Home About us Contact
|
Home About us Contact | ||
|
|
||
New Mechanistic Insights (new + mechanistic_insight)
Selected AbstractsAltered promoter usage characterizes monoallelic transcription arising with ERBB2 amplification in human breast cancersGENES, CHROMOSOMES AND CANCER, Issue 11 2006Christopher C. Benz Analysis of a collection of human breast cancers (n = 150), enriched in ERBB2-positive cases (n = 57) and involving tumor genotyping relative to population-matched blood genotyping (n = 749) for a common ERBB2 single nucleotide polymorphism Ala(G)1170Pro(C), revealed that ERBB2 amplification in breast cancer is invariably monoallelic. Analysis of paired breast cancer and blood samples from informative (G1170C heterozygotic) ERBB2-positive (n = 12) and ERBB2-negative (n = 17) cases not only confirmed monoallelic amplification and ERBB2 transcriptional overexpression but also revealed that most low ERBB2 expressing breast cancers (12/17) exhibit unbalanced allelic transcription, showing 3-fold to nearly 5,000-fold preferential expression from one of two inherited alleles. To explore cis-acting transcriptional mechanisms potentially selected during ERBB2 amplification, levels of four different ERBB2 transcript variants (5.2, 4.7, 2.1, and 1.4 kb) were correlated with total (4.6 kb) ERBB2 mRNA levels in ERBB2-positive (n = 14) versus ERBB2-negative (n = 43) primary breast cancers. Relative expression of only the 2.1 kb extracellular domain-encoding splice variant and a 4.7 kb mRNA variant that uses an alternative start site were significantly increased in association with ERBB2-positivity, implicating altered promoter usage and selective transcript regulation within the ERBB2 amplicon. Altogether, these findings provide new mechanistic insights into the development of ERBB2-positive breast cancer and strong rationale for delineating candidate cis-acting regulatory elements that may link allele-specific ERBB2 transcription in premalignant breast epithelia with subsequent development of breast cancers bearing monoallelic ERBB2 amplicons. © 2006 Wiley-Liss, Inc. [source] Regulation of gene expression in inflammatory bowel disease and correlation with IBD drugs.INFLAMMATORY BOWEL DISEASES, Issue 1 2004Screening by DNA microarrays Abstract Potential biomarkers for Crohn's disease (CD) and ulcerative colitis (UC) were identified from two sets of full thickness pathologic samples utilizing DermArray® and PharmArray® DNA microarrays relative to uninvolved (Un) colon or normal colon. Seven of the over-expressed genes were verified using quantitative RT-PCR (i.e., TMPT, FABP1, IFI27, LCN2, COL11A2, HXB, and metallothionein). By correlating gene expression profiles between inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) tissue samples and IBD drug-treated cell cultures it might be possible to identify new candidate molecular target genes for IBD therapy and drug discovery. Potential biomarkers for CaCo2 cell cultures, which are routinely used as a GI tract surrogate model for in vitro pharmacokinetic studies, treated with azathioprine, 5-aminosalicylic acid, metronidazole, and prednisone were also identified from another experiment. Metallothionein mRNA expression was found to be down-regulated in azathioprine-treated CaCo2 cells, and was coincidentally up-regulated in the CD sample, thus resulting in an anti-correlation. These results suggest that this new screening methodology is feasible, that metallothioneins might be biomarkers for azathioprine therapy in vivo in CD, and that azathioprine might mechanistically down-regulate metallothionein gene expression. Correlations were also observed between IBD samples and either metronidazole- or 5-aminosalicylic acid-treated CaCo2 cells. Similar comparisons of disease tissue samples in vivo vs drug-treated cell cultures in vitro might reveal new mechanistic insights concerning established or experimental drug therapies. This affordable in vitro methodology is promising for expanded studies of IBD and other diseases. [source] Overexpression of Smurf2 Stimulates Endochondral Ossification Through Upregulation of ,-Catenin,JOURNAL OF BONE AND MINERAL RESEARCH, Issue 4 2008Qiuqian Wu MD Abstract Ectopic expression of Smurf2 in chondrocytes and perichondrial cells accelerated endochondral ossification by stimulating chondrocyte maturation and osteoblast development through upregulation of ,-catenin in Col2a1-Smurf2 embryos. The mechanism underlying Smurf2-mediated morphological changes during embryonic development may provide new mechanistic insights and potential targets for prevention and treatment of human osteoarthritis. Introduction: Our recent finding that adult Col2a1-Smurf2 mice have an osteoarthritis-like phenotype in knee joints prompted us to examine the role of Smurf2 in the regulation of chondrocyte maturation and osteoblast differentiation during embryonic endochondral ossification. Materials and Methods: We analyzed gene expression and morphological changes in developing limbs by immunofluorescence, immunohistochemistry, Western blot, skeletal preparation, and histology. A series of markers for chondrocyte maturation and osteoblast differentiation in developing limbs were examined by in situ hybridization. Results: Ectopic overexpression of Smurf2 driven by the Col2a1 promoter was detected in chondrocytes and in the perichondrium/periosteum of 16.5 dpc transgenic limbs. Ectopic Smurf2 expression in cells of the chondrogenic lineage inhibited chondrocyte differentiation and stimulated maturation; ectopic Smurf2 in cells of the osteoblastic lineage stimulated osteoblast differentiation. Mechanistically, this could be caused by a dramatic increase in the expression of ,-catenin protein levels in the chondrocytes and perichondrial/periosteal cells of the Col2a1-Smurf2 limbs. Conclusions: Ectopic expression of Smurf2 driven by the Col2a1 promoter accelerated the process of endochondral ossification including chondrocyte maturation and osteoblast differentiation through upregulation of ,-catenin, suggesting a possible mechanism for development of osteoarthritis seen in these mice. [source] Decrease in stromal androgen receptor associates with androgen-independent disease and promotes prostate cancer cell proliferation and invasionJOURNAL OF CELLULAR AND MOLECULAR MEDICINE, Issue 6b 2008Yirong Li Abstract Androgen receptor (AR) is expressed in both stromal and epithelial cells of the prostate. The majority of studies on AR expression and function in prostate cancer is focused on malignant epithelial cells rather than stromal cells. In this study, we examined the levels of stromal AR in androgen-dependent and -independent prostate cancer and the function of stromal AR in prostate cancer growth and invasion. We showed that stromal AR levels were decreased in the areas surrounding cancerous tissue, especially in androgen-independent cancer. Using two telomerase-immortalized human stromal cell lines, one AR-positive and the other AR-negative, we demonstrated that stromal cells lacking AR stimulated cell proliferation of co-cultured prostate cancer cells in vitro and enhanced tumour growth in vivo when co-injected with PC3 epithelial cells in nude mice. In contrast, stromal cells expressing AR suppressed prostate cancer growth in vitro and in vivo. In parallel with cancer growth, in vitro invasion assays revealed that stromal cells lacking AR increased the invasion ability of PC3 cell by one order of magnitude, while stromal cells expressing AR reduced this effect. These results indicate a negative regulation of prostate cancer growth and invasion by stromal AR. This provides potentially new mechanistic insights into the failure of androgen ablation therapy, and the reactivation of stromal AR could be a novel therapeutic approach for treating hormone refractory prostate cancer. [source] Cutaneous gene transfer for skin and systemic diseasesJOURNAL OF INTERNAL MEDICINE, Issue 1 2002P. A. KHAVARI This article is partially based on the findings presented at a symposium on Cutaneous Gene Therapy, held in Uppsala, September 2001, and abstracted in Acta Derm Venereol 81: 227,239. Abstract.,Khavari PA, Rollman O, Vahlquist A (Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, CA, USA; and Department of Medical Sciences, Dermatology, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden). Cutaneous gene transfer for skin and systemic diseases (Review). J Intern Med 2002; 252: 1,10. Recent progress in molecular genetics has illuminated the basis for a wide variety of inherited and acquired diseases. Gene therapy offers an attractive therapeutic approach capitalizing upon these new mechanistic insights. The skin is a uniquely attractive tissue site for development of new genetic therapeutic approaches both for its accessibility as well as for the large number of diseases that are amenable in principle to cutaneous gene transfer. Amongst these opportunities are primary monogenic skin diseases, chronic wounds and systemic disorders characterized by low or absent levels of circulating polypeptides. For cutaneous gene therapy to be effective, however, significant progress is required in a number of domains. Recent advances in vector design, administration, immune modulation, and regulation of gene expression have brought the field much nearer to clinical utility. [source] | ||||||||||