MHC Class II is Induced by IFNγ and Follows Three Distinct Patterns of Expression in Colorectal Cancer Organoids.

Unlabelled: Tumor-specific MHC class II (tsMHC-II) expression impacts tumor microenvironmental immunity. tsMHC-II positive cancer cells may act as surrogate antigen-presenting cells and targets for CD4 T cell-mediated lysis. In colorectal cancer, tsMHC-II negativity is common, in cell lines due to promoter methylation.

Patient Derived Organoids Confirm That PI3K/AKT Signalling Is an Escape Pathway for Radioresistance and a Target for Therapy in Rectal Cancer.

Objectives: Partial or total resistance to preoperative chemoradiotherapy occurs in more than half of locally advanced rectal cancer patients. Several novel or repurposed drugs have been trialled to improve cancer cell sensitivity to radiotherapy, with limited success. We aimed to understand the mechanisms of resistance to chemoradiotherapy in rectal cancer using patient derived organoid models.

Paradox breaker BRAF inhibitors have comparable potency and MAPK pathway reactivation to encorafenib in BRAF mutant colorectal cancer.

The BEACON CRC trial demonstrated a survival advantage over chemotherapy for a combination of targeted agents comprising the potent BRAF inhibitor encorafenib together with cetuximab and binimetinib. Resistance to BRAF inhibition in CRC arises in part through the generation and activation of RAF dimers resulting in MEK-ERK pathway reactivation. Paradox breaker BRAF inhibitors, such as PLX8394, are designed to inhibit RAF dimer formation.

Follow-up of potential novel Graves' disease susceptibility loci, identified in the UK WTCCC genome-wide nonsynonymous SNP study.

A recent association scan using a genome-wide set of nonsynonymous coding single-nucleotide polymorphisms (nsSNPs) conducted in four diseases including Graves' disease (GD), identified nine novel possible regions of association with GD. We used a case-control approach in an attempt to replicate association of these nine regions in an independent collection of 1578 British GD patients and 1946 matched Caucasian controls. Although none of these loci showed evidence of association with GD in the independent data set, when combined with the original Wellcome Trust Case-Control Consortium study group, minor differences in allele frequencies (P>or=10(-3)) remained in the combined collection of 5924 subjects for four of the nsSNPs, present within HDLBP, TEKT1, JSRP1 and UTX.