We show that numerous miRNAs are transcriptionally up-regulated in papillary thyroid carcinoma (PTC) tumors compared with unaffected thyroid tissue. Among the predicted target genes of the three most upregulated miRNAs (miRs 221, 222 and 146b), only less than 15% showed significant downexpression in transcript level between tumor and unaffected tissue. The KIT gene which is known to be downregulated by miRNAs 221 and 222 displayed dramatic loss of transcript and protein in those tumors that had abundant mir-221, mir-222, and mir-146b transcript.
The role of microRNA genes in papillary thyroid carcinoma.
Specimen part
View SamplesPapillary thyroid cancers (PTC) that invade into local structures are associated with a poor prognosis, but the mechanisms for PTC invasion are incompletely defined limiting the development of new therapies. To characterize biological processes involved in PTC invasion, we analyzed the gene expression profiles of microscopically dissected intratumoral samples from central and invasive regions of seven widely invasive PTCs and normal thyroid tissue by oligonucleotide microarray and performed confirmatory expression and functional studies. In comparison to the central regions of primary PTCs, the invasive fronts overexpressed TGFbeta, NFkappaB and integrin pathway members, and regulators of small G-proteins and CDC42. Moreover, reduced levels of mRNAs encoding proteins involved in cell-cell adhesion and communication were identified, consistent with epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition (EMT). To confirm that aggressive PTCs were characterized by EMT, 35 additional PTCs were examined for expression of vimentin, a hallmark of EMT. Overexpression of vimentin was associated with PTC invasion and nodal metastasis. Functional, in vitro studies demonstrated that vimentin was required for the development and maintenance of both a mesenchymal morphology and invasiveness in thyroid cancer cells. We conclude that EMT is a common mechanism of PTC invasion and that vimentin regulates thyroid cancer EMT in vitro.
Gene expression and functional evidence of epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition in papillary thyroid carcinoma invasion.
Specimen part
View SamplesAcute myeloid leukemia (AML) is associated with poor prognosis, and there is a strong need to develop new therapeutic strategies to improve treatments. We performed a cytokine screen with 114 recombinant proteins to identify selective negative regulators of primitive murine AML cells relative to normal bone marrow cells. The top candidate identified was interleukin 4 (IL4), as it showed the most selective inhibition of leukemia cell growth. Stimulating leukemia cells ex vivo with IL4 and transplanting the cells into mice resulted in reduced leukemia burden and prolonged survival compared with controls. In contrast, IL4 did not inhibit the function of normal hematopoietic stem and progenitor cells in long-term bone marrow repopulation assays. Moreover, we found that IL4 treatment of leukemia cells induced Stat6 phosphorylation, and that leukemia cells with Stat6 knocked out using CRISPR/Cas9-genetic engineering were partially resistant to IL4 stimulation, revealing Stat6 as a critical mediator of the IL4 effect. To evaluate whether IL4 has in vivo therapeutic efficacy, we expressed IL4 ectopically in leukemia cells in vivo and also injected IL4 into leukemic mice; both strategies resulted in the suppression of the leukemia cell burden and increased survival. Further analysis revealed that IL4 treatment induces apoptosis in the leukemia cells. Importantly, IL4 exposure also inhibited the growth and survival of primary AML patient cells. In summary, these findings demonstrate that IL4 selectively inhibits AML cells in a Stat6-dependent manner, thus revealing IL4 as a candidate therapeutic agent in AML. IL4 (ProSpec, East Brunswick NJ, USA) was resuspended following the provider guidelines and stored in aliquotes at -80 °C. Mouse MLL-AF9 leukemia cells were provided by Dr. Benjamin Ebert (Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston MA, USA). The murine leukemia cells were cultured in SFEM (StemCell Tech) supplemented with 1% penicillin/streptomycin at 37 °C with 5% CO2. Overall design: Mouse MLL-AF9 leukemia cells were grown in 20 ng/mL IL3 with or without IL4 (100 ng/mL) for 18 hours.
Interleukin 4 induces apoptosis of acute myeloid leukemia cells in a Stat6-dependent manner.
Specimen part, Subject
View SamplesIGHV mutation status is a well-established prognostic factor in chronic lymphocytic leukemia, and also provides crucial insights into tumor cell biology and function. Currently, determination of IGHV transcript sequence, from which mutation status is calculated, requires a specialized laboratory procedure. RNA sequencing is a method that provides high resolution, high dynamic range transcriptome data that can be used for differential expression, isoform discovery, and variant determination. In this paper, we demonstrate that unselected next-generation RNA sequencing can accurately determine the IGH@ sequence, including the complete sequence of the complementarity-determining region 3 (CDR3), and mutation status of CLL cells, potentially replacing the current method which is a specialized, single-purpose Sanger-sequencing based test. Overall design: CLL cells were sequenced by mRNA-seq on the Illumina platform then subjected to the costom bioinformatic pipeline Ig-ID which yields IGH data
Immunoglobulin transcript sequence and somatic hypermutation computation from unselected RNA-seq reads in chronic lymphocytic leukemia.
No sample metadata fields
View SamplesWe differentiated mouse bone marrow cells in the presence of recombinant macrophage colony stimulating (rM-CSF) factor for 14 days during the flight of space shuttle Space Transportation System (STS)-126. We tested the hypothesis that the receptor expression for M-CSF, c-Fms was reduced. We used flow cytometry to assess molecules on cells that were preserved during flight to define the differentiation state of the developing bone marrow macrophages; including CD11b, CD31, CD44, Ly6C, Ly6G, F4/80, Mac2, c-Fos as well as c-Fms. In addition, RNA was preserved during the flight and was used to perform a gene microarray. We found that there were significant differences in the number of macrophages that developed in space compared to controls maintained on Earth. We found that there were significant changes in the distribution of cells that expressed CD11b, CD31, F4/80, Mac2, Ly6C and c-Fos. However, there were no changes in c-Fms expression and no consistent pattern of advanced or retarded differentiation during space flight. We also found a pattern of transcript levels that would be consistent with a relatively normal differentiation outcome but increased proliferation by the bone marrow macrophages that were assayed after 14 days of space flight. There also was a surprising pattern of space flight influence on genes of the coagulation pathway. These data confirm that a space flight can have an impact on the in vitro development of macrophages from mouse bone marrow cells.
Evaluation of in vitro macrophage differentiation during space flight.
Specimen part
View SamplesInflammasomes are intracellular innate immune sensors that respond to pathogen and damage-associated signals with the proteolytic cleavage of caspase-1, resulting in IL-1_ and IL-18 secretion and macrophage pyroptosis. The discovery that heterozygous gain-of-function mutations in NLRP3 lead to oversecretion of IL-1_ and cause the autoinflammatory disease spectrum Cryopyrin Associated Periodic Syndrome (CAPS), led to the successful use of IL-1 blocking therapies1. We found that a de novo missense mutation in the regulatory domain of the NLRC4 (IPAF, CARD12) inflammasome causes early-onset recurrent fever flares and Macrophage Activation Syndrome (MAS). Functional analyses demonstrated spontaneous production of the inflammasome-dependent cytokines IL-1² and IL-18 exceeding levels in CAPS patients. The NLRC4 mutation led to constitutive caspase-1 cleavage in transduced cells and enhanced spontaneous production of IL-18 by both patient and NLRC4 mutant macrophages. Thus, we describe a novel monoallelic inflammasome defect that expands the autoinflammatory paradigm to include MAS and suggests novel targets for therapy. Overall design: Whole blood RNA-seq from seven timepoints of one patient with NLRC4-MAS as compared to five healthy pediatric controls, 7 NOMID patients with active disease prior to anakinra treatment and the same 7 NOMID patients with inactive disease after anakinra treatment. Please note that seven time points are chronologic time point. They are ordinal, in that "1" was drawn before "2", but the distance in time between points is not constant. Thus, time points 4 through 7 correspond to samples drawn while the patient was well AND on treatment. However there may be differences between 4 and 7 pertaining to the length of treatment, and for that reason any of these samples were not considered replicates.
An activating NLRC4 inflammasome mutation causes autoinflammation with recurrent macrophage activation syndrome.
No sample metadata fields
View SamplesScreening small molecules and drugs for activity to modulate alternative splicing, we found that amiloride, distinct from four other intracellular pH-affecting analogues, could normalize the splicing of BCL-X, HIPK3 and RON/MISTR1 transcripts in human hepatocellular carcinoma Huh-7 cells. To elucidate the underlying mechanisms, our proteomic analyses of amiloride-treated cells detected hypo-phosphorylation of splicing factor SF2/ASF and also decreased levels of SRp20 and two un-identified SR proteins. We further observed decreased phosphorylation of AKT, ERK1/2 and PP1, while increased phosphorylation of p38 and JNK, suggesting that amiloride treatment down-regulated kinases and up-regulated phosphatases in the signal pathways known to affect the splicing factor protein phosphorylation. The amiloride effects of splicing factor protein hypo-phosphorylation andnormalizedoncogenic RNA splicing were both abrogated by pre-treatment with a PP1 inhibitor. We then performed global exon array analysis of Huh-7 cells treated with amiloride for 24 hours. Using gene array chips (Affymetrix GeneChip Human Exon 1.0 ST Array of >518000 exons of 42974 genes) for exon array analysis (set parameters of correlation coefficient 0.7, splicing index -1.585 , and log2 ratio -1.585), we found that amiloride influenced the splicing patterns of 551 genes involving at least 584 exons, which included 495 known protein-coding genes involving 526 exons, many of which play key roles in functional networks of ion transport, extracellular matrix, cytoskeletons and genome maintenance. Cellular functional analyses revealed subsequent invasion and migration defects, cell cycle disruption, cytokinesis impairment, and lethal DNA degradation in amiloride-treated Huh-7 cells. This study thus provides mechanistic underpinnings for exploiting small molecule modulation of abnormal RNA splicing for cancer therapeutics.
Small molecule amiloride modulates oncogenic RNA alternative splicing to devitalize human cancer cells.
Cell line
View SamplesThe tumor suppressor genes EAF2 and p53 are frequently dysregulated in prostate cancers. Recently, we reported that concurrent p53 nuclear staining and EAF2 downregulation were associated with high Gleason score. Combined loss of EAF2 and p53 in a murine model induced prostate tumors, and concurrent knockdown of EAF2 and p53 in prostate cancer cells enhanced proliferation and migration, further suggesting that EAF2 and p53 could functionally interact in the suppression of prostate tumorigenesis. Here, RNA-seq analyses identified differentially regulated genes in response to concurrent knockdown of p53 and EAF2. Several of these genes were associated with the STAT3 signaling pathway, and this was verified by significantly increased p-STAT3 immunostaining in the Eaf2-/-p53-/- mouse prostate. STAT3 knockdown abrogated the stimulation of C4-2 cell proliferation by concurrent knockdown of EAF2 and p53. Furthermore, immunostaining of p-STAT3 was increased in human prostate cancer specimens with EAF2 downregulation and/or p53 nuclear staining. Our findings suggest that simultaneous inactivation of EAF2 and p53 can act to activate STAT3 and drive prostate tumorigenesis. Overall design: C4-2 prostate cancer cells treated with siEAF2 and/or sip53 mRNA profiles were generated by deep sequencing, using Illumina HiSeq 2000.
EAF2 and p53 Co-Regulate STAT3 Activation in Prostate Cancer.
Specimen part, Cell line, Subject
View SamplesAlternative splicing is a mechanism for increasing the protein variety of a limited number of genes. Studies have shown that aberrant regulations of the alternative splicing of apoptotic gene transcripts may contribute to the development of cancer. In this study, we isolated 4ß-Hydroxywithanolide E (4bHWE) from the traditional herb Physalis peruviana, and analyzed its biological effects in cancer cells. The results demonstrated that 4bHWE modulates the alternative splicing of apoptotic genes (e.g., HIPK3, SMAC/DIABLO, and SURVIVIN), changes the expression level of splicing factors (e.g., hnRNP C1/C2, ASF/SF2, SRp20, and SRp55), and induces histone tail posttranslational modifications (e.g., H3K27me1, H3K27me2, H3K36me3, and H3K79me1). Pretreatment with okadaic acid to inhibit protein phosphatase-1 could partly relieve the effects of 4bHWE on the alternative splicing of HIPK3 and SMAC/DIABLO transcripts, as well as on the dephosphorylation of ASF/SF2. Genome-wide detection of alternative splicing further indicated that several other apoptosis-related genes are also regulated by 4bHWE, including APAF1, CARP-1, and RIPK1. Moreover, we extended our study to apoptosis-associated molecules, detecting an increasing level of CASPASE-3 activity and cleavage of poly ADP-ribose polymerase in 4bHWE-induced apoptosis. Furthermore, in vivo experiments showed that the treatment of tumor-bearing mice with 4bHWE resulted in a marked decrease of tumor size and weight. Taken together, this study is the first to show that 4bHWE affects alternative splicing through the modulations of splicing factors, providing a novel view of the antitumor mechanism of 4bHWE. Overall design: Examination of the global genes with altered alternative splicing in 4bHWE-treated Huh-7 cells.
4β-Hydroxywithanolide E Modulates Alternative Splicing of Apoptotic Genes in Human Hepatocellular Carcinoma Huh-7 Cells.
Specimen part, Treatment, Subject
View SamplesMice lacking the beta 2 subunit (Chrnb2) of the neuronal nicotinic acetylcholine receptor display altered retinal waves and disorganized projections of the retinal ganglion cells to the lateral geniculate nucleus (LGN). mRNA populations from retinas and LGN from Chrnb2-/-and wild type (C57BL/6J) mice were compared at 4 days postnatal, when RGC segregation to the LGN begins in WT mice. Retinal mRNAs were also compared at adulthood.
Mouse mutants for the nicotinic acetylcholine receptor ß2 subunit display changes in cell adhesion and neurodegeneration response genes.
Sex, Specimen part
View Samples