectives: This is a multi-centre, double-blinded, randomized, placebo-controlled clinical intervention trial with acetylsalicylic acid (ASA, Trombyl) in patients undergoing liver resection for colorectal cancer liver metastasis (CRCLM). The main objective is to determine whether treatment with 160 mg ASA (Trombyl) once daily for 3 years can improve Disease FreeSurvival (DFS) in patients treated with resection for CRCLM, compared with placebo.
Primary endpoints: Time from randomisation to disease recurrence (by CT scan or MRI) or death by any cause (DFS).
Project description:Aspirin, or acetylsalicylic acid is widely used to control pain, inflammation and fever. Important to this function is its ability to irreversibly acetylate cyclooxygenases at active site serines. Aspirin has the potential to acetylate other amino-acid side-chains, leading to speculation that aspirin-mediated lysine acetylation could explain some of its drug actions or side-effects. Using a labeled form of aspirin, aspirin-d3, we identified over 12000 sites of lysine acetylation from cultured human cells. Although aspirin amplifies acetylation signals at thousands of sites, cells tolerate aspirin mediated acetylation very well unless endogenous deacetylases are inhibited. Apart from a limited number of cellular proteins that are substantially acetylated under endogenous conditions, aspirin mediated acetylation leads to a large increase in the acetylation of many proteins even although they remain at very low stoichiometry. This reinforces the idea that a major function of cellular deacetylases is the suppression of non-specific or non-enzymatic protein acetylation.
Project description:Aspirin, or acetylsalicylic acid is widely used to control pain, inflammation and fever. An important property of aspirin is its ability to acetylate multiple cellular proteins with some pharmacological functions explicable by the irreversible acetylation of cyclooxygenases at active site serine residues. We have used a labeled form of aspirin, aspirin-d3 to acetylate proteins in cultured human cells, and unambiguously identified over 12000 sites of acetylation, using acetylated lysine peptide enrichment combined with mass-spectrometry-based proteomics. Aspirin increases lysine acetylation occupancy of the majority of detected endogenous sites, but leaves almost unchanged a small group that are already highly acetylated. We show that cells are remarkably tolerant of this acetylation insult unless endogenous deacetylases are inhibited. This work raises the possibility that rather than single protein effects, some of the clinical features of aspirin may be the consequence of multiple concurrent protein modifications, and that combining aspirin with lysine deacetylase inhibitors may have important medical implications.
Project description:Ovarian cancer is the deadliest gynaecologic malignancies worldwide. Platinum based chemotherapy is the mainstay treatment for ovarian cancer; however, frequent recurrence and chemoresistance onset in patients with advanced diseases remain a therapeutic challenge. Although mechanisms underlying the development of chemoresistance are still ambiguous, the B-cell lymphoma-2 (Bcl-2) family is closely associated with chemoresistance in ovarian cancer. We previously disclosed that Zeta-Crystallin (CryZ) is a post-transcriptional regulator of Bcl-2 gene expression, by binding to Bcl-2 mRNA and increasing its half-life. Here, we investigated the role of CryZ as a novel therapeutic target in A2780 ovarian carcinoma cells by modulating the protein activity with acetylsalicylic acid (ASA) to restore chemosensitivity. Molecular docking and fragment-mapping based approach revealed potential interaction of ASA within CryZ protein. Inhibition of CryZ binding activity to Bcl-2 and Bcl-xl mRNA targets by ASA was demonstrated in A375 cells. Cytotoxicity assays were conducted in A2780S and A2780R ovarian cancer cells to evaluate if CryZ binding activity inhibition and CryZ silencing were able to reverse cisplatin resistance. ASA-treatment determined a downregulation of Bcl-2 and Bcl-xl mRNA levels in A2780S and A2780R cells. ASA-treatment or CryZ silencing were able to increase and restore the chemosensitivity in both sensitive and resistant A2780 ovarian cancer cells, respectively. In this research article we demonstrated that the pharmacological or genetic inhibition of CryZ restores the sensitivity to cisplatin in a model of sensitive or resistant ovarian cancer cells. These findings suggest a new gene-targeted chemotherapeutic approach to restore the cytotoxicity in drug-resistant ovarian cancers and increase the sensitivity in non-resistant cells.
Project description:Aspirin, or acetylsalicylic acid is widely used to control pain, inflammation and fever. Important to this function is its ability to irreversibly acetylate cyclooxygenases at active site serines. Aspirin has the potential to acetylate other amino-acid side-chains, leading to speculation that aspirin-mediated lysine acetylation could explain some of its drug actions or side-effects. Using a labeled form of aspirin, aspirin-d3, we identified over 12000 sites of lysine acetylation from cultured human cells. Although aspirin amplifies acetylation signals at thousands of sites, cells tolerate aspirin mediated acetylation very well unless endogenous deacetylases are inhibited. Apart from a limited number of cellular proteins that are substantially acetylated under endogenous conditions, aspirin mediated acetylation leads to a large increase in the acetylation of many proteins even although they remain at very low stoichiometry. This reinforces the idea that a major function of cellular deacetylases is the suppression of non-specific or non-enzymatic protein acetylation.
Project description:Cholangiocarcinoma (CCA) has high recurrence rates that severely limit long-term survival. Effective tools for accurate recurrence monitoring and diagnosis remain lacking. Metabolic reprogramming, a key driver of CCA growth and recurrence, is underutilized in cancer screening and management. This study aimed to identify metabolite-based biomarkers to evaluate recurrence severity, enhance disease management, and elucidate the molecular mechanisms underlying CCA recurrence.
Project description:The objectives of this study were to measure effects of an aspirin intervention on gene expression in normal colonic epithelial and stromal tissue in healthy humans and to determine whether response differed by UGT1A6*2 genotype. We also sought to characterize gene expression differences within colonic tissue microenvironments by identifying genes that were differentially expressed between epithelial and stromal tissue. No statistically significant differences in gene expression were observed in response to aspirin or UGT1A6 genotype, but tissue PGE2 levels were lower with aspirin compared to placebo (p <0.001). Transcripts differentially expressed between epithelium and stroma (N = 4916, P <0.01, false discovery rate <0.001), included a high proportion of genes involved in cell signaling, cellular movement, and cancer. Genes preferentially expressed in epithelium were involved in drug and xenobiotic metabolism, fatty acid and lipid metabolism, apoptosis signaling, and ion transport. Genes preferentially expressed in stroma included those involved in inflammation, cellular adhesion, and extracellular matrix production. Wnt-Tcf4 pathway genes were expressed in both epithelium and stroma but differed by subcellular location. Our results suggest that, in healthy individuals, subtle effects of aspirin on gene expression in normal colon tissue are likely overwhelmed by inter-individual variability in microarray analyses. Differential expression of critical genes between colonic epithelium and stroma suggest that these tissue types need to be considered separately. In a randomized, cross-over, placebo-controlled trial of 44 healthy men and women, homozygous for UGT1A6*1 or UGT1A6*2, we explored differences between global epithelial and stromal expression, using Affymetrix U133 + 2.0 microarrays and tested effects of 60-day aspirin supplementation (325 mg/d) on epithelial and stromal gene expression and colon prostaglandin E2 (PGE2) levels Participants were randomly assigned, blocked on sex and genotype, to the order in which they received treatment A or treatment B. (Note: The type of treatment i.e., pill type active or placebo is masked. Please contact the study authors directly if you would like access to this information). The washout period between intervention periods was three months. A sigmoidoscopy was performed at least 60 days after day 1 of each intervention period. Therefore, two biopsies were obtained from each participant and then processed, where by, epithelial and stromal fractions were separated and analyzed using Affymetrix U133+2.0 microarrays. This resulted in obtaining total RNA from 88 epithelial and and 88 matched stromal samples. A total of 176 gene arrays were measured. Participants were labeled consecutively. There are 4 samples from each person designated A1-A4 (participant 1); A5-A6 (participant 2); B1-B4 (participant 3) etc. to W1-W4 (participant 44). Within each person, odd numbers (1 & 3) are epithelial tissue and even numbers (2 & 4) are stromal tissue. The epithelial and stroma from each intervention period are paired together (e.g., A1 & A2 are from the first treatment Participant 1 received; A3 & A4 are from the second treatment Participant 1 received).