Project description:Diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL) is the most common type of non-Hodgkin lymphomas worldwide and is characterized by a high diversity of genetic and molecular alterations. Chromosomal translocations and mutations leading to deregulated expression of the transcriptional repressor BCL6 occur in a significant fraction of DLBCL patients. An oncogenic role of BCL6 in the initiation of DLBCL has been shown as the constitutive expression of BCL6 in mice recapitulates the pathogenesis of human DLBCL. However, the role of BCL6 in tumor maintenance remains poorly investigated due to the absence of suitable genetic models and limitations of pharmacological inhibitors. Here, we have utilized tetracycline-inducible CRISPR/Cas9 mutagenesis to study the consequences of BCL6 deletion in established DLBCL models in culture and in vivo. We show that BCL6 knock-out in SU-DHL-4 cells in vitro results in an anti-proliferative response 4-7 days after Cas9 induction that was characterized by cell cycle (G1) arrest. Conditional BCL6 deletion in established DLBCL tumors in vivo induced a significant tumor growth inhibition with initial tumor stasis followed by slow tumor growth kinetics. Our findings support a role of BCL6 in the maintenance of lymphoma growth and showcase the utility of inducible CRISPR/Cas9 systems for probing oncogene addiction.
Project description:The aim was to investigate how BCL6 genotype affects Bach2 dependent gene expression changes. We compared gene expression profiles of BCL6+/+ and BCL6-/- BCR-ABL1 transformed pre-B cells after inducible overexpression of Bach2.
Project description:In order to determine BCL6 target genes an EBV negative Burkitt's lymphoma cell line, DG75, was stably transfected with a tetracycline transactivator and tight doxycycline responsive expression of GFP was established. The endogenous BCL6 genes of this cell line were disrupted by homologous recombination and a BCL6 cDNA downstream of tetracycline responsive elements (TRE) was inserted to produce Bcl6-/-:tetBCL6-HA cells. Westerns demonstrated doxycycline dependent BCL6 expression.Bcl6-/-:tet. BCL6-HA cells (clone AB7) were either grown without doxycycline (control) or with 1 ug/ml doxycycline for 16, 48 or 96 hours. Total RNA was extracted using RNeasy minipreps (Qiagen) and concentration and quality were checked on the NanoDrop® ND- 1000 spectrophotometer (NanoDrop Technologies, USA) and the RNA Nano 6000 kit (Agilent Technologies) on a 2100 Bioanalyzer (Agilent Technologies). One hundred ng of total RNA was processed with the GeneChip® Eukaryotic Whole Transcript Sense Target Labelling Assay kit (Affymetrix) according to the manufacturer's details. Hybridisation and scanning of GeneChips® was carried out at the CSC/IC Microarray Centre, MRC Clinical Sciences Centre Imperial College London and data analysis by Bioinformatics Support Service, Imperial College London. Briefly, pre- processing of data was performed using GeneSpring GX 10.0.2 software (Agilent Technologies) which applied the "Exon RMA16"¸ algorhithm to the data set. Exon RMA16 performs background correction, quantile normalisation, median polish summarisation and variance stabilisation of 16. In background correction, intensity values of each individual array are corrected for non-specific binding by subtracting the average signal intensity of the area between spots from each probe set. Normalisation is required so multiple chips can be compared to each other. Quantile normalisation adjusts the distribution of probe intensity of each array analysed and so that the distribution of probe intensities for each array in a set of arrays is the same. Probe summarisation refers to the conversion of probe level values (there are approximately 26 probes per gene on each GeneChip®) to a single probe set expression value. Variance stabilisation of 16 refers to the addition of the value 16 to the expression values. By increasing the expression value, the variance of the data set is reduced and the distribution (defined by its mean and its variance) is stabilised.
Project description:Molecular distinctions between the stasis and telomere attrition senescence barriers in cultured human mammary epithelial cells Normal human epithelial cells in culture have generally shown a limited proliferative potential of ~10-40 population doublings before encountering a stress-associated senescence barrier (stasis) associated with elevated levels of cyclin-dependent kinase inhibitors p16 and/or p21. We now show that simple changes in media composition can expand the proliferative potential of human mammary epithelial cells (HMEC) initiated as primary cultures to 50-60 population doublings, followed by p16(+), senescence-associated b-galactosidase(+) stasis. We compared the properties of growing and senescent pre-stasis HMEC with growing and senescent post-selection HMEC, i.e., cells grown in a serum-free medium that overcame stasis via silencing of p16 expression and that display senescence associated with telomere dysfunction. Cultured pre-stasis populations contained cells expressing markers associated with luminal and myoepithelial HMEC lineages in vivo, in contrast to the basal-like phenotype of the post-selection HMEC. Gene transcript and protein expression, DNA damage-associated markers, mean TRF length, and genomic stability, differed significantly between HMEC populations at the stasis vs. telomere attrition senescence barriers. Senescent isogenic fibroblasts showed greater similarity to HMEC at stasis than at telomere attrition, although their gene transcript profile was distinct from HMEC at both senescence barriers. These studies support our model of the senescence barriers encountered by cultured HMEC in which the first barrier, stasis, is Rb-mediated and independent of telomere length, while a second barrier (agonescence or crisis) results from telomere attrition leading to telomere dysfunction. Additionally, the ability to maintain long-term growth of genomically stable multi-lineage pre-stasis HMEC populations can greatly enhance experimentation with normal HMEC. 48 samples from Human Mammary Epithelial cells which includes samples from four different individuals at different passage levels which includes prestasis,intermediate,post selection and agonesence stages of cell cycle.
Project description:Molecular distinctions between the stasis and telomere attrition senescence barriers in cultured human mammary epithelial cells Normal human epithelial cells in culture have generally shown a limited proliferative potential of ~10-40 population doublings before encountering a stress-associated senescence barrier (stasis) associated with elevated levels of cyclin-dependent kinase inhibitors p16 and/or p21. We now show that simple changes in media composition can expand the proliferative potential of human mammary epithelial cells (HMEC) initiated as primary cultures to 50-60 population doublings, followed by p16(+), senescence-associated b-galactosidase(+) stasis. We compared the properties of growing and senescent pre-stasis HMEC with growing and senescent post-selection HMEC, i.e., cells grown in a serum-free medium that overcame stasis via silencing of p16 expression and that display senescence associated with telomere dysfunction. Cultured pre-stasis populations contained cells expressing markers associated with luminal and myoepithelial HMEC lineages in vivo, in contrast to the basal-like phenotype of the post-selection HMEC. Gene transcript and protein expression, DNA damage-associated markers, mean TRF length, and genomic stability, differed significantly between HMEC populations at the stasis vs. telomere attrition senescence barriers. Senescent isogenic fibroblasts showed greater similarity to HMEC at stasis than at telomere attrition, although their gene transcript profile was distinct from HMEC at both senescence barriers. These studies support our model of the senescence barriers encountered by cultured HMEC in which the first barrier, stasis, is Rb-mediated and independent of telomere length, while a second barrier (agonescence or crisis) results from telomere attrition leading to telomere dysfunction. Additionally, the ability to maintain long-term growth of genomically stable multi-lineage pre-stasis HMEC populations can greatly enhance experimentation with normal HMEC.
Project description:Most small-molecule protein degraders act as interface stabilizers ‘molecular glues’ between E3 ubiquitin ligases and target proteins to induce ternary complex formation and ubiquitin-dependent target protein degradation. Here we report polymerization as a novel mechanism for small molecule-induced degradation. Using functional screens in combination with molecular and biochemical assays, we found that BI-3802, which binds to the BTB domain of the oncogenic transcription factor BCL6, induces polymerization of BCL6 into regular helical structures in vitro and foci in vivo. Polymerization precedes degradation by the SIAH1 E3 ubiquitin ligase. Hereby, a VxP amino acid motif on BCL6, distal from the drug-binding BTB domain, is required for SIAH1 binding, ubiquitination and BI-3802-induced degradation. Our findings propose that small molecule-induced polymerization is not only a new modality for targeted protein degradation, but also provides synthetic biology with a tool for tunable protein polymerization and opens new avenues for future drug design.
Project description:Qi deficiency blood stasis (QDBS) and Yin deficiency blood stasis (YDBS) are the two major subtypes of which according to the traditional Chinese medicine. This study was conducted to distinguish these two syndromes at transcriptomics level and explore the underlying mechanisms.
Project description:We aimed to identify the response mechanism to EGFR tyrosine kinase inhibition. A431 cells were transfected with mock siRNA or BCL6 siRNA. Cells were then treated with gefitinib. Harvesting was done at 0h, at 24h and at 48h. Two TMT10plex sets were organized as follows: TMT set1: mock 0h (3x, channels 126, 127N and 127C), mock 24h (3x, 128N, 128C and 129N), mock 48h (3x, 129C, 130N, 130C) and internal pooled standard (131) composed from equal aliquots of all samples (mock siRNA and BCL6 siRNA). TMT set2: siBCL6 0h (3x, channels 126, 127N and 127C), siBCL6 24h (3x, 128N, 128C and 129N), siBCL6 48h (3x, 129C, 130N, 130C) and the same internal pooled standard (131) as for set 1.
Project description:In traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), blood stasis syndrome (BSS) is mainly manifested by the increase of blood viscosity, platelet adhesion rate and aggregation, and the change of microcirculation, resulting in vascular endothelial injury. It is an important factor in the development of diabetes mellitus (DM). According to the differences in the internal and external environment of the individual disease, BSS were divided into qi-deficiency and blood stasis syndrome (QDBS), qi-stagnation and blood stasis syndrome (QSBS), cold-coagulation and blood stasis syndrome (CCBS), heat-accumulation and blood stasis syndrome (HABS). The aim of this study was to screen out the potential candidate mRNAs in DM patients with BSS by high-throughput sequencing (HTS) and bioinformatics analysis. CRL-1730 human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVECs) were incubated with 10% human serum to establish models of DM with BSS, DM without BSS (NBS) and normal control (NC). Total RNA of each sample was extracted and sequenced by the Hiseq2000 platform. Differentially expressed mRNAs (DE-mRNAs) were screened between samples. On the basis of mRNA expression profiles, four comparisons were made, including QDBS vs NBS and NC, QSBS vs NBS and NC, CCBS vs NBS and NC, HABS vs NBS and NC. Then, comparisons with P values <0.05 (Fisher's exact test), false discovery rates (FDR) <0.01 and |log2 ratios|≥1 were considered as DE-mRNAs in BSS. This study screened out the DE-mRNAs in DM patients with BSS by HTS and bioinformatics analysis.