Project description:Comparison of genomic alterations of primary colorectal cancers with liver metastases of the same patient Keywords: array CGH, colorectal cancer, colon cancer, liver metastasis
Project description:Comparison of genomic alterations of primary colorectal cancers with liver metastases of the same patient Keywords: array CGH, colorectal cancer, colon cancer, liver metastasis 21 primary colorectal cancers and 21 matched liver metastases hybridized against sex-matched control pools
Project description:<p>BRCA1 mutations are a hallmark of hereditary ovarian cancer, strongly linked to deficiencies in homologous recombination (HR) DNA repair and impaired DNA replication fork protection. However, its roles in cancer progression beyond maintaining genomic integrity remain poorly understood. Through metabolomics approaches, we found BRCA1-deficiency strikingly increased choline metabolism. Loss of BRCA1 promotes choline uptake through upregulating choline transporter-like protein 4 (CTL4). BRCA1 directly binds and recruits EZH2-mediated H3K27Me3 deposition to CTL4 promoter. CTL4 was therefore overexpressed in ovarian cancer tissues with BRCA1 mutations. Furthermore, BRCA1-deficiency significantly promotes ovarian cancer invasion, while inhibition of CTL4 reverses the high metastatic potential of BRCA1-deficient ovarian cancer cells, suggesting the functionality and specificity of CTL4 as a therapeutic target. Additionally, we discovered that phosphocholine, the choline metabolite increased by CTL4 overexpression, interacted with and stabilized the epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition inducer FAM3C in BRCA1-deficient ovarian cancer cells. Importantly, we identified a potent CTL4 inhibitor, DT-13, which significantly reduces choline metabolism and effectively suppresses metastasis in BRCA1-deficient ovarian cancers. Therefore, our study uncovers a mechanism underlying metastasis in BRCA1-deficient cancers and identifies CTL4 as a therapeutic target for metastatic ovarian cancer patients with BRCA1 mutations.</p>
Project description:Purpose: At diagnosis, colorectal cancer presents with synchronous peritoneal metastasis in up to 10% of patients. The peritoneum is poorly characterized with respect to its super-specialised microenvironment. Our aim was to describe the differences between peritoneal metastases and their matched primary tumours excised simultaneously at the time of surgery. Also, we tested the hypothesis of these differences being present in primary colorectal tumours and having prognostic capacity. Experimental design: We report a comprehensive analysis of thirty samples from peritoneal metastasis with their matched colorectal cancer primaries obtained during cytoreductive surgery. We tested and validated the prognostic value of our findings in a pooled series of 660 colorectal cancer primary samples with overall survival (OS) information and 743 samples with disease free survival (DFS) information from publicly available databases. Results: We identified 20 genes dysregulated in peritoneal metastasis that promote an early increasing role of ‘stemness’ in conjunction with tumour favorable inflammatory changes. When adjusted for age, gender and stage, the 20-gene peritoneal signature proved to have prognostic value for both OS (adjusted-hazard ratio (HR) for the high-risk group (vs low-risk) 2.32 (95% confidence interval (CI) 1.69-3.19; p-value < 0.0001)) and for DFS (adjusted-HR 2.08 (95%CI 1.50-2.91; p-value < 0.0001)). Conclusions: Our findings indicated that the activation of “stemness” pathways and adaptation to the peritoneal specific environment are key to early stages of peritoneal carcinomatosis. The in-silico analysis suggested that this 20-gene peritoneal signature may hold prognostic information with potential for development of new precision medicine strategies in this setting.