Various histopathological, clinical and imaging parameters have been evaluated to identify a subset of women diagnosed with lesions with uncertain malignant potential (B3 or BIRADS 3/4A lesions) who could safely be observed rather than being treated with surgical excision, with little impact on clinical practice. The primary reason for surgery is to rule out an upgrade to either ductal carcinoma in situ or invasive breast cancer, which occurs in up to 30% of patients. We hypothesised that the stromal immune microenvironment could indicate the presence of carcinoma associated with a ductal B3 lesion and that this could be detected in biopsies by counting lymphocytes as a predictive biomarker for upgrade.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPurpose: The classification of small cell lung cancer (SCLC) into distinct molecular subtypes defined by ASCL1, NEUROD1, POU2F3, or YAP1 (SCLC-A, -N, -P, or -Y) expression, paves the way for a personalized treatment approach. However, the existence of a distinct YAP1-expressing SCLC subtype remains controversial.
Experimental Design: To better understand YAP1-expressing SCLC, the mutational landscape of human SCLC cell lines was interrogated to identify pathogenic alterations unique to SCLC-Y.
In recent years anatomical pathology has been revolutionised by the incorporation of molecular findings into routine diagnostic practice, and in some diseases the presence of specific molecular alterations are now essential for diagnosis. Spatial transcriptomics describes a group of technologies that provide up to transcriptome-wide expression profiling while preserving the spatial origin of the data, with many of these technologies able to provide these data using a single tissue section. Spatial transcriptomics allows expression profiling of highly specific areas within a tissue section potentially to subcellular resolution, and allows correlation of expression data with morphology, tissue type and location relative to other structures.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMantle-derived noble gases in volcanic gases are powerful tracers of terrestrial volatile evolution, as they contain mixtures of both primordial (from Earth's accretion) and secondary (e.g., radiogenic) isotope signals that characterize the composition of deep Earth.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFProc Natl Acad Sci U S A
December 2021
Iron is an irreplaceable component of proteins and enzyme systems required for life. This need for iron is a well-characterized evolutionary mechanism for genetic selection. However, there is limited consideration of how iron bioavailability, initially determined by planetary accretion but fluctuating considerably at global scale over geological time frames, has shaped the biosphere.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSP142 programmed cell death ligand 1 (PD-L1) status predicts response to atezolizumab in triple-negative breast carcinoma (TNBC). Prevalence of VENTANA PD-L1 (SP142) Assay positivity, concordance with the VENTANA PD-L1 (SP263) Assay and Dako PD-L1 IHC 22C3 pharmDx assay, and association with clinicopathologic features were assessed in 447 TNBCs. SP142 PD-L1 intraobserver and interobserver agreement was investigated in a subset of 60 TNBCs, with scores enriched around the 1% cutoff.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Understanding the drivers of recurrence in aggressive prostate cancer requires detailed molecular and genomic understanding in order to aid therapeutic interventions. We provide here a case report of histological, transcriptional, proteomic, immunological, and genomic features in a longitudinal study of multiple biopsies from diagnosis, through treatment, and subsequent recurrence.
Case Presentation: Here we present a case study of a male in 70 s with high-grade clinically-localised acinar adenocarcinoma treated with definitive hormone therapy and radiotherapy.
Most NUTM1-rearranged neoplasms (NRNs) have fusions between NUTM1 and BRD (bromodomain-containing) family members and are termed NUT carcinomas (NCs) because they show some squamous differentiation. However, some NRNs are associated with fusions between NUTM1 and members of the MAD (MAX dimerization) gene family of MYC antagonists. Here we describe a small round cell malignancy from the gastro-esophageal junction with a previously unreported fusion between NUTM1 and the MAD family member MXI1.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Prostate cancer (PCa) has a profoundly immunosuppressive microenvironment and is commonly immune excluded with few infiltrative lymphocytes and low levels of immune activation. High-dose radiation has been demonstrated to stimulate the immune system in various human solid tumors. We hypothesized that localized radiation therapy, in the form of high dose-rate brachytherapy (HDRBT), would overcome immune suppression in PCa.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIdentifying the origin of noble gases in Earth's mantle can provide crucial constraints on the source and timing of volatile (C, N, HO, noble gases, etc.) delivery to Earth. It remains unclear whether the early Earth was able to directly capture and retain volatiles throughout accretion or whether it accreted anhydrously and subsequently acquired volatiles through later additions of chondritic material.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThere is now evidence that gene fusions activating the MAPK pathway are relatively common in pancreatic acinar cell carcinoma with potentially actionable BRAF or RET fusions being found in ~30%. We sought to investigate the incidence of RAF1 fusions in pancreatic malignancies with acinar cell differentiation. FISH testing for RAF1 was undertaken on 30 tumors comprising 25 'pure' acinar cell carcinomas, 2 mixed pancreatic acinar-neuroendocrine carcinomas, 1 mixed acinar cell-low grade neuroendocrine tumor and 2 pancreatoblastomas.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIntraductal papillomas (IDP) are challenging breast findings because of their variable risk of progression to malignancy. The molecular events driving IDP development and genomic features of malignant progression are poorly understood. In this study, genome-wide CNA and/or targeted mutation analysis was performed on 44 cases of IDP, of which 20 cases had coexisting ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS), papillary DCIS or invasive ductal carcinoma (IDC).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe transcription factor GLI1 is a critical effector of the sonic hedgehog pathway. Gene fusions that activate GLI1 have recently been reported in several tumor types including gastroblastoma, plexiform fibromyxoma, a subset of pericytomas, and other soft tissue tumors. These tumors arise in a wide variety of anatomical origins and have variable malignant potentials, morphologies, and immunohistochemistry profiles.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjectives: PD-L1 immunohistochemistry (IHC) is an essential predictive biomarker for patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), required to inform treatment decisions regarding anti-PD-1 immune checkpoint inhibitor therapy. This study aims to investigate the concordance between PD-L1 IHC assessed on NSCLC cytology and histology specimens and to determine the impactce of tumour cellularity.
Methods: Matched cytology and histology NSCLC specimens were retrieved from the archives of the Royal Melbourne Hospital and the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital.
Purpose: The majority of deaths from breast cancer occur following the development of metastatic disease, a process inhibited by β-blockers in preclinical studies. This phase II randomized controlled trial evaluated the effect of preoperative β-blockade with propranolol on biomarkers of metastatic potential and the immune cell profile within the primary tumor of patients with breast cancer.
Patients And Methods: In this triple-blind placebo-controlled clinical trial, 60 patients were randomly assigned to receive an escalating dose of oral propranolol ( = 30; 80-160 mg daily) or placebo ( = 30) for 7 days prior to surgery.
The current model for breast cancer progression proposes independent 'low grade (LG)-like' and 'high grade (HG)-like' pathways but lacks a known precursor to HG cancer. We applied low-coverage whole-genome sequencing to atypical ductal hyperplasia (ADH) with and without carcinoma to shed light on breast cancer progression. Fourteen out of twenty isolated ADH cases harboured at least one copy number alteration (CNA), but had fewer aberrations than LG or HG ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBRAF and CRAF are critical components of the MAPK signaling pathway which is activated in many cancer types. In approximately 1% of melanomas, BRAF or CRAF are activated through structural arrangements. We describe here a metastatic melanoma with a GOLGA4-RAF1 fusion and pathogenic variants in CTNNB1 and CDKN2A.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMetastasis via the lymphatic vasculature is an important step in cancer progression. The formation of new lymphatic vessels (lymphangiogenesis), or remodeling of existing lymphatics, is thought to facilitate the entry and transport of tumor cells into lymphatic vessels and on to distant organs. The migration of lymphatic endothelial cells (LEC) toward guidance cues is critical for lymphangiogenesis.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBreast implant-associated anaplastic large cell lymphoma (BIA-ALCL) is a rare form of T-cell lymphoma that occurs after implantation of breast prostheses. We performed comprehensive next generation sequencing based genomic characterization of 11 cases of BIA-ALCL including sequence variant detection on 180 genes frequently mutated in haematological malignancy, genome-wide copy number assessment, structural variant detection involving the T-cell receptor loci and TRB deep-sequencing. We observed sequence variants leading to JAK/STAT activation in 10 out of 11 patients.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIn the version of this article originally published, the institution in affiliation 10 was missing. Affiliation 10 was originally listed as Department of Surgery, Royal Melbourne Hospital and Royal Womens' Hospital, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. It should have been Department of Surgery, Royal Melbourne Hospital and Royal Womens' Hospital, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe quantity of tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs) in breast cancer (BC) is a robust prognostic factor for improved patient survival, particularly in triple-negative and HER2-overexpressing BC subtypes. Although T cells are the predominant TIL population, the relationship between quantitative and qualitative differences in T cell subpopulations and patient prognosis remains unknown. We performed single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq) of 6,311 T cells isolated from human BCs and show that significant heterogeneity exists in the infiltrating T cell population.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIntroduction: Four different programmed death ligand 1 immunohistochemical assays are approved or in development as companion or complementary diagnostics to different immunotherapeutic agents in lung carcinoma. We sought to determine whether these assays are technically equivalent and whether one antibody can be used on an alternate staining platform.
Methods: Serial sections of tissue microarrays constructed from 368 cases of resected lung cancer were stained for 22C3 and 28-8 on the Dako Link 48 platform (Dako, Carpinteria, Ca) and for SP142 and SP263 on the Ventana Benchmark Ultra platform (Ventana Medical Systems, Tucson, AZ) strictly as per product insert.
The significance and regulation of liver receptor homologue 1 (LRH-1, ), a tumour-promoting transcription factor in breast cancer cell lines, is unknown in clinical breast cancers. This study aims to determine LRH-1/ expression in breast cancers and relationship with DNA methylation and tumour characteristics. In The Cancer Genome Atlas breast cancer cohort expression was positively associated with intragenic CpG island methylation (1.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Male breast cancer (MBC) represents a poorly characterised group of tumours, the management of which is largely based on practices established for female breast cancer. However, recent studies demonstrate biological and molecular differences likely to impact on tumour behaviour and therefore patient outcome. The aim of this study was to investigate methylation of a panel of commonly methylated breast cancer genes in familial MBCs.
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