Project description:The airway epithelium of asthmatics is characterized by intrinsically abnormal wound repair that may contribute to disease pathobiology. In this study, we show that in asthma, the airway epithelial cells at the leading edge of a wound display aberrant migration patterns, reduced expression of α5 and β1 integrin subunits at baseline and during wound repair, resulting in dysregulated cell migration and an inability to fully repair. Transcriptional profiling identified the PI3K/Akt signaling pathway as the top upstream transcriptional regulator of integrin α5β1. Significantly, activation of Akt signaling enhanced airway epithelial repair in cultures derived from asthmatic children via upregulation of α5 and β1 integrin subunits. Conversely, inhibition of the PI3K/Akt signaling pathway in airway epithelial cultures from non-asthmatic children attenuated epithelial repair and reduced α5 and β1 integrin expression. Importantly, the FDA-approved drug celecoxib, and its non-COX2 inhibitory analogue dimethyl-celecoxib, also stimulated the PI3K/Akt/integrin α5β1 axis and restored airway epithelial repair in cells from asthmatics. Thus, targeting the PI3K/Akt pathway may represent a novel therapeutic avenue for asthma.
Project description:Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is a leading cause of blindness in the developed world. In this study we investigated changes in differentated human retinal pigmented epithelial (RPE) cells to acute compared to chronic wounding. There are many interesting phenotypic and transcriptomic changes that occur after chronic wounding compared to acute wounding conditions which may have implications for AMD.
Project description:Purpose: Primary cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) can be an invasive cancer in skin and has the potential to metastasize. We aimed to define the cancer related molecular changes that distinguish non-invasive from invasive SCC. Experimental design: We used laser capture microdissection technique in combination with cDNA microarray analysis in order to determine molecular changes that associate with SCC progression. Results: We defined invasion-associated genes as those udifferentially regulated only in SCC invasive nests, but not in actinic keratosis-like dysplasia or SCC in situ regions, compared to normal epidermis. We designated these genes as “invasion signature gene set of cutaneous SCC”. Overall we found 383 up- and 354 down-regulated probe-sets that constitute the invasion signature gene set. As part of this profile, SCC invasion is associated with aberrant gene expression changes of numerous MMPs including MMP7 (FCH=5.43, FDR<0.01) and MMP13 (FCH=12.53, FDR<0.01). IL-24 is also up-regulated in the leading invasive edge of SCC (FCH=6.74, FDR<0.01). IL-24 enhanced mRNA expression of both MMP7 and MMP13 in a human SCC cell line. Laminin332, which is one of the target molecules of MMP7, had altered expression at the leading edge of SCC invasion nests at both the genomic and protein level. Conclusions: We defined the distribution of MMPs within human cutaneous SCC tissue showing distinct expression with progression from normal skin to actinic keratosis to SCC in situ to invasive carcinoma. We further suggest a potential role for IL-24 in progression to invasion via MMP7 and MMP13. Laser capture microdissection was performed on 5 cases of actinic keratosis, 5 cases of in situ SCC, and 5 cases of invasive SCC.
Project description:Clinical outcomes for patients with glioblastoma (GBM) are extremely poor due to inevitable tumor recurrence even after extensive treatments. These recurrences are thought to manifest from cells located within the tumor edge. Despite this, the precise molecular mechanism governing GBM spatial phenotypic heterogeneity (e.g. edge vs. core) and subsequent tumor recurrence remains poorly elucidated. Here, using patient-derived GBM core and edge tissues, we analyzed transcriptional and metabolic signatures in an effort to determine how GBM facilitates the edge phenotype and its associated recurrence-initiating cells (RICs). In so doing, we unexpectedly identified CD38 as an essential protein in the formation of the edge phenotype and found a CD38-driven interaction between edge GBM cells and neighboring astrocytes that communally develops a GBM edge that is unresectable by surgery and retains RICs.
Project description:The full complement of hair follicles is generated during embryogenesis. Normally, no new hair is created after this time. Large full thickness skin excision wounding can result in the generation of new hair in the adult. Placodes can be observed following complete reepithelialization at wound day 14. The events leading to hair neogenesis following wounding remain poorly understood. Late healing events (from wound day 10 to wound day 14) provide a possible window of induction for hair regeneration. We used microarrays to analyse changes in gene expression during late skin healing to provide candidates for factors involved in hair neogenesis following wounding.
Project description:Purpose: Primary cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) can be an invasive cancer in skin and has the potential to metastasize. We aimed to define the cancer related molecular changes that distinguish non-invasive from invasive SCC. Experimental design: We used laser capture microdissection technique in combination with cDNA microarray analysis in order to determine molecular changes that associate with SCC progression. Results: We defined invasion-associated genes as those udifferentially regulated only in SCC invasive nests, but not in actinic keratosis-like dysplasia or SCC in situ regions, compared to normal epidermis. We designated these genes as “invasion signature gene set of cutaneous SCC”. Overall we found 383 up- and 354 down-regulated probe-sets that constitute the invasion signature gene set. As part of this profile, SCC invasion is associated with aberrant gene expression changes of numerous MMPs including MMP7 (FCH=5.43, FDR<0.01) and MMP13 (FCH=12.53, FDR<0.01). IL-24 is also up-regulated in the leading invasive edge of SCC (FCH=6.74, FDR<0.01). IL-24 enhanced mRNA expression of both MMP7 and MMP13 in a human SCC cell line. Laminin332, which is one of the target molecules of MMP7, had altered expression at the leading edge of SCC invasion nests at both the genomic and protein level. Conclusions: We defined the distribution of MMPs within human cutaneous SCC tissue showing distinct expression with progression from normal skin to actinic keratosis to SCC in situ to invasive carcinoma. We further suggest a potential role for IL-24 in progression to invasion via MMP7 and MMP13.
Project description:Here we report the RNAseq data, related to wounding stress caused for resin production. We extracted RNA from the stem of B. sacra plant collected after 0 day and 30 min of wounding stress (two biological replicates) using the Pure Link Plant RNA reagent kit (Life Technologies, USA) with some modifications and in-house developed HMW RNA extraction method. The de novo assembled transcripts of B. sacra were annotated by performing a BLAST search with the software Blast2GO v.2.6.0 (Conesa et al., 2005). The BLASTx search was done with cut-off E-values of 1.0e−1 and 1.0e−3 against the non-redundant protein sequence database. The same software was used to obtain the gene ontology (GO) information for the assembled transcripts describing different biological processes, molecular function and cellular components.
Project description:The full complement of hair follicles is generated during embryogenesis. Normally, no new hair is created after this time. Large full thickness skin excision wounding can result in the generation of new hair in the adult. Placodes can be observed following complete reepithelialization at wound day 14. The events leading to hair neogenesis following wounding remain poorly understood. Late healing events (from wound day 10 to wound day 14) provide a possible window of induction for hair regeneration. We used microarrays to analyse changes in gene expression during late skin healing to provide candidates for factors involved in hair neogenesis following wounding. 6 week old C57Bl/6 mice received large full thickness skin excisions. Healing wound tissue was excised at wound day 10, 12 or 14 and analyzed for gene expression.