Project description:Resto6 stromal cells support the long-term survival of human plasma cells differentiated in vitro. Whole genome gene expression microarrays made it possible to pick up genes whose products could be involved in a biological pathway inducing long-term survival of plasma cells.
Project description:Trastuzumab improves survival outcomes in patients with HER2+ metastatic breast cancer. Some of these patients may become long-term survivors. The Long-Her study was designed to identify clinical and molecular markers that could differentiate long-term survivors from patients having early progression to trastuzumab. 103 patients were registered in the Long-HER study, of whom 71 had obtained a durable complete response. Median age was 58 years. Metastatic disease was diagnosed after a median of 24.7 months since primary diagnosis. Sixty-five per cent of tumours were poorly differentiated ductal carcinomas and hormonal receptors were present in 47%. Metastases were present in the liver (25%), lungs (25%), bones (23%) and soft tissues (23%), with 20% of patients having multiple locations of metastases. Median progression-free survival was 10.6 years after the diagnosis of metastatic disease. Absence of trastuzumab as part of adjuvant therapy was the only clinical factor associated with long-term survival . Gene ontology analysis demonstrated that genes involved in HIF activation, EGF receptor signalling pathway, PI3 kinase pathway, apoptosis signalling pathway and p53 pathway significantly correlated with response. The PI3K pathway was the most strongly associated with poor response to trastuzumab-based therapy: tumours in the control group usually had four or five alterations in this pathway, whereas tumours in the Long-HER group had two alterations at most. These findings support that trastuzumab may provide a substantial long-term survival benefit in a selected group of patients. Whole genome expression analysis comparing long-term survivors vs. a control group predicted early progression to trastuzumab-based therapy. Multiple alterations in genes related to the PI3K-mTOR pathway seem to be required to confer resistance to this therapy. 53 FFPE samples, which passed the RNA quality control criteria, were analyzed (45 primary tumours and 8 metastases). Among these 53 samples, 35 samples corresponded to long-term responders and 18 to the control group.
Project description:Survival in the majority of high grade astrocytoma (HGA) patients is very poor, with only a rare population of long-term survivors. A better understanding of the biological factors associated with long-term survival in HGA would aid development of more effective therapy and prognostication. We used microarray gene expression profiling of 26 patient surgical samples with known clinical outcomes to discover novel prognostic markers. Gene expression profiles were generated from surgical tumor samples using Affymetrix HG-U133plus2 chips. All genes were correlated with survival as a continuous variable in order to identify ontologys associated with risk of recurrence.
Project description:Analysis of DNA from fixed tissues specimens of 58 primary uveal melanomas, with known clinical outcome, to determine gene copy number variations that were associated with survival. Abstract: Uveal melanomas can be stratified into subgroups with high or low risk of metastatic death, according to the presence of gross chromosomal abnormalities. Where a monosomy 3 uveal melanoma is detected, patient survival at three years is reduced to 50%. However, approximately 5% of patients with a disomy 3 tumour ultimately develop metastasis, and a further 5% of monosomy 3 uveal melanoma patients’ exhibit disease-free survival for more than five years. Despite extensive knowledge of the chromosomal abnormalities occurring in uveal melanoma, the genes driving metastasis are not well defined. Gene copy number variations occurring in a well-characterised cohort of 58 formalin-fixed, paraffin-embedded uveal melanoma samples were identified using the Affymetrix SNP 6.0 whole genome microarray. Four genetic sub-groups of primary uveal melanoma were represented in the patient cohort: 1) disomy 3 with long-term survival; 2) metastasizing disomy 3; 3) metastasizing monosomy 3; and 4) monosomy 3 with long-term survival. Cox regression and Kaplan-Meier survival analysis identified three genes that were associated with differences in patient survival. Patients with an amplification of CNKSR3 (6q) or RIPK1 (6p) demonstrated longer survival than those with gene deletions or no copy number change (log rank, p=0.022 and p<0.001, respectively). Conversely, those patients with an amplification of PENK (8q) showed reduced survival (log rank p<0.001). CNKSR3, RIPK1 and PENK are novel candidate metastasis regulatory genes in uveal melanoma. This is the first report of amplification of a specific gene on 6p that is associated with improved uveal melanoma patient survival and suggests that the development of uveal melanomas with a propensity to metastasise may be limited by genes on 6p. 58 samples in total. Ten disomy 3 with long-term survival. Fifteen disomy 3 with metastasising. Seventeen monosomy 3 with long-term survival. Sixteen monosomy 3 metastasising.