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Transcriptional characterization of primary tumors and liver metastasis from 4T1-derived liver-metastatic cells

ABSTRACT: Metabolic rewiring is essential for breast tumor growth and progression to metastatic disease, yet little is known regarding how cancer cells modify their acquired metabolic programs in response to different metastatic microenvironments. Transcriptional and metabolomic analysis have previously shown that liver-metastatic breast cancer cells adopt an intrinsic metabolic profile characterized by increased HIF-1α activity and dependence on glycolysis. Stable isotope tracing analysis (SITA) performed in vivo confirmed that the glycolytic nature of liver-metastatic breast cancer cells is retained when these cells are grown as primary tumors or as liver metastases. However, our data also reveal that unique metabolic adaptations are specifically induced by the liver microenvironment. Indeed, liver metastases display elevated expression of genes involved in glutathione (GSH) biosynthesis and reactive oxygen species (ROS) detoxification when compared to primary tumors. Moreover, breast cancer liver metastases rely strongly on glucose and glutamine-derived carbons to support de novo GSH synthesis. Glutathione is a tripeptide that acts as a major scavenger for reactive oxygen species (ROS). Liver metastases display reduced levels of 8-Oxo-2'-deoxyguanosine, confirming their increased capacity to buffer ROS. We demonstrated the dependence of liver metastases formation on these distinct metabolic adaptations by depleting glutamate-cysteine ligase (Gcl), the rate-limiting enzyme in glutathione biosynthesis. Gcl depletion, and decreased GSH levels, strongly reduced the capacity of liver-metastatic cells to form distant metastasis within the liver. We performed gene expression analysis of liver metastasis and primary tumors from liver-metastatic breast cancer cells derived from 4T1 cells. 4T1-2776 (76) and 4T1-2792 (92) cells were injected in the mammary fat pads of BALB/c and grown as primary tumors or were grown as liver metastasis after splenic injection. Tissues were harvested from primary tumors and liver metastasis and submitted to laser-capture microdissection (LCM). For liver metastasis, tumour tissue was harvested at 10 days, 2 weeks and 3 weeks after splenic injection. For each time point, tissue was isolated from the tumor centre (core), a peripheral area of the tumor (margin), a region of the liver proximal to the tumor (adjacent) and a region of the liver far from the tumor (distant). For primary tumors from 4T1-2776 cells (1034, 1036, 1043) and 4T1-2792 (MFP2L, MFP3L, MFP5L) tissue was collected from the tumor core and margin, at the experimental endpoint.

ORGANISM(S): Mus musculus

PROVIDER: GSE238214 | GEO | 2023/07/25

REPOSITORIES: GEO

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Project description:Breast cancer cells display preferences for specific metastatic sites including the bone, lung and liver. Metastasis is a complex process that relies, in part, on interactions between disseminated cancer cells and resident/infiltrating stromal cells that constitute the metastatic microenvironment. Distinct immune infiltrates can either impair the metastatic process or conversely, assist in the seeding, colonization and growth of disseminated cancer cells. Using in vivo selection approaches, we previously isolated 4T1-derived breast cancer cells that preferentially metastasize to these organs and tissues. In this study, we examined whether the propensity of breast cancer cells to metastasize to the lung, liver or bone is associated with and dependent on distinct patterns of immune cell infiltration. Immunohistocytochemistry and immunohistofluorescence approaches were used to quantify granulocytic infiltrates within distinct metastases and depletion of Gr1+ cells was performed to functionally interrogate the role of myeloid/granulocytic infiltrates in promoting metastasis to these organs. We show that T lymphocytes (CD3+), myeloid-derived/granulocytic cells (Gr-1+) cells and neutrophils (NE+) exhibit the most pronounced recruitment in lung and liver metastases, with markedly less recruitment within bone metastatic lesions. Interestingly, these infiltrating cell populations display different patterns of localization within soft tissue metastases. T lymphocytes and neutrophils are localized around the periphery of liver metastases whereas they were dispersed throughout the lung metastases. Furthermore, Gr-1+ cell-depletion studies demonstrate that infiltrating myeloid-derived/granulocytic cells, including neutrophils, are essential for the formation of breast cancer liver metastases but dispensable for metastasis to the lung and bone. Finally, we demonstrate that neutrophils that infiltrate and surround the liver metastases are polarized towards an N2 phenotype, which have previously been shown to enhance tumor growth and metastasis. Our results demonstrate that the liver metastatic potential of breast cancer cells is heavily reliant on interactions with infiltrating myeloid/granulocytic cells in the liver microenvironment.

Project description:Background:Breast cancer is the second most frequent type of cancer affecting women. We are increasingly aware that changes in mRNA splicing are associated with various characteristics of cancer. The most deadly aspect of cancer is metastasis, the process by which cancer spreads from the primary tumor to distant organs. However, little is known specifically about the involvement of alternative splicing in the formation of macroscopic metastases. Our study investigates transcript isoform changes that characterize tumors of different abilities to form growing metastases. Results:To identify alternative splicing events (ASEs) that are associated with the fully metastatic phenotype in breast cancer, we used Affymetrix Exon Microarrays to profile mRNA isoform variations genome-wide in weakly metastatic (168FARN and 4T07) and highly metastatic (4T1) mammary carcinomas. Statistical analysis identified significant expression changes in 7606 out of 155,994 (4%) exons and in 1725 out of 189,460 (1%) intronic regions, which affect 2623 out of 16,654 (16%) genes. These changes correspond to putative alternative isoforms - several of which are novel - that are differentially expressed between tumors of varying metastatic phenotypes. Gene pathway analysis showed that 1224 of genes expressing alternative isoforms were involved in cell growth, cell interactions, cell proliferation, cell migration and cell death and have been previously linked to cancers and genetic disorders. We chose ten predicted splice variants for RT-PCR validation, eight of which were successfully confirmed (MED24, MFI2, SRRT, CD44, CLK1 and HNRNPH1). These include three novel intron retentions in CD44, a gene in which isoform variations have been previously associated with the metastasis of several cancers. Conclusions:Our findings reveal that various genes are differently spliced and/or expressed in association with the metastatic phenotype of tumor cells. Identification of metastasis-specific isoforms may contribute to the development of improved breast cancer stage identification and targeted therapies. Keywords: Seek pre-mRNA changes associated with the fully metastatic phenotype in breast cancer We used RNA tumor tissues derived from three murine mammary carcinoma cell lines (168FARN, 4T07 and 4T1); four biological replicates of 168FARN, four biological replicates of 4T07, and four biological replicates of 4T1 were hybridized independently at McGill university site.

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Transcriptional characterization of primary tumors and liver metastasis from 4T1-derived liver-metastatic cells

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