Project description:Background/introductionPenile cancer is a rare disease in demand for new therapeutic options. Frequently used combination chemotherapy with 5 fluorouracil (5-FU) and cisplatin (CDDP) in patients with metastatic penile cancer mostly results in the development of acquired drug resistance. Availability of cell culture models with acquired resistance against standard therapy could help to understand molecular mechanisms underlying chemotherapy resistance and to identify candidate treatments for an efficient second line therapy.MethodsWe generated a cell line from a humanpapilloma virus (HPV) negative penile squamous cell carcinoma (UKF-PEC-1). This cell line was subject to chronic exposure to chemotherapy with CDDP and / or 5-FU to induce acquired resistance in the newly established chemo-resistant sublines (PEC-1rCDDP2500, adapted to 2500 ng/ml CDDP; UKF-PEC-1r5-FU500, adapted to 500 ng/ml 5- FU; UKF-PEC1rCDDP2500/r5-FU500, adapted to 2500 ng/ml CDDP and 500 ng/ml 5 -FU). Afterwards cell line pellets were formalin-fixed, paraffin embedded and subject to sequencing as well as testing for homologous recombination deficiency (HRD). Additionally, exemplary immunohistochemical stainings for p53 and gammaH2AX were applied for verification purposes. Finally, UKF-PEC-1rCDDP2500, UKF-PEC-1r5-FU500, UKF-PEC1rCDDP2500/r5-FU500, and UKF-PEC-3 (an alternative penis cancer cell line) were tested for sensitivity to paclitaxel, docetaxel, olaparib, and rucaparib.Results and conclusionsThe chemo-resistant sublines differed in their mutational landscapes. UKF-PEC-1rCDDP2500 was characterized by an increased HRD score, which is supposed to be associated with increased PARP inhibitor and immune checkpoint inhibitor sensitivity in cancer. However, UKF-PEC-1rCDDP2500 did not display sensitivity to PARP inhibitors.
Project description:We aim to detect differential gene expression using RNA-seq between normal penile epithelial tissue and PB-Cre+ Smad4L/L ApcL/L penile tumors of mice
Project description:Freshwater is a limited and dwindling global resource; therefore, efficient water use is required for food crops that have high water demands, such as rice, or for the production of sustainable energy biomass. We show here that expression of the Arabidopsis HARDY (HRD) gene in rice improves water use efficiency, the ratio of biomass produced to the water used, by enhancing photosynthetic assimilation and reducing transpiration. These drought tolerant low-water-consuming rice plants exhibit increased shoot biomass under well irrigated conditions and an adaptive increase in root biomass under drought stress. The HRD gene, an AP2/ERF-like transcription factor, identified by a gain-of-function Arabidopsis mutant hrd-D having roots with enhanced strength, branching, and cortical cells, exhibits drought resistance and salt tolerance, accompanied by an enhancement in the expression of abiotic stress associated genes. Although HRD overexpression in Arabidopsis produces thicker leaves with more chloroplast-bearing mesophyll cells, in rice there is an increase in leaf biomass and bundle sheath cells that probably contribute to the enhanced photosynthesis assimilation and efficiency. HRD overexpression was also studied for clues of molecular mechanisms involved using microarrays. The results exemplify application of a gene identified from the model plant Arabidopsis for the improvement of water use efficiency coincident with drought resistance in the crop plant rice. Keywords: Genetic modification transcription factor overexpression mutant
Project description:Penile cancer (PeCa) is a relatively rare tumor entity but possesses higher morbidity and mortality rates especially in developing countries. To date, the concrete pathogenic signaling pathways and core machineries involved in tumorigenesis and progression of PeCa remain to be elucidated. Several studies suggested that miRNAs, which modulate gene expression at posttranscriptional level, were frequently mis-regulated and aberrantly expressed in human cancers. However, the miRNA profiles in human penile cancer have not been reported before. In this present study, the miRNA profiles were obtained from 10 fresh penile cancerous tissues and matched adjacent non-cancerous penile tissues via NGS. As a result, a total of 751 and 806 annotated miRNAs were identified in normal and cancerous penile tissues, respectively. Among which, 56 miRNAs with significantly different expression levels between paired penile tissues were identified. Subsequently, several annotated miRNAs were selected randomly and validated using quantitative real-time PCR. Compared with the previous publications regarding to the altered miRNAs expression in various types of cancers and especially genitourinary (prostate, bladder, kidney, testis) cancers, the most majority of deregulated miRNAs showed the similar expression pattern in penile cancer. Moreover, the bioinformatics analysis suggested that the putative target genes of the differentially expressed miRNAs were tightly associated with cell junction, proliferation, growth as well as genomic instability and so on, by modulating Wnt, MAPK, p53, PI3K-Akt, Notch, Hedgehog and TGF-β signaling pathways, which were all well-established to be involved in cancer initiation and progression. Our work presents a global view of the differentially expressed miRNAs and potentially regulatory networks of their target genes for clarifing the pathogenic transformation of normal penis to PeCa, which research resource also provides new insights into future investigations aimed to explore the in-depth mechanisms of miRNAs and other small RNAs including piRNAs in penile carcinogenesis regulation and effective target-specific theragnosis.
Project description:Purpose: Molecular mechanisms of penile corpus cavernosum aging and male age-related erectile dysfunction (ED) remain unclear. Here we profiled young and old rat penile corpus cavernousm by single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq). Methods:To map the single-cell transcriptomic landscape of penile corpus cavernosum during aging, we performed uniform manifold approximation and projection (UMAP), differential gene expression analysis (DGEs), pseudotime analysis and single-cell entropy algorithm to dissect cellular composition and transcriptional heterogeneity. For validation analysis, we further performed immunofluorescence studies on key molecules involved during penile corpus cavernosum aging. Results: After stringent filtering,transcriptomes of 14,879 single cells (8,557 young and 6,322 old) derived from penile corpus cavernosum of 5 young (3 months) and 5 old (23 months) rats were analyzed subsequently. Clustering analysis of cell-type specific gene expression identified 19 cell types, such as smooth muscle cells, endothelial cells, fibroblasts,myofibroblasts and immune cells.Transcriptomic analyses revealed that transcriptional alterations across all cell types exhibited distinct properties rather than universally consistent. DGEs analysis demonstrated that genes related to extracellular matrix organization were highly expressed. Among these cell types, fibroblasts showed apparent heterogeneities. By performing pseudotime and single-cell entropy analysis on fibroblasts, we observed the age-associated decrease of entropy, and aged fibroblasts were found to adopt senescent secretory phenotype, as evidenced by the high expression of genes associated with the senescence-associated secretory phenotype (SASP). Since eliminating senescent cells or SASP were demonstrated to improve health and life span, we further investigated the distinct senescence-related gene expression signatures across all cell types during aging. Conclusions: We plotted a cellular atlas of penile corpus cavernosum, and revealed the molecular alterations of aging cells, especially fibroblasts. Our work will deepen the understanding of the heterogeneity among certain cell types during penile corpus cavernosum aging and provide novel entry points for the age-associated ED treatment.
Project description:Gene expression microarray was used to evaluate altered genes related and non related to HPV infection status in order to identify potential molecular markers in penile cancer (PC). RNA was extracted from thirty-nine fresh frozen PC samples and submitted to gene expression microarray. The normal penile pool consisted of total RNA from five autopsy glands. Specific gene expression alterations were investigated by RT-qPCR. DNA was also extracted from penile samples and submitted to HPV genotyping.
Project description:Ovarian cancer is a global problem, is typically diagnosed at a late stage and has no effective screening strategy. Platinum-based chemotherapy or Poly(ADP-ribose) polymerase inhibitors (PARPis) treatment are most frequently applied for ovarian cancer patients who are inoperable and in the advanced stage. The recognition of homologous recombination deficiency (HRD) as a biomarker to predict the effect of Platinum-based or PARPis treatment. WGS and WES can detect tumor HRD status but have several disadvantages which restrict their clinical application. My choice HRD CDx and Foundation Focus CDx are approved by FDA for HRD detection, however, whether they are applicable to the Chinese population or not is unknown. In this study, we created an SNP-based Tg-NGS panel to fill in gaps in Chinese patients’ HRD screening. Our results showed that the panel is cost and time-saving compared with WGS, but equivalent with SNP microarray on CNV and HRD detection. In summary, this newly developed kit is promising in clinical application to guide ovarian cancer and even other cancer types therapy.