Project description:Post-radiation sarcomas are rare secondary cancers arising from radiation therapies. To date, few genetic specificities have been described for such malignancies and the oncogenesis of sarcomas with complex genetics (both sporadic and post-radiation) remains largely misunderstood. We performed genomic analyses on both sporadic and post-radiation sarcomas to study their copy-number alterations. This analysis is described in Lesluyes et al. 2019 (PMID: 31243333).
Project description:We performed RNA sequencing on secondary sarcomas, arising from previous radiation therapies. We investigated whether such radiation-induced tumours harbour specific genomic and/or transcriptomic alterations compared to sporadic (primary) sarcomas.
Project description:Purpose: Patients with advanced soft-tissue sarcomas (STSs) exhibit a poor prognosis and have few therapeutic options. DNA-dependent protein kinase catalytic subunit (DNA-PK) is a multifunctional serine—threonine protein kinase that plays a crucial role in DNA double-strand damage repair via nonhomologous end joining (NHEJ). Experimental design: To investigate the therapeutic potential of DNA-PK targeting in STS, we first evaluated the prognostic value of DNA-PK expression in two large cohorts of patients with STS. We then used the potent and selective DNA-PK inhibitor AZD7648 compound to investigate the antitumor effect of the pharmacological inhibition of DNA-PK in vitro via MTT, apoptosis, cell cycle, and proliferation assays. In vivo studies were performed with patient-derived xenograft models to evaluate the effects of AZD7648 in combination with chemotherapy or ionizing radiation on tumor growth. The mechanisms of sensitivity and resistance to DNA-PK inhibition were investigated by using a genome-wide CRISPR-Cas9 positive screen. Results: DNA-PK overexpression is significantly associated with poor prognosis in patients with sarcomas. Selective pharmacological inhibition of DNA-PK strongly synergizes with radiation- and doxorubicin-based regimen in sarcoma models. By using a genome-wide CRISPR-Cas9 positive screen, we identified genes involved in sensitivity to DNA-PK inhibition. Conclusion: DNA-PK inhibition deserves clinical investigation to improve response to current therapies in patients with sarcoma
Project description:Abstract: Despite impressive responses in some patients, immunotherapy fails to cure most cancer patients. Preclinical studies indicate that radiotherapy synergizes with immunotherapy, promoting radiation-induced antitumor immunity. Nearly all preclinical immunotherapy studies utilize transplant tumor models, but cure rates of transplant tumors treated with immunotherapy overestimate patient responses. Here, we show that transplant sarcomas are cured by PD-1 blockade and radiotherapy, but identical treatment fails in autochthonous sarcomas, which demonstrate tumor-specific immune tolerance. We characterize tumor-infiltrating immune cells from transplant and primary tumors and reveal striking differences in their immune landscapes. Although radiotherapy remodels myeloid cells in primary and transplant sarcomas, only transplant tumors are enriched for activated CD8+ T cells associated with tumor clearance. By CIBERSORTx, the immune microenvironment of primary sarcomas in mice transcriptionally resembles most human sarcomas, while transplant sarcomas model the most inflamed sarcomas in patients. These results identify distinct microenvironments in murine sarcomas that coevolve with the immune system and suggest that patients whose sarcomas have an immune phenotype similar to transplant tumors may benefit most from PD-1 blockade and radiotherapy.
Project description:Thyroid gland is among the most sensitive organs to ionizing radiation. Whether low-dose radiation-induced papillary thyroid cancer (PTC) differs from sporadic PTC is yet unknown. We used microarrays to identify gene signature of radiation-induced papillary thyroid carcinomas