Assessment of circulating tumor DNA in patients with locally advanced rectal cancer treated with neoadjuvant therapy.

Post-neoadjuvant therapy (post-NAT) and post-surgical circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) risk stratification may enhance the management of patients with locally advanced rectal cancer (LARC). In this study, we assessed the prognostic value of ctDNA-based MRD detection in LARC patients using a personalized, tumor-informed ctDNA assay. Plasma samples from LARC patients (N = 30) were analyzed retrospectively using the Signatera™ assay.

HDAC6 as a Prognostic Factor and Druggable Target in HER2-Positive Breast Cancer.

Background: Adjuvant trastuzumab is the standard of care for HER2+ breast cancer (BC) patients. However, >50% of patients become resistant. This study aimed at the identification of the molecular factors associated with disease relapse and their further investigation as therapeutically exploitable targets.

Integrating machine learning-predicted circulating tumor cells (CTCs) and circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) in metastatic breast cancer: A proof of principle study on endocrine resistance profiling.

The study explored endocrine resistance by leveraging machine learning to establish the prognostic stratification of predicted Circulating tumor cells (CTCs), assessing its integration with circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) features and contextually evaluate the potential of CTCs-based transcriptomics. 1118 patients with a diagnosis of luminal-like Metastatic Breast Cancer (MBC) were characterized for ctDNA through NGS before treatment start, predicted CTCs were computed through a K nearest neighbor algorithm. Differences across subgroups were analyzed through chi square or Fisher's exact test according to sample size and corrected for False Discovery Rate.

The molecular features of lung cancer stem cells in dedifferentiation process-driven epigenetic alterations.

Cancer stem cells (CSCs) may be dedifferentiated somatic cells following oncogenic processes, representing a subpopulation of cells able to promote tumor growth with their capacities for proliferation and self-renewal, inducing lineage heterogeneity, which may be a main cause of resistance to therapies. It has been shown that the "less differentiated process" may have an impact on tumor plasticity, particularly when non-CSCs may dedifferentiate and become CSC-like. Bidirectional interconversion between CSCs and non-CSCs has been reported in other solid tumors, where the inflammatory stroma promotes cell reprogramming by enhancing Wnt signaling through nuclear factor kappa B activation in association with intracellular signaling, which may induce cells' pluripotency, the oncogenic transformation can be considered another important aspect in the acquisition of "new" development programs with oncogenic features.