Project description:MMTV-PyVT Mammary tumors were harvested from PyVT-wild-type (WT), PyVT-Nr4a1 knockout (KO) littermates on a congenic FVB/NJ background,minced and incubated with collagenase type I digestion solution .The digested Mammary tumor cells were collected and maintained in DMEM medium containing 10% FBS for 24 hour.
Project description:The project analyzed 88 breast cancer clinical samples, including lymph node negative and positive primary tumors, lymph node metastases, and healthy tissue as control. All samples were combined with a super-SILAC mix that served as an internal standard for quantification.
Project description:Introduction: The prognosis for patients with breast tumor metastases to brain is extremely poor. Identification of prognostic molecular markers of the metastatic process is critical for designing therapeutic modalities for reducing the occurrence of metastasis. Although ubiquitously present in most human organs, calcium-activated potassium (BK) channel is significantly upregulated in breast cancer cells. In this study we investigated the role of KCNMA1 gene, which encodes α subunit of KCa channels (BK channels) in breast cancer metastasis and invasion. Methods: We performed Global exon array to study the expression of KCNMA1 in metastatic breast cancer in brain, compared its expression in primary breast cancer and breast cancers metastatic to other organs, and validated the findings by RT-PCR. Immunohistochemistry was performed to study the expression and localization of α subunit of KCa channel protein in primary and metastatic breast cancer tissues and breast cancer cell lines. We performed matrigel invasion, transendothelial migration and membrane potential assays in established lines of normal breast cells (MCF-10A), non-metastatic breast cancer (MCF-7), non-brain metastatic breast cancer cells (MDA-MB-231), and brain-specific metastatic breast cancer cells (MDA-MB-361) to study whether KCa channel inhibition attenuates breast tumor invasion and metastasis using KCNMA1 knockdown with siRNA and biochemical inhibition with IBTX (Iberiotoxin). Results: The Global exon array and RT-PCR showed higher KCNMA1 expression in metastatic breast cancer in brain compared to metastatic breast cancers in other organs. Our results clearly show that metastatic breast cancer cells exhibit increased BK channel activity, leading to greater invasiveness and transendothelial migration, both of which could be attenuated by blocking KCNMA1. Conclusion: Determining the relative abundance of BK channel over expression in breast cancer metastatic to brain and the mechanism of its action in brain metastasis will provide a unique opportunity to identify and differentiate between low grade breast tumors that are at high risk for metastasis from those at low risk for metastasis. This distinction would in turn allow for the appropriate and efficient application of effective treatments while sparing patients with low risk for metastasis from the toxic side effects of chemotherapy.
Project description:Activation of transcription enhancers, especially super enhancers, is one of the important epigenetic features of tumorigenesis. However, only very few studies reported how the enhancer landscape evolves during tumorigensis. Here we utilized a proteomics approach and found that H3K27ac and H4K8ac are elevated in the mammary tumor of MMTV-PyVT mouse model, which was then confirmed by IHC results in human BRCA chips. ChIP-seq studies revealed that H4K8ac is highly co-localized with H3K27ac on chromatin, especially on the distal enhancers . We further identified a subgroup of super enhancers which are marked by H3K4me3 peaks in the intergenic regions. These H3K4me3-enriched super enhancers are covered with higher level of H3K27ac and H4K8ac in tumor than normal tissue , and accompanies higher transcription level of the adjacent genes. Combined with global gene expression data, we identified 148 tumor H3K4me3-enriched super enhancer adjacent genes with higher expression in the tumor tissues , which may be critical for breast cancer. We further utilized one inhibitor of p300, C646, to inhibit H3K27ac level, which successfully repressed tumor formation process probably through inhibiting Vegfa and other oncogenes. Taken together, our work identifies novel regulators and provides important resource to the genome-wide enhancer studies in breast cancer, and raises the possibility of cancer treatment through modulating enhancer activity.
Project description:Activation of transcription enhancers, especially super enhancers, is one of the important epigenetic features of tumorigenesis. However, only very few studies reported how the enhancer landscape evolves during tumorigensis. Here we utilized a proteomics approach and found that H3K27ac and H4K8ac are elevated in the mammary tumor of MMTV-PyVT mouse model, which was then confirmed by IHC results in human BRCA chips. ChIP-seq studies revealed that H4K8ac is highly co-localized with H3K27ac on chromatin, especially on the distal enhancers . We further identified a subgroup of super enhancers which are marked by H3K4me3 peaks in the intergenic regions. These H3K4me3-enriched super enhancers are covered with higher level of H3K27ac and H4K8ac in tumor than normal tissue , and accompanies higher transcription level of the adjacent genes. Combined with global gene expression data, we identified 148 tumor H3K4me3-enriched super enhancer adjacent genes with higher expression in the tumor tissues , which may be critical for breast cancer. We further utilized one inhibitor of p300, C646, to inhibit H3K27ac level, which successfully repressed tumor formation process probably through inhibiting Vegfa and other oncogenes. Taken together, our work identifies novel regulators and provides important resource to the genome-wide enhancer studies in breast cancer, and raises the possibility of cancer treatment through modulating enhancer activity.
Project description:We generated large-scale proteome data for 65 human breast tumors and 53 paired adjacent non-cancerous tissue and performed an integrated proteotranscriptomic characterization. To our best knowledge, the study is one of the largest quantitative proteomic study of human breast tissues, including the analysis of 118 tissue samples from 65 patients with long-term survival outcomes. Our data show that protein expression describes a tumor biology that is only partly captured by the transcriptome, with mRNA abundance incompletely predicting protein abundance in tumors, and even less so in non-cancerous tissue. Furthermore, the tumor proteome described disease pathways and subgroups that were only partially captured by the tumor transcriptome.
Project description:Tumor associated miRNAs in hereditary breast cancer. In this study we investigated the role of miRNAs in hereditary breast tumors comparing with normal breast tissue. Global miRNA expression profiling was performed on 22 hereditary breast tumors and 15 non-tumoral breast tissues. We identified 19 miRNAs differentially expressed, most of them down-regulated in tumors. An important proportion of deregulated miRNAs in hereditary tumors were previously identified commonly deregulated in sporadic breast tumors. Our results identify miRNAs associated to hereditary breast cancer, as well as miRNAs commonly miss-expressed in hereditary and sporadic tumors, suggesting common underlying mechanisms of tumor progression. In addition, we provide evidence that KRAS is a target of miR-30c, and that this miRNA suppresses breast cancer cell growth potentially through inhibition of KRAS signaling.