Adult type ovarian granulosa cell tumors (AGCT) are rare malignancies with the near universal c.C402G (p.Cys134Trp) somatic mutation in FOXL2, a forkhead box family transcription factor important for ovarian function.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe gut microbiota drives progression to liver fibrosis, the main determinant of mortality in metabolic dysfunction-associated steatohepatitis (MASH). In this study, we aimed to identify bacterial species associated with protection against liver fibrosis in a high-risk population, and test their potential to protect against liver fibrosis . Based on stool shotgun metagenomic sequencing of 340 subjects from a population cohort disproportionally affected by MASH, we identified bacterial species from the and orders associated with reduced risk of liver fibrosis.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFOsteosarcoma is the most common primary bone malignancy in children and young adults, and it has few treatment options. As a result, there has been little improvement in survival outcomes in the past few decades. The need for models to test novel therapies is especially great in this disease since it is both rare and does not respond to most therapies.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFLung metastases are the primary cause of death for osteosarcoma (OS) patients. We recently validated interleukin-11 receptor α (IL-11Rα) as a molecular target for the inhibition of OS lung metastases. Since there is no clinically approved antibody against this receptor, we sought to identify downstream targets that mediate the effects of IL-11Rα signaling.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFNormal hematopoietic stem and progenitor cells (HSPCs) inherently accumulate somatic mutations and lose clonal diversity with age, processes implicated in the development of myeloid malignancies . The impact of exogenous stressors, such as cancer chemotherapies, on the genomic integrity and clonal dynamics of normal HSPCs is not well defined. We conducted whole-genome sequencing on 1,032 single-cell-derived HSPC colonies from 10 patients with multiple myeloma (MM), who had undergone various chemotherapy regimens.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFGene disruption from double-strand DNA breaks within introns is a mechanism of inactivating the tumor suppressor TP53. This occurs more frequently in osteosarcoma and biliary adenocarcinoma compared with other cancer types. The patterns of intron breakpoints within TP53 do not correlate with prevalence, intron length, or overall genome-wide levels of rearrangements.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIntratumor heterogeneity (ITH) of tumor-infiltrated leukocytes (TILs) is an important phenomenon of cancer biology with potentially profound clinical impacts. Multi-region gene expression sequencing data provide a promising opportunity that allows for explorations of TILs and their intratumor heterogeneity for each subject. Although several existing methods are available to infer the proportions of TILs, considerable methodological gaps exist for evaluating intratumor heterogeneity of TILs with multi-region gene expression data.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: The presence of lymphovascular invasion (LVI) in early esophageal adenocarcinoma (EAC) is associated with more aggressive disease. Molecular markers associated with LVI are still largely unknown. Using a combination of transcriptomic analysis and validation experiments, we sought to describe markers for LVI and survival.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFRhabdomyosarcoma accounts for roughly 1% of adult sarcomas, with pleomorphic rhabdomyosarcoma (PRMS) as the most common subtype. Survival outcomes remain poor for patients with PRMS, and little is known about the molecular drivers of this disease. To better characterize PRMS, we performed a broad array of genomic and immunostaining analyses on 25 patient samples.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFUnlabelled: Adult-type granulosa cell tumors (aGCT) are rare ovarian sex cord tumors with few effective treatments for recurrent disease. The objective of this study was to characterize the tumor microenvironment (TME) of primary and recurrent aGCTs and to identify correlates of disease recurrence. Total RNA sequencing (RNA-seq) was performed on 24 pathologically confirmed, cryopreserved aGCT samples, including 8 primary and 16 recurrent tumors.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Squamous cell carcinoma of the anus (SCCA) is a rare gastrointestinal cancer. Factors associated with progression of HPV infection to anal dysplasia and cancer are unclear and screening guidelines and approaches for anal dysplasia are less clear than for cervical dysplasia. One potential contributing factor is the anorectal microbiome.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe molecular landscape and the intratumor heterogeneity (ITH) architecture of gastric linitis plastica (LP) are poorly understood. We performed whole-exome sequencing (WES) and T-cell receptor (TCR) sequencing on 40 tumor regions from four LP patients. The landscape and ITH at the genomic and immunological levels in LP tumors were compared with multiple cancers that have previously been reported.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Low-grade serous ovarian cancer (LGSOC) is a rare disease that occurs more frequently in younger women than those with high-grade disease. The current treatment is suboptimal and a better understanding of the molecular pathogenesis of this disease is required. In this study, we compared the proteogenomic analyses of LGSOCs from short- and long-term survivors (defined as < 40 and > 60 months, respectively).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFHigher-order chromatin structure is important for the regulation of genes by distal regulatory sequences. Structural variants (SVs) that alter three-dimensional (3D) genome organization can lead to enhancer-promoter rewiring and human disease, particularly in the context of cancer. However, only a small minority of SVs are associated with altered gene expression, and it remains unclear why certain SVs lead to changes in distal gene expression and others do not.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFNeoantigens are the key targets of antitumor immune responses from cytotoxic T cells and play a critical role in affecting tumor progressions and immunotherapy treatment responses. However, little is known about how the interaction between neoantigens and T cells ultimately affects the evolution of cancerous masses. Here, we develop a hierarchical Bayesian model, named neoantigen-T cell interaction estimation (netie) to infer the history of neoantigen-CD8 T cell interactions in tumors.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFImportance: Despite similar histologic appearance among high-grade serous ovarian cancers (HGSOCs), clinical observations suggest vast differences in gross appearance. There is currently no systematic framework by which to classify HGSOCs according to their gross morphologic characteristics.
Objective: To develop and characterize a gross morphologic classification system for HGSOC.
Patients with high-grade serous ovarian cancer (HGSC) who have no visible residual disease (R0) after primary surgery have the best clinical outcomes, followed by patients who undergo neoadjuvant chemotherapy (NACT) and have a response enabling interval cytoreductive surgery. Clinically useful biomarkers for predicting these outcomes are still lacking. Extracellular vesicles (EVs) have been recognized as liquid biopsy-based biomarkers for early cancer detection and disease surveillance in other disease settings.
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