Project description:To check the profile of exosomal and cellular miRNA in ovarian cancer cell lines, total RNA were extracted from exosomes and cells. Thirteen ovarian cancer cell lines (A2780, ES-2, CAOV3, SKOV3, OV-90, OAW42, MCAS, COV362, RMG-1, RMUG-S, KURAMOCHI, NIH-OVCAR3 and A2780cis) were investigated, and HOSE1, HOSE2 and HOSE3 (human ovarian surface epithelim cell lines) were used as control.
Project description:The exosomal particles in the blood of cancer patients possess many times more tumor markers than free circulating. Among these elements, miRNAs have great biomedical relevance due to their stability and feasible detection. However, there is not available in the market any reliable endogenous control for the exosomal compartment, nor specific for the miRNA content, preventing the obtainment of standardization measures in cancer liquid-biopsy. In this study, we firstly identified three miRNAs out of a panel of nine potential normalizers that arised from an integrative analysis comparing the global miRNA exosomal profile by miRNA-seq of six lung and ovarian human cancer cell lines under different chemotherapy conditions. Their value as normalizers were also tested in 14 additional human cancer cell lines from different tumor types and after radiotherapy and an alternative chemotherapy treatment. Its translational validation comprised 124 prospective samples, 70 plasma from NSCLC patients, 12 from glioblastoma patients, 10 healthy donors and 16 paired samples from plasma and ascites fluid from ovarian cancer patients. The variability and normalizing properties were tested in comparison with the tissue-origin gold standard miR-16. Our results indicate that miR-151a is constantly represented in the exosomal content with minimal variability compared with miR16 independently of many conditions tested, providing for the first time a universal normalizer for the exosomal compartment that will impact the use of liquid biopsy.
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>