Project description:Lysine-Specific Demethylase 1 (LSD1) over-expression correlates with poorly differentiated neuroblastoma and predicts poor outcome despite multimodal therapy. We have studied the efficacy of reversible and specific LSD1 inhibition with HCI-2509 in neuroblastoma cell lines and particularly the effect of HCI-2509 on the transcriptomic profile in MYCN amplified NGP cells. Cell survival assays show that HCI-2509 is cytotoxic to poorly differentiated neuroblastoma cell lines in low micromole or lower doses. Transcriptional profiling of NGP cells treated with HCI-2509 shows a significant effect on p53, cell cycle, MYCN and hypoxia pathway gene sets. HCI-2509 results in increased histone methyl marks and p53 levels along with cell cycle arrest in the G2/M phase and inhibition of colony formation of NGP cells. Our findings indicate that LSD1 inhibition with HCI-2509 has a multi-target effect in MYCN amplified high-risk neuroblastoma cells.
Project description:The patient-derived xenograft (PDX) model retains the heterogeneity of patient tumors, allowing a means to not only examine efficacy of a therapy across a population, but also study crucial aspects of cancer biology in response to treatment. Herein we describe the development and characterization of an ovarian-PDX model in order to study the development of chemoresistance. We demonstrate that PDX tumors are not simply composed of tumor-initiating cells, but recapitulate the original tumor’s heterogeneity, oncogene expression profiles, and clinical response to chemotherapy. Combined carboplatin/paclitaxel treatment of PDX tumors enriches the cancer stem cell populations, but persistent tumors are not entirely composed of these populations. RNA-Seq analysis of treated PDX tumors compared to untreated tumors demonstrates a consistently contrasting genetic profile after therapy, suggesting similar, but few, pathways are mediating chemoresistance. The pathways most significantly altered included Protein Kinase A signaling, GNRH signaling, and sphingosine-1-phosphate signaling. Pathways and genes identified by this methodology represent novel approaches to targeting the chemoresistant population in ovarian cancer 6 pairs of Patient-Derived Xenografts (PDX) were ananlyzed using RNA-seq for a total of 12 samples. Each pair consists of a treated and untreated PDX of ovarian cancer. Treated Ovarian cancer PDXs were treated with 4 weeks of a combination of carboplatin and taxol. RNA was isolated and converted to cDNA. RNA-seq was conductred on the Illumina HiSeq 2000 with 50 bp paired end sequencing
Project description:A randomised control trial was done to assess clinical and immunological benefits of passive immunization using convalescent plasma therapy (CPT), compared with standard of care, in severe COVID-19 patients presenting with acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS). Plasma abundance of a large panel of cytokines was quantitated before and after intervention to assess the effect of CPT on the systemic hyper-inflammation encountered in these patients. Transfused convalescent plasma was characterized in terms of its neutralizing antibody content as well as proteome. While across all age-groups clinical outcomes were not significantly different, significant immediate mitigation of hypoxia, reduction in hospital stay as well as significant survival benefit were registered in severe COVID-19 patients with ARDS aged less than 67 years receiving CPT. In addition to its neutralizing antibody content, a significant effect of the anti-inflammatory proteome of convalescent plasma on attenuation of systemic cytokine deluge, contributed to the clinical benefits of CPT.