Project description:Vascular pericytes, an important cellular component, in the tumor microenvironment, are often associated with tumor vasculatures and their functions in cancer invasion and metastasis are poorly understood. Here we show that PDGF-BB induces pericyte fibroblast transition (designated as PFT), which significantly contributes to tumor invasion and metastasis. Gain- and loss-of-function experiments demonstrate that the PDGF-BB-PDGFRβ signaling promotes PFT in vitro and in in vivo tumors. Genome-wide expression analysis indicates that PDGF-BB-activated pericytes acquire mesenchymal progenitor features. Pharmacological inhibition and genetic deletion of PDGFRβ ablate the PDGF-BB-induced PFT. Genetic tracing of pericytes with two independent mouse strains, i.e., TN-AP-CreERT2:R26R-tdTomato and NG2:R26R-tdTomato, shows that PFT cells gains stromal fibroblast and myofibroblast markers in tumors. Importantly, co-implantation of PFT cells with less-invasive tumor cells in mice markedly promotes tumor dissemination and invasion, leading to an increased number of circulating tumor cells (CTCs) and metastasis. Our findings reveal a novel mechanism of vascular pericytes in PDGF-BB-promoted cancer invasion and metastasis by inducing PFT and thus targeting PFT may offer a new treatment option of cancer metastasis. Pericytes were isolated and treated with PDGF-BB or control for 1 or 5 days
Project description:Vascular pericytes, an important cellular component, in the tumor microenvironment, are often associated with tumor vasculatures and their functions in cancer invasion and metastasis are poorly understood. Here we show that PDGF-BB induces pericyte fibroblast transition (designated as PFT), which significantly contributes to tumor invasion and metastasis. Gain- and loss-of-function experiments demonstrate that the PDGF-BB-PDGFRβ signaling promotes PFT in vitro and in in vivo tumors. Genome-wide expression analysis indicates that PDGF-BB-activated pericytes acquire mesenchymal progenitor features. Pharmacological inhibition and genetic deletion of PDGFRβ ablate the PDGF-BB-induced PFT. Genetic tracing of pericytes with two independent mouse strains, i.e., TN-AP-CreERT2:R26R-tdTomato and NG2:R26R-tdTomato, shows that PFT cells gains stromal fibroblast and myofibroblast markers in tumors. Importantly, co-implantation of PFT cells with less-invasive tumor cells in mice markedly promotes tumor dissemination and invasion, leading to an increased number of circulating tumor cells (CTCs) and metastasis. Our findings reveal a novel mechanism of vascular pericytes in PDGF-BB-promoted cancer invasion and metastasis by inducing PFT and thus targeting PFT may offer a new treatment option of cancer metastasis.
Project description:Introgressed variants from other species can be an important source of genetic variation because they may arise rapidly, can include multiple mutations on a single haplotype, and have often been pretested by selection in the species of origin. Although introgressed alleles are generally deleterious, several studies have reported introgression as the source of adaptive alleles-including the rodenticide-resistant variant of Vkorc1 that introgressed from Mus spretus into European populations of Mus musculus domesticus. Here, we conducted bidirectional genome scans to characterize introgressed regions into one wild population of M. spretus from Spain and three wild populations of M. m. domesticus from France, Germany, and Iran. Despite the fact that these species show considerable intrinsic postzygotic reproductive isolation, introgression was observed in all individuals, including in the M. musculus reference genome (GRCm38). Mus spretus individuals had a greater proportion of introgression compared with M. m. domesticus, and within M. m. domesticus, the proportion of introgression decreased with geographic distance from the area of sympatry. Introgression was observed on all autosomes for both species, but not on the X-chromosome in M. m. domesticus, consistent with known X-linked hybrid sterility and inviability genes that have been mapped to the M. spretus X-chromosome. Tract lengths were generally short with a few outliers of up to 2.7 Mb. Interestingly, the longest introgressed tracts were in olfactory receptor regions, and introgressed tracts were significantly enriched for olfactory receptor genes in both species, suggesting that introgression may be a source of functional novelty even between species with high barriers to gene flow.
Project description:We demonstrate for the first time that the extracellular matrix glycoprotein Tenascin-C regulates the expression of key patterning genes during late embryonic spinal cord development, leading to a timely maturation of gliogenic neural precursor cells. We first show that Tenascin-C is expressed by gliogenic neural precursor cells during late embryonic development. The loss of Tenascin-C leads to a sustained generation and delayed migration of Fibroblast growth factor receptor 3 expressing immature astrocytes in vivo. Furthermore, we could demonstrate an upregulation of Nk2 transcription factor related locus 2 (Nkx2.2) and its downstream target Sulfatase 1 in vivo. A dorsal expansion of Nkx2.2-positive cells within the ventral spinal cord indicates a potential progenitor cell domain shift. Moreover, Sulfatase 1 is known to regulate growth factor signalling by cleaving sulphate residues from heparan sulphate proteoglycans. Consistent with this possibility we observed changes in both Fibroblast growth factor 2 and Epidermal growth factor responsiveness of spinal cord neural precursor cells. Taken together our data clearly show that Tenascin-C promotes the astroglial lineage progression during spinal cord development.
Project description:Metastasis is a major cause of breast-cancer-related death and frequently occurs following paclitaxel neoadjuvant chemotherapy failure. Tumor microenvironment contributes to metastasis, while the role of specific host cells in lung metastases induced by paclitaxel (PTX) treatment remains poorly understood. Here, we demonstrate that PTX neoadjuvant chemotherapy promotes triggering receptor expressed on myeloid cells-2 (TREM2)-positive macrophage infiltration in the breast cancer tissues of patients. Meanwhile, we also show that more TREM2-positive macrophage infiltrates in breast cancer tissues of patients with lung -metastasized. Genetic TREM2 deficiency decreases breast cancer lung metastases induced by PTX treatment in vivo, suggesting that TREM2-positive macrophages are essential for PTX-promoting lung metastasis of breast cancer. We further reveal that PTX promotes tumor cell secretion of fibroblast growth factor 2 (FGF2), triggering TREM2 transcription via upregulating its transcriptional factor early growth response-1 (EGR1) in macrophages. Increased TREM2 activates epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT)-related cytokine secretion in macrophages, inducing tumor cell lung metastases. Targeting TREM2 significantly suppressed lung metastasis in breast-cancer-bearing mice. Our findings establish that tumor-cell-derived FGF2 induced by paclitaxel treatment upregulates TREM2 in myeloid macrophages, which in turn promotes the EMT of neighboring tumor cells through cytokine secretion. Our results highlight TREM2 as a potential therapeutic target to mitigate lung metastasis due to PTX treatment.
Project description:We demonstrate for the first time that the extracellular matrix glycoprotein Tenascin-C regulates the expression of key patterning genes during late embryonic spinal cord development, leading to a timely maturation of gliogenic neural precursor cells. We first show that Tenascin-C is expressed by gliogenic neural precursor cells during late embryonic development. The loss of Tenascin-C leads to a sustained generation and delayed migration of Fibroblast growth factor receptor 3 expressing immature astrocytes in vivo. Furthermore, we could demonstrate an upregulation of Nk2 transcription factor related locus 2 (Nkx2.2) and its downstream target Sulfatase 1 in vivo. A dorsal expansion of Nkx2.2-positive cells within the ventral spinal cord indicates a potential progenitor cell domain shift. Moreover, Sulfatase 1 is known to regulate growth factor signalling by cleaving sulphate residues from heparan sulphate proteoglycans. Consistent with this possibility we observed changes in both Fibroblast growth factor 2 and Epidermal growth factor responsiveness of spinal cord neural precursor cells. Taken together our data clearly show that Tenascin-C promotes the astroglial lineage progression during spinal cord development. in total 6 probes: 3 replica of TNC_wt and 3 replica of TNC_ko