Publications by authors named "Aladjem M"

Cells undergo tens of thousands of DNA-damaging events each day. Defects in repairing double-stranded breaks (DSBs) can lead to genomic instability, contributing to cancer, genetic disorders, immunological diseases, and developmental defects. Cohesin, a multi-subunit protein complex, plays a crucial role in both chromosome organization and DNA repair by creating architectural loops through chromatin extrusion.

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  • * RepID, a protein associated with the ubiquitin E3 ligase complex, shows potential as a new biomarker for identifying NET and SCLC due to its strong correlation with neuroendocrine gene expression.
  • * Research indicates that RepID levels may also influence the effectiveness of targeted anti-cancer therapies, suggesting that it could be pivotal in developing new treatment strategies for these types of tumors.
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Metastasis is the leading cause of cancer-related deaths, yet its regulatory mechanisms are not fully understood. Small-cell lung cancer (SCLC) is the most metastatic form of lung cancer, with most patients presenting with widespread disease, making it an ideal model for studying metastasis. However, the lack of suitable preclinical models has limited such studies.

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  • - Transcription factors, like Forkhead box A1 (FOXA1), are crucial for gene regulation in development and disease; FOXA1 is particularly important in cancer, acting as a pioneer factor and an oncogene while being reduced in colorectal cancer (CRC), suggesting it may have tumor-suppressing roles.
  • - Research revealed that in CRC, FOXA1 mRNA is unstable, primarily due to its 3'UTR, and this instability is consistent across various CRC cell lines and patient organoids.
  • - Staufen1 (STAU1) was identified as a key regulator of FOXA1; knocking down STAU1 led to increased FOXA1 mRNA stability and expression, highlighting a complex mechanism
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  • The study explores how cancer cells use the G2/M checkpoint to survive DNA damage from treatments like temozolomide (TMZ), and how manipulating this timing can boost therapy effectiveness.
  • Researchers conducted a CRISPR/Cas9 screening to identify mechanisms of tumor cell survival under stress, finding the importance of DNA repair pathways and a specific protein called PKMYT1 in cell resilience.
  • The results suggest that inhibiting PKMYT1 could force cancer cells into mitosis with unresolved damage, causing cell death, and that combining TMZ with a Myt1 inhibitor improves survival in glioma mouse models.
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  • SIRT1 is a key nuclear protein in metazoans that plays a crucial role in DNA processes and is linked to aging and cancer cell behavior.
  • Research showed that as cells age, SIRT1 activity decreases while the occurrence of R-loops (issues arising during transcription and DNA replication) increases in both normal and cancer cells.
  • This decline in SIRT1 activity leads to unregulated DNA replication and distinct responses in normal versus cancer cells, suggesting that aging weakens cellular defenses against replication errors.
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  • Patients with relapsed small cell lung cancer (SCLC), known for its poor prognosis, showed some improvement when the drug berzosertib was added to topotecan in a phase 2 study.
  • A randomized clinical trial conducted from December 2019 to December 2022 involved 60 patients who received either topotecan alone or in combination with berzosertib, assessing their outcomes based on progression-free survival (PFS) and overall survival (OS).
  • Results indicated that after a median follow-up of 21.3 months, there was no significant difference in PFS or OS between the two treatment groups, highlighting the challenge in treating relapsed SCLC.
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Background: Megakaryocytes (MKs) are platelet precursors, which arise from hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs). While MK lineage commitment and differentiation are accompanied by changes in gene expression, many factors that modulate megakaryopoiesis remain to be uncovered. Replication initiation determinant protein (RepID) which has multiple histone-code reader including bromodomain, cryptic Tudor domain and WD40 domains and Cullin 4-RING E3 ubiquitin ligase complex (CRL4) recruited to chromatin mediated by RepID have potential roles in gene expression changes via epigenetic regulations.

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  • Small-cell lung cancer (SCLC) is a very dangerous type of lung cancer that doesn't usually respond well to standard treatments.
  • A new drug called lurbinectedin was recently approved for patients whose cancer came back, but doctors think using it with other treatments might work better.
  • Researchers found that combining lurbinectedin with a special drug called berzosertib may help more patients by making cancer cells grow uncontrollably and die, and they are now testing this combination in a clinical trial.
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Background Megakaryocytes (MKs) are platelet precursors, which arise from hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs). While MK lineage commitment and differentiation are accompanied by changes in gene expression, many factors that modulate megakaryopoiesis remain to be uncovered. Replication origin binding protein (RepID) which has multiple histone-code reader including bromodomain, cryptic Tudor domain and WD40 domains and Cullin 4-RING ubiquitin ligase complex (CRL4) recruited to chromatin mediated by RepID have potential roles in gene expression changes via epigenetic regulations.

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  • The study aimed to explore the combination of chemotherapy and DNA damage response (DDR) inhibitors, focusing on using tumor-targeted chemotherapy to minimize toxicities.
  • A phase I trial tested sacituzumab govitecan, an antibody-drug conjugate, with the ATR inhibitor berzosertib, involving twelve patients at increasing dose levels.
  • The treatment showed improved safety with no severe adverse effects, leading to favorable tumor regressions in some patients, suggesting a promising new approach for better delivering cancer therapies.
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Schlafen 11 (SLFN11) is an increasingly prominent predictive biomarker and a molecular sensor for a wide range of clinical drugs: topoisomerases, PARP and replication inhibitors, and platinum derivatives. To expand the spectrum of drugs and pathways targeting SLFN11, we ran a high-throughput screen with 1,978 mechanistically annotated, oncology-focused compounds in two isogenic pairs of SLFN11-proficient and -deficient cells (CCRF-CEM and K562). We identified 29 hit compounds that selectively kill SLFN11-proficient cells, including not only previously known DNA-targeting agents, but also the neddylation inhibitor pevonedistat (MLN-4924) and the DNA polymerase α inhibitor AHPN/CD437, which both induced SLFN11 chromatin recruitment.

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Matrin3 is an RNA-binding protein that regulates diverse RNA-related processes, including mRNA splicing. Although Matrin3 has been intensively studied in neurodegenerative diseases, its function in cancer remains unclear. Here, we report Matrin3-mediated regulation of mitotic spindle dynamics in colorectal cancer (CRC) cells.

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Unlabelled: Small-cell lung cancer (SCLC) is an aggressive neuroendocrine lung cancer. Oncogenic MYC amplifications drive SCLC heterogeneity, but the genetic mechanisms of MYC amplification and phenotypic plasticity, characterized by neuroendocrine and nonneuroendocrine cell states, are not known. Here, we integrate whole-genome sequencing, long-range optical mapping, single-cell DNA sequencing, and fluorescence in situ hybridization to find extrachromosomal DNA (ecDNA) as a primary source of SCLC oncogene amplifications and driver fusions.

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Endogenous replication stress is a major driver of genomic instability. Current assessments of replication stress are low throughput precluding its comprehensive assessment across tumors. Here we develop and validate a transcriptional profile of replication stress by leveraging established cellular characteristics that portend replication stress.

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Cullin-RING ubiquitin E3 ligase (CRLs) composed of four components including cullin scaffolds, adaptors, substrate receptors, and RING proteins mediates the ubiquitination of approximately 20% of cellular proteins that are involved in numerous biological processes. While CRLs deregulation contributes to the pathogenesis of many diseases, including cancer, how CRLs deregulation occurs is yet to be fully investigated. Here, we demonstrate that components of CRL3 and its transcriptional regulators are possible prognosis marker of neuroendocrine (NE) cancer.

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is a p53-induced lncRNA that suppresses basal p53 levels. Here, we investigated upon p53 activation in liver cancer cells, where it is expressed at significantly higher levels than other cell types. Using isoform sequencing, we discovered novel transcripts that have a retained intron and/or previously unannotated exons.

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DNA methylation is a key regulator of gene expression and a clinical therapeutic predictor. We examined global DNA methylation beyond the generally used promoter areas in human small cell lung cancer (SCLC) and find that gene body methylation is a robust positive predictor of gene expression. Combining promoter and gene body methylation better predicts gene expression than promoter methylation alone including genes involved in the neuroendocrine classification of SCLC and the expression of therapeutically relevant genes including , and .

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Classical MCL (cMCL) constitutes 6-8% of all B cell NHL. Despite recent advances, MCL is incurable except with allogeneic stem cell transplant. Blastic mantle cell lymphoma (bMCL) is a rarer subtype of cMCL associated with an aggressive clinical course and poor treatment response, frequent relapse and poor outcomes.

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During routine genome duplication, many potential replication origins remain inactive or 'dormant'. Such origin dormancy is achieved, in part, by an interaction with the metabolic sensor SIRT1 deacetylase. We report here that dormant origins are a group of consistent, pre-determined genomic sequences that are distinguished from baseline (i.

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In this protocol, the progression of DNA synthesis is profiled at a single-molecule resolution. DNA fibers are uniformly stretched on silanized coverslips, and replicating DNA can be traced with thymidine analogs using specific antibodies against distinct analogs. Single DNA fibers are visualized by an anti-single stranded DNA antibody.

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Background: Compared to normal cells, cancer cells exhibit a higher level of oxidative stress, which primes key cellular and metabolic pathways and thereby increases their resilience under oxidative stress. This higher level of oxidative stress also can be exploited to kill tumor cells while leaving normal cells intact. In this study we have found that isovalerylspiramycin I (ISP I), a novel macrolide antibiotic, suppresses cancer cell growth and tumor metastases by targeting the nucleolar protein selenoprotein H (SELH), which plays critical roles in keeping redox homeostasis and genome stability in cancer cells.

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BEN domain-containing proteins are emerging rapidly as an important class of factors involved in modulating gene expression, yet the molecular basis of how they regulate chromatin function and transcription remains to be established. BEND3 is a quadruple BEN domain-containing protein that associates with heterochromatin and functions as a transcriptional repressor. We find that BEND3 is highly expressed in pluripotent cells, and the induction of differentiation results in the down-regulation of BEND3.

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H2A.J is a poorly studied mammalian-specific variant of histone H2A. We used immunohistochemistry to study its localization in various human and mouse tissues.

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