Publications by authors named "Kosuke Kawaguchi"

Fatty acids are known to have significant effects on the properties of cancer cells. Therefore, these compounds have been incorporated into therapeutic strategies. However, few studies have examined the effects of individual fatty acids and their interactions in depth.

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  • Neoadjuvant treatment with microtubule inhibitors (MTIs) for triple negative breast cancer (TNBC) is not well understood, prompting a study that analyzed tumor samples to correlate genetic mutations with treatment response.
  • The study found that tumors with high homologous recombination deficiency (HRD) and specific mutations (like BRCA2) had higher rates of complete response to MTIs like eribulin and paclitaxel.
  • Transcriptomic profiling highlighted FGFR2 downregulation as a critical gene linked to treatment response and identified a significant pathway (glycan degradation) that could influence resistance to these therapies in TNBC patients.*
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Background: The prognostic value of the risk-of-recurrence (ROR) score calculated using PAM50 has been validated using clinical trials and patient cohorts. This study aimed to investigate the prognostic value of the PAM50 ROR score in Japanese patients with early breast cancer using long-term follow-up data.

Methods: We enrolled postmenopausal patients with ER-positive, HER2-negative, stage I-II breast cancer who had undergone surgery at the Kyoto University Hospital between 2008 and 2014.

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Background: Breast cancer cells suppress the host immune system to efficiently invade the lymph nodes; however, the underlying mechanism remains incompletely understood. Here, we aimed to comprehensively characterise the effects of breast cancers on immune cells in the lymph nodes.

Methods: We collected non-metastatic and metastatic lymph node samples from 6 patients with breast cancer with lymph node metastasis.

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Dermatomyositis (DM) is an autoimmune disease that causes proximal muscle weakness in the extremities leading to severe immobility and dysphagia. Approximately 20% of patients with DM are positive for anti-TIF-1γ antibody and frequently accompanied by malignant tumors. Although DM remission after tumor resection has been reported, the indications for surgery in patients with severe DM are unknown.

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Cancer cachexia is a complex, multifaceted condition that negatively impacts the health, treatment efficacy, and economic status of cancer patients. The management of cancer cachexia is an essential clinical need. Cancer cachexia is currently defined mainly according to the severity of weight loss and sarcopenia (i.

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  • Triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) is difficult to treat due to its diverse nature, leading to challenges in predicting patient outcomes.
  • This study analyzed blood cytokine levels in TNBC patients at various treatment stages, identifying five key cytokines associated with better clinical responses.
  • The research concluded that monitoring these cytokine profiles could enhance understanding of immune activity in patients and improve predictions for treatment success, contributing to personalized medicine efforts.
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Recent advances in the field of immuno-oncology have brought transformative changes in the management of cancer patients. The immune profile of tumours has been found to have key value in predicting disease prognosis and treatment response in various cancers. Multiplex immunohistochemistry and immunofluorescence have emerged as potent tools for the simultaneous detection of multiple protein biomarkers in a single tissue section, thereby expanding opportunities for molecular and immune profiling while preserving tissue samples.

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  • - The study investigated the impact of adding cisplatin (CDDP) to preoperative chemotherapy for patients with triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC), comparing its effects to a group that did not receive CDDP.
  • - A total of 138 previously untreated TNBC patients were analyzed, with the CDDP group showing significantly improved distant disease-free survival (DDFS) rates compared to the non-CDDP group.
  • - The findings suggest that CDDP-containing regimens could improve outcomes for operable TNBC patients, particularly those with higher residual cancer burden, indicating a need for further confirmation in future studies.
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ABCD4, which belongs to the ABC protein subfamily D, plays a role in the transport of cobalamin from lysosomes to the cytosol by cooperating with ATP-binding and ATP-hydrolysis. Pathogenic variants in the ABCD4 gene lead to an inherited metabolic disorder characterized by cobalamin deficiency. However, the structural requirements for cobalamin transport in ABCD4 remain unclear.

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Intracellular lipid droplets (LDs) are ubiquitous organelles found in many cell types. During mitosis, membranous organelles, including mitochondria, are divided into small pieces and transferred to daughter cells; however, the process of LD transfer to daughter cells is not fully elucidated. Herein, we investigated the behavior of LDs during mitosis in HuH7 human hepatoma cells.

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  • Chemotherapy drugs like doxorubicin and abemaciclib induce senescence in breast cancer cells, but how they affect pH levels in these cells is not well understood.
  • The protein ATP6AP2 is essential for keeping pH balanced in cells, and a decrease in this protein leads to abnormal pH levels that disrupt lysosomal function and change immune responses.
  • The study shows that ATP6AP2 influences pH regulation and is linked to changes in immune profiles when breast cancer cells undergo therapy-induced senescence, shedding light on the underlying mechanisms of cellular responses to cancer treatment.
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The clinical significance of the tumor-immune interaction in breast cancer is now established, and tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs) have emerged as predictive and prognostic biomarkers for patients with triple-negative (estrogen receptor, progesterone receptor, and HER2-negative) breast cancer and HER2-positive breast cancer. How computational assessments of TILs might complement manual TIL assessment in trial and daily practices is currently debated. Recent efforts to use machine learning (ML) to automatically evaluate TILs have shown promising results.

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Modern histologic imaging platforms coupled with machine learning methods have provided new opportunities to map the spatial distribution of immune cells in the tumor microenvironment. However, there exists no standardized method for describing or analyzing spatial immune cell data, and most reported spatial analyses are rudimentary. In this review, we provide an overview of two approaches for reporting and analyzing spatial data (raster versus vector-based).

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Lipids are a major component of extracellular vesicles; however, their significance in tumorigenesis and progression has not been well elucidated. As we previously found that lipid profiles drastically changed in breast tumors upon progression, we hypothesized that lipid profiles of plasma-derived extracellular vesicles could be utilized as breast cancer biomarkers. Here, we adopted modified sucrose cushion ultracentrifugation to isolate plasma-derived extracellular vesicles from breast cancer (n = 105), benign (n = 11), and healthy individuals (n = 43) in two independent cohorts (n = 126 and n = 33) and conducted targeted lipidomic analysis.

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Recent studies have documented frequent evolution of clones carrying common cancer mutations in apparently normal tissues, which are implicated in cancer development. However, our knowledge is still missing with regard to what additional driver events take place in what order, before one or more of these clones in normal tissues ultimately evolve to cancer. Here, using phylogenetic analyses of multiple microdissected samples from both cancer and non-cancer lesions, we show unique evolutionary histories of breast cancers harbouring der(1;16), a common driver alteration found in roughly 20% of breast cancers.

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Cancers induce the production of acute phase proteins such as serum amyloid alpha (SAA) in the liver and cause inflammation in various host organs. Despite the well-known coincidence of acute phase response and inflammation, the direct roles of SAA proteins in inflammation in the cancer context remains incompletely characterized, particularly . Here, we investigate the significance of SAA proteins in liver inflammation in the 4T1 murine breast cancer model.

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The spatially organized gene expression program within the liver specifies hepatocyte functions according to their relative distances to the bloodstream (i.e., zonation), contributing to liver homeostasis.

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Radiation therapy (RT) can enhance the abscopal effect of immune checkpoint blockade. This phase I/II study investigated the efficacy and safety of nivolumab plus RT in HER2-negative metastatic breast cancer requiring palliative RT for bone metastases. Cohort A included luminal-like disease, and cohort B included both luminal-like and triple-negative disease refractory to standard systemic therapy.

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  • * Researchers created a soluble version of OX40L (PA-MBL-OX40L) with a special tag that helps it form a trimer structure, which effectively binds to OX40 and promotes stronger immune responses in CD4 T cells compared to standard monoclonal antibodies.
  • * The study demonstrated that both soluble and immobilized forms of PA-MBL-OX40L trigger robust OX40 signaling, leading to enhanced T cell activity in treated mice, suggesting engineered O
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Cancer immunotherapies, particularly immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) that target programmed cell death protein 1 (PD-1) or programmed cell death ligand 1 (PD-L1), have revolutionized cancer treatment. ICIs are effective against breast cancer, and their efficacy against triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) has been reported. The efficacy of immunotherapy is related to the tumor immune microenvironment.

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The ATP-binding cassette (ABC) transporters are one of the largest families of membrane-bound proteins and exist in almost all living organisms from eubacteria to mammals. They transport diverse substrates across membranes utilizing the energy of ATP hydrolysis as a driving force and play an essential role in cellular homeostasis. In humans, four ABC transporters classified as subfamily D have been identified.

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  • Triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) is complex, displaying various biological characteristics, and a study called Japan Breast Cancer Research Group 22 is exploring how TNBC responds to different chemotherapy treatments based on its homologous recombination deficiency (HRD) status.
  • The study involved patients under 65 with either high HRD or specific gene mutations, who received randomized chemotherapy regimens, with treatment effectiveness measured by the absence of residual cancer cells post-therapy.
  • Results from 66 samples showed that smaller tumors had more CD8 T cells, while higher densities of CD4 T cells were linked to complete pathological responses, suggesting that these immune cells could predict treatment outcomes regardless of other genetic factors.
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TNF receptor-associated factor 5 (TRAF5) restrains early signaling activity of the IL-6 receptor in naive CD4 T cells by interacting with the shared gp130 chain, although TRAF5 was initially discovered as a cytoplasmic adaptor protein to activate signaling mediated by TNF receptor family molecules. This leads to the question of whether TRAF5 limits signaling via the receptor for IL-27, which is composed of gp130 and WSX-1. The aim of this study is to clarify the role of TRAF5 in IL-27 receptor signaling and to understand the differential role of TRAF5 on cytokine receptor signaling.

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Liver metastasis is a major cause of mortality for patients with colorectal cancer (CRC). Mismatch repair-proficient (pMMR) CRCs make up about 95% of metastatic CRCs, and are unresponsive to immune checkpoint blockade (ICB) therapy. Here we show that mouse models of orthotopic pMMR CRC liver metastasis accurately recapitulate the inefficacy of ICB therapy in patients, whereas the same pMMR CRC tumors are sensitive to ICB therapy when grown subcutaneously.

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