Publications by authors named "Yi Liu-Chittenden"

Background: Adrenocortical carcinoma is an aggressive malignancy with a low but variable overall survival rate. The role of in adrenocortical carcinoma is poorly understood. Thus, in this study we performed long noncoding RNA expression profiling in adrenocortical carcinomas, adrenocortical adenomas, and normal adrenal cortex.

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Context: Retinoic acid receptor responder protein 2 (RARRES2) is a small secreted protein involved in multiple cancers, including adrenocortical carcinoma (ACC). However, discordant tumor and serum RARRES2 levels have been reported in various cancers. The etiology of this discordance is unknown and has not been studied in pair-matched tumor and serum samples.

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To gain insight into the pathogenesis of adrenocortical carcinoma (ACC) and whether there is progression from normal-to-adenoma-to-carcinoma, we performed genome-wide gene expression, gene methylation, microRNA expression and comparative genomic hybridization (CGH) analysis in human adrenocortical tissue (normal, adrenocortical adenomas and ACC) samples. A pairwise comparison of normal, adrenocortical adenomas and ACC gene expression profiles with more than four-fold expression differences and an adjusted P-value < 0.05 revealed no major differences in normal versus adrenocortical adenoma whereas there are 808 and 1085, respectively, dysregulated genes between ACC versus adrenocortical adenoma and ACC versus normal.

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Purpose: Anaplastic thyroid cancer (ATC) is a rare but lethal malignancy without any effective therapy. The aim of this study is to use a high-throughput drug library screening to identify a novel therapeutic agent that targets dysregulated genes/pathways in ATC.

Experimentaldesign: We performed quantitative high-throughput screening (qHTS) in ATC cell lines using a compound library of 3,282 drugs.

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Adrenocortical carcinoma (ACC) is a rare but lethal malignancy without effective current therapy for metastatic disease. IL-13-PE is a recombinant cytotoxin consisting of human interleukin-13 (IL-13) and a truncated form of Pseudomonas exotoxin A (PE). The main objectives of this Phase I dose-escalation trial were to assess the maximum-tolerated dose (MTD), safety, and pharmacokinetics (PK) of IL-13-PE in patients with metastatic ACC.

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Background: Several members of the zinc finger protein family have been recently shown to have a role in cancer initiation and progression. Zinc finger protein 367 (ZNF367) is a member of the zinc finger protein family and is expressed in embryonic or fetal erythroid tissue but is absent in normal adult tissue.

Methodology/principal Findings: We show that ZNF367 is overexpressed in adrenocortical carcinoma, malignant pheochromocytoma/paraganglioma and thyroid cancer as compared to normal tissue and benign tumors.

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The Hippo tumor suppressor pathway restricts tissue growth by inactivating the transcriptional coactivator Yki. Although Sd has been implicated as a DNA-binding transcription factor partner for Yki and can genetically account for gain-of-function Yki phenotypes, how Yki regulates normal tissue growth remains a long-standing puzzle because Sd, unlike Yki, is dispensable for normal growth in most Drosophila tissues. Here we show that the yki mutant phenotypes in multiple developmental contexts are rescued by inactivation of Sd, suggesting that Sd functions as a default repressor and that Yki promotes normal tissue growth by relieving Sd-mediated default repression.

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The Drosophila TEAD ortholog Scalloped is required for Yki-mediated overgrowth but is largely dispensable for normal tissue growth, suggesting that its mammalian counterpart may be exploited for selective inhibition of oncogenic growth driven by YAP hyperactivation. Here we test this hypothesis genetically and pharmacologically. We show that a dominant-negative TEAD molecule does not perturb normal liver growth but potently suppresses hepatomegaly/tumorigenesis resulting from YAP overexpression or Neurofibromin 2 (NF2)/Merlin inactivation.

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