Project description:Opioid analgesics are frequently prescribed in the United States and worldwide. However, serious side effects such as addiction, immunosuppression and gastrointestinal symptoms limit long term use. In the current study using a chronic morphine-murine model a longitudinal approach was undertaken to investigate the role of morphine modulation of gut microbiome as a mechanism contributing to the negative consequences associated with opioids use. The results revealed a significant shift in the gut microbiome and metabolome within 24 hours following morphine treatment when compared to placebo. Morphine induced gut microbial dysbiosis exhibited distinct characteristic signatures profiles including significant increase in communities associated with pathogenic function, decrease in communities associated with stress tolerance. Collectively, these results reveal opioids-induced distinct alteration of gut microbiome, may contribute to opioids-induced pathogenesis. Therapeutics directed at these targets may prolong the efficacy long term opioid use with fewer side effects.
Project description:Breast cancer is one of the most common types of cancer in women. One key signaling pathway known to regulate tumor growth, metabolic adaptation, and cellular stress response in breast cancer is Wnt signaling. Breast cancer patients, specifically triple negative breast cancer (TNBC), with upregulated Wnt signaling often have a poor clinical prognosis. However, the effects of Wnt/β-catenin signaling on the nucleolus and the resultant impact on cancer development and progression remain unclear. A notable reduction was observed in the number of nucleoli per nucleus in response to Wnt/β-catenin signaling inhibition in multiple TNBC cell lines. Our comparative proteomic analysis revealed several changes in the composition of the nucleolar proteome of TNBC cells upon inhibition of Wnt signaling. Overall, we demonstrate that Wnt/β-catenin signaling will affects nucleolar functionality and thus influences breast cancer progression. Understanding the role of Wnt signaling in the nucleolus and breast cancer is a critical step towards developing novel therapeutic options for the treatment of breast cancer.
Project description:The microbiome plays a significant role in gut brain communication and is linked to several animal and human diseases. Hypertension is characterized by gut dysbiosis, and this study aimed to determine how the gut microbiome differed between male and female normotensive and hypertensive rodents. WKY is a genetic control for spontaneous hypertensive rats or SHR which is well documented to have elevated blood pressure at approximately 8 to 10 weeks. We compared the microbiome of normotensive and hypertensive rodents using a meta-genomics approach.
Project description:Cell motility and invasion initiate metastasis. However, only a subpopulation of cancer cells within a tumor will ultimately become invasive. Due to this stochastic and transient nature, in an experimental setting, migrating and invading cells need to be isolated from the general population in order to study the gene expression profiles linked to these processes. This report describes microarray analysis on RNA derived from migrated or invaded subpopulations of triple negative breast cancer cells in a Transwell set-up, at two different time points during motility and invasion, pre-determined as “early” and “late” in real-time kinetic assessments. Invasion- and migration-related gene expression signatures were generated through comparison with non-invasive cells, remaining at the upper side of the Transwell membranes. Late-phase signatures of both invasion and migration indicated poor prognosis in a series of breast cancer data sets. Furthermore, evaluation of the genes constituting the prognostic invasion-related gene signature revealed Krüppel-like factor 9 (KLF9) as a putative suppressor of invasive growth in breast cancer. Next to loss in invasive vs non-invasive cell lines, KLF9 also showed significantly lower expression levels in the “early” invasive cell population, in several public expression data sets and in clinical breast cancer samples when compared to normal tissue. Overexpression of EGFP-KLF9 fusion protein significantly altered morphology and blocked invasion and growth of MDA-MB-231 cells in vitro. In addition, KLF9 expression correlated inversely with mitotic activity in clinical samples, indicating anti-proliferative effects.
Project description:Copy number alteration profiling of human early-stage (stage I and II) breast cancers. We aimed to describe the commonly occurred chromosome alterations in early-stage breast cancer (stage I and II) and to explore the implications of the recurrently altered regions (RAR) on the patient prognosis. For this purpose, we analyzed the DNA copy number alterations (CNAs) across the whole genome using oligoarray-comparative genomic hybridization (CGH) in the discovery set of EBC patients. 48 cases of early-stage breast cancer were used in this study.
Project description:Triple negative breast cancers lack targeted therapies with little side effects and contain higher percentage of cancer stem cells than the other breast cancer subtypes. Genes capturing the features of cancer stem cells of such diseases may serve as potential subtyping marker or therapeutic targets for triple negative breast cancer management. This data descriptor presents a set of transcriptome data from 3 cohorts of cancer stem cells as represented as CD44+/CD24-/low and 2 cohorts of non-cancer stem cells isolated from triple negative breast cancer cells, each having 3 replicates.
Project description:Pancreatic cancer is the 3rd most prevalent cause of cancer related deaths in United states alone, with over 55000 patients being diagnosed in 2019 alone and nearly as many succumbing to it. Late detection, lack of effective therapy and poor understanding of pancreatic cancer systemically contributes to its poor survival statistics. Obesity and high caloric intake linked co-morbidities like type 2 diabetes (T2D) have been attributed as being risk factors for a number of cancers including pancreatic cancer. Studies on gut microbiome has shown that lifestyle factors as well as diet has a huge effect on the microbial flora of the gut. Further, modulation of gut microbiome has been seen to contribute to effects of intensive insulin therapy in mice on high fat diet. In another study, abnormal gut microbiota was reported to contribute to development of diabetes in Db/Db mice. Recent studies indicate that microbiome and microbial dysbiosis plays a role in not only the onset of disease but also in its outcome. In colorectal cancer, Fusobacterium has been reported to promote therapy resistance. Certain intra-tumoral bacteria have also been shown to elicit chemo-resistance by metabolizing anti-cancerous agents. In pancreatic cancer, studies on altered gut microbiome have been relatively recent. Microbial dysbiosis has been observed to be associated with pancreatic tumor progression. Modulation of microbiome has been shown to affect response to anti-PD1 therapy in this disease as well. However, most of the studies in pancreatic cancer and microbiome have remained focused om immune modulation. In the current study, we observed that in a T2D mouse model, the microbiome changed significantly as the hyperglycemia developed in these animals. Our results further showed that, tumors implanted in the T2D mice responded poorly to Gemcitabine/Paclitaxel (Gem/Pac) standard of care compared to those in the control group. A metabolomic reconstruction of the WGS of the gut microbiota further revealed that an enrichment of bacterial population involved in drug metabolism in the T2D group.
Project description:Tamoxifen is an anti-estrogen drug used in the treatment of Estrogen Receptor (ER) positive breast cancer. Effects and side effects of tamoxifen is the sum of tamoxifen and all its metabolites. Using concentrations that mimic the clinical situation we examined effects of 4OHtam, 4OHNDtam and NDtam on global gene expression in 17beta-estradiol (E2) treated MCF-7 cells.