The prognosis of colorectal cancer (CRC) stage II and III patients is still a challenge due to the difficulties of finding robust biomarkers and assays. The majority of published gene signatures of CRC have been generated on frozen colorectal tissues. Because collection of fresh frozen tissues is not routine and the quantity and quality of RNA derived from formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded (FFPE) tissues is vastly inferior to that derived from fresh frozen tissue, a clinical test for improving staging of colon cancer will need to be designed for FFPE tissues in order to be widely applicable. We have designed a custom Nanostring nCounter assay for quantitative assessment of expression of 414 gene elements consisting of multiple published gene signatures for colon cancer prognosis, and systematically compared the gene expression quantification between nCounter data from FFPE and Affymetrix microarray array data from matched frozen tissues using 414 genes.
Comparison of Nanostring nCounter® Data on FFPE Colon Cancer Samples and Affymetrix Microarray Data on Matched Frozen Tissues.
Disease
View SamplesPURPOSE: The goal of this study was to determine the gene expression networks regulated by tumor necrosis factor receptor 2 (TNFR2, or Tnfrsf1b) and to evaluate their potential bearing on immune cell subsets and inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). METHODS: mRNA-seq was performed on isolated distal colons from TNFR2-knockout and wildtype mice. Differentially expressed transcripts were compared to human ulcerative colitis microarray datasets on Gene Expression Omnibus and to mouse immunological expression datasets at the Immunological Genome Project. RESULTS: We identified 252 mouse transcripts whose expressions were significantly altered by the loss of TNFR2. The majority of these transcripts (228 of 252, ~90%) were downregulated in TNFR2-/- colons. TNFR2-regulated genes were able to positively discriminate between ulcerative colitis patients and healthy individuals with ~80% accuracy. Many TNFR2-regulated genes were also highly expressed in CD8+ T cells. CONCLUSIONS: Downregulation of TNFR2 is associated with a gene expression profile that is prominent in IBD and supportive of the role of CD8+ T cells in IBD pathogenesis. MANUSCRIPT ABSTRACT: Increased tumor necrosis factor (TNF) production has been associated with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), and anti-TNF therapy is a common therapeutic for this patient population. However, the role of TNF or its receptors (TNFR1 and TNFR2) in the immunopathogenesis of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) remains unclear. Here we report that TNFR2 is protective in spontaneous (IL-10 knockout) and chemically (azoxymethane/dextran sodium sulfate)-induced mouse models of colitis and colitis-associated cancer. Mechanistically, TNFR2-deficiency in hematopoietic cells significantly increased incidence and severity of colitis and colitis-associated cancer characterized by a selective expansion of CD8+ T cells. We identified TNFR2-regulated genes in the colon that were specific for CD8+ T cells, interacted with multiple IBD risk genes, and are important regulators of CD8+ T cell biology. TNFR2 regulated CD8+ T-cell-specific genes that act as genetic susceptibility modifiers for IBD to mitigate the development of a pro-colitogenic milieu. Antibody-mediated depletion of CD8+ T cells prevented colonic inflammation and significantly reduced pathology in IL10-/-/TNFR2-/- deficient mice. Furthermore, adoptive transfer of TNFR2-/- naïve CD8+ T cells resulted in more severe disease than with wildtype naïve CD8+ T cells. Our findings provide insight into the disease modifier role of TNFR2 in the immunopathogenesis of IBD through the modulation of CD8+ T cell responses and support future investigation of this therapeutic target, especially in the subset of IBD patients with CD8+ T-cell dysfunction. Overall design: Total RNA from distal colons of 8 week-old male wildtype C57Bl/6 and TNFR2-/- mice (n=3 each) was isolated using the PureLink RNA kit (Ambion, Life Technologies). RNA samples were submitted to the Genomic Services Lab at the HudsonAlpha Institute for Biotechnology (Huntsville, AL) for multiplex library preparation, mRNA enrichment, and sequencing. Sequencing was performed to an average depth of 50M paired-end 50bp reads per sample (HiSeq, Illumina, San Diego, CA). Data files containing raw reads were aligned to the mouse genome using Tophat2/Bowtie2. Alignments were assembled into transcript representations with Cufflinks, and statistical tests for differential expression were performed with Cuffdiff 2. An adjusted P value < 0.05 (q<0.05) from the Cuffdiff 2 output was used as the cutoff for statistical significance.
Tumor Necrosis Factor Receptor 2 Restricts the Pathogenicity of CD8(+) T Cells in Mice With Colitis.
No sample metadata fields
View SamplesHuntingtons disease (HD) is a dominantly inherited genetic disease caused by mutant huntingtin (htt) protein with expanded polyglutamine tracts. A neuropathological hallmark of HD is the presence of neuronal inclusions of mutant htt. p62 is an important regulatory protein in selective autophagy, a process by which aggregated proteins are degraded, and it is associated with several neurodegenerative disorders including HD. Here we investigated the effect of p62 depletion in three HD model mice: R6/2, HD190QG and HD120QG mice. We found that loss of p62 in these models led to longer lifespans and reduced nuclear inclusions, although cytoplasmic inclusions increased with polyglutamine length. In mouse embryonic fibroblasts (MEFs) with or without p62, mutant htt with a nuclear localization signal (NLS) showed no difference in nuclear inclusion between the two MEF types. In the case of mutant htt without NLS, however, p62 depletion increased cytoplasmic inclusions. Furthermore, to examine the effect of impaired autophagy in HD model mice, we crossed R6/2 mice with Atg5 conditional knockout mice. These mice also showed decreased nuclear inclusions and increased cytoplasmic inclusions, similar to HD mice lacking p62. These data suggest that the genetic ablation of p62 in HD model mice enhances cytoplasmic inclusion formation by interrupting autophagic clearance of polyQ inclusions. This reduces polyQ nuclear influx and paradoxically ameliorates disease phenotypes by decreasing toxic nuclear inclusions.
Depletion of p62 reduces nuclear inclusions and paradoxically ameliorates disease phenotypes in Huntington's model mice.
No sample metadata fields
View SamplesColorectal carcinoma is the third leading cause of cancer-related death in the United States. In order to understand the mechanism/signaling pathways responsible for invasion, migration and metastasis in colorectal cancer, we developed an integrative and comparative genetic approach to infer transcriptional regulatory mechanisms underlying colon cancer progression. Accordingly, we filtered fourteen human colorectal cancer (CRC) microarray data sets, from an immune competent mouse model of metastasis to identify known and novel transcriptional regulators in CRC. Using this approach, Nuclear Factor of Activated T cells (NFAT) family of transcription factors were identified as metastasis driver of colon cancer. NFAT family of transcription factors is known to induce gene transcription in various disease processes, including carcinogenesis. We used parental and metastatic derivatives of MC38 mouse colon cancer cells (MC38Par and MC38Met, respectively) to evaluate the role of NFATc1 in cancer cell invasiveness. We found that high NFATc1 expression correlates with significantly increased (p<0.0001) Trans-Endothelial Invasion (TEI) in MC38Met cells. Conversely, RNAi-based inhibition of NFATc1 expression and functional inhibition with calcineurin inhibitor FK506 in MC38Met cells, both resulted in significant decreased TEI (p=0.0193 & p=0.0003). Furthermore, a set of predicted NFATc1 target mRNAs identified in our original analysis were downregulated by knock-down of NFATc1 or functional inhibition with FK506 in MC38Met cells. The expression level (mRNA) of predicted gene targets were high in human CRC specimens which had higher than median NFATc1 mRNA expression (n=11 out of total 22). The tumor-associated NFATc1 co-regulated gene signature is significantly correlated with both disease-specific and disease-free survival in Stage II and III CRC patients. We have successfully demonstrated a bioinformatics approach to identify a tumor promoter driver gene NFATc1. Our studies suggest a role of NFATc1 towards invasion and its co-regulated gene signature for poor outcomes in colorectal cancer.
Nuclear factor of activated T-cell activity is associated with metastatic capacity in colon cancer.
No sample metadata fields
View SamplesThe mucosal epithelium plays a key role in regulating immune homeostasis. Dysregulation of epithelial barrier function is associated with mucosal inflammation. Expression of claudin-2, a pore-forming tight junction protein, is highly upregulated during inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) and, due to its association with epithelial permeability, has been postulated to promote inflammation. Furthermore, claudin-2 also regulates colonic epithelial cell proliferation and intestinal nutrient absorption. However, the precise role of claudin-2 in regulating colonic epithelial and immune homeostasis remains unclear. Here, we demonstrate, using Villin-Claudin-2 transgenic (Cl-2TG) mice, that increased colonic claudin-2 expression unexpectedly protects mice against experimentally induced colitis and colitis-associated cancer. Notably, Cl-2TG mice exhibited increased colon length and permeability as compared with wild type (WT) littermates. However, despite their leaky colon, Cl-2TG mice subjected to experimental colitis were immune compromised, with reduced induction of TLR-2, TLR-4, Myd-88 expression and NF-kB and STAT3 activation. Most importantly, colonic macrophages in Cl-2TG mice exhibited an anergic phenotype. Claudin-2 overexpression also increased colonocyte proliferation and provided protection against colitis-induced colonocyte death. Taken together, our findings have revealed a critical role of claudin-2 in regulating colonic homeostasis, suggesting novel therapeutic strategies for inflammatory conditions of the gastrointestinal tract.
Targeted colonic claudin-2 expression renders resistance to epithelial injury, induces immune suppression, and protects from colitis.
Sex, Specimen part, Treatment
View SamplesWe recently demonstrated mitochondrial degenerations precede muscle wasting in time course progression of CC. However, the extent of muscle perturbations prior to wasting in CC is unknown. Therefore, we performed global gene expression analysis in CC-induced muscle wasting to enhance understanding of intramuscular perturbations across the development of CC. Overall design: Lewis Lung Carcinoma (LLC) was injected into the hind-flank of C57BL6/J mice at 8 wks age with tumor allowed to develop for 1, 2, 3, or 4 wks and compared to PBS injected control. Muscle wasting was evident at 4 wks LLC. Animals were anesthetized using isoflourane and gastrocnemius muscles were collected for analysis. Conclusions: Current findings present novel evidence of transcriptomic shifts and altered cellular pathways in CC-induced muscle wasting.
Transcriptomic analysis of the development of skeletal muscle atrophy in cancer-cachexia in tumor-bearing mice.
Specimen part, Cell line, Subject
View SamplesL-Arginine (L-Arg) is the substrate for both inducible nitric oxide synthase and arginase, which are upregulated in human IBD and in mouse colitis models. We have found that L-Arg supplementation enhances wound restitution in vitro, and improves the clinical parameters of weight loss, survival, and colon weight/length, in dextran sulfate sodium (DSS) induced murine colitis. Our aim was to further identify the potential mechanisms underlying the clinical benefit of L-Arg supplementation.
L-arginine supplementation improves responses to injury and inflammation in dextran sulfate sodium colitis.
Sex, Age, Specimen part
View SamplesThis SuperSeries is composed of the SubSeries listed below.
Three-dimensional culture system identifies a new mode of cetuximab resistance and disease-relevant genes in colorectal cancer.
Specimen part, Cell line
View SamplesIt is increasingly appreciated that properties of cultured epithelial cells differ dramatically in 2D compared to 3D, and the latter more faithfully recapitulates in vivo behavior. By studying a battery of human colorectal cancer (CRC) cell lines in type-1 collagen, we have found that HCA-7 cells form colonies with two distinctive and persistent morphological and functional properties. We observed predominantly single-layered polarized cysts (cystic colonies, CC) and a smaller fraction displaying disorganized solid masses (spiky colonies, SC) that were highly invasive in vivo. Despite overall genomic similarity, CC and SC exhibited distinct and dynamic patterns of gene expression in 3D.
Three-dimensional culture system identifies a new mode of cetuximab resistance and disease-relevant genes in colorectal cancer.
Specimen part, Cell line
View SamplesThis SuperSeries is composed of the SubSeries listed below.
Experimentally derived metastasis gene expression profile predicts recurrence and death in patients with colon cancer.
Sex, Age, Disease stage, Race
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