Project description:We used unsupervised hierarchical clustering to analyse expression in primary ovarian tumors and associated abdominal deposits. GeneGo pathway analysis of differentially expressed genes between primary tumors and deposits revealed 4 of the top 10 pathways related to cytoskeleton remodeling and cell adhesion. Primary ovarian tumours and matched abdominal deposits were selected for RNA extraction and hybridization on Affymetrix microarrays.
Project description:We used unsupervised hierarchical clustering to analyse expression in primary ovarian tumors and associated abdominal deposits. GeneGo pathway analysis of differentially expressed genes between primary tumors and deposits revealed 4 of the top 10 pathways related to cytoskeleton remodeling and cell adhesion.
Project description:HGSOC, the most aggressive form of OC, is characterized by insidious onset, rapid intraperitoneal spread and development of massive ascites. Peritoneal adhesion was considered as the first step of abdominal metastasis, underscoring that only tumor cells gain access to peritoneal adherence contribute to metastasis. Studies on ovarian cancer progression were mainly focused on the primary and metastatic tumor cells, while understanding of the ascitic tumor cells is limited. We hypothesized that uncovering the gene expression profiles of ascitic tumor cells from high grade serous ovarian cancer patients will allow us to understand more specifically their unique phenotype which mediates the peritoneal adhesion. In this study, gene expression profiling was completed for 15 magnetic sorted tumor cells samples from matched primary tumors, ascites and metastases of 5 high grade serous ovarian cancer patients. By comparing the expression data from ascitic tumor cells with primary and metastasis tumor cells, we identified a set of differential expressed genes in ovarian ascitic tumor cells advantageous for peritoneal adhesion and metastasis. Further study revealed that ascites microenvironment modulated the ascitic tumor cells phenotype and contributed to ovarian cancer dissemination through facilitating CAFs in formation of compact spheroids with ascitic tumor cells. We used microarrays to profile the expression of 15 matched tumor cells samples in order to identify molecular alteration between primary tumor cells, ascitic tumor cells and metastatic tumor cells in high grade serous ovarian cancer.
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:Gene expression profiling of immortalized human mesenchymal stem cells with hTERT/E6/E7 transfected MSCs. hTERT may change gene expression in MSCs. Goal was to determine the gene expressions of immortalized MSCs.