Aims
Alterations in microenvironments are a hallmark of cancer, and these alterations in germinomas are of particular significance. Germinoma, the most common subtype of central nervous system germ ...cell tumours, often exhibits massive immune cell infiltration intermingled with tumour cells. The role of these immune cells in germinoma, however, remains unknown.
Methods
We investigated the cellular constituents of immune microenvironments and their clinical impacts on prognosis in 100 germinoma cases.
Results
Patients with germinomas lower in tumour cell content (i.e. higher immune cell infiltration) had a significantly longer progression‐free survival time than those with higher tumour cell contents (P = 0.03). Transcriptome analyses and RNA in‐situ hybridization indicated that infiltrating immune cells comprised a wide variety of cell types, including lymphocytes and myelocyte‐lineage cells. High expression of CD4 was significantly associated with good prognosis, whereas elevated nitric oxide synthase 2 was associated with poor prognosis. PD1 (PDCD1) was expressed by immune cells present in most germinomas (93.8%), and PD‐L1 (CD274) expression was found in tumour cells in the majority of germinomas examined (73.5%).
Conclusions
The collective data strongly suggest that infiltrating immune cells play an important role in predicting treatment response. Further investigation should lead to additional categorization of germinoma to safely reduce treatment intensity depending on tumour/immune cell balance and to develop possible future immunotherapies.
A large collection of full-length cDNAs is essential for the correct annotation of genomic sequences and for the functional analysis of genes and their products. We obtained a total of 39 936 soybean ...cDNA clones (GMFL01 and GMFL02 clone sets) in a full-length-enriched cDNA library which was constructed from soybean plants that were grown under various developmental and environmental conditions. Sequencing from 5′ and 3′ ends of the clones generated 68 661 expressed sequence tags (ESTs). The EST sequences were clustered into 22 674 scaffolds involving 2580 full-length sequences. In addition, we sequenced 4712 full-length cDNAs. After removing overlaps, we obtained 6570 new full-length sequences of soybean cDNAs so far. Our data indicated that 87.7% of the soybean cDNA clones contain complete coding sequences in addition to 5′- and 3′-untranslated regions. All of the obtained data confirmed that our collection of soybean full-length cDNAs covers a wide variety of genes. Comparative analysis between the derived sequences from soybean and Arabidopsis, rice or other legumes data revealed that some specific genes were involved in our collection and a large part of them could be annotated to unknown functions. A large set of soybean full-length cDNA clones reported in this study will serve as a useful resource for gene discovery from soybean and will also aid a precise annotation of the soybean genome.
Chromosome 21 is the smallest human autosome. An extra copy of chromosome 21 causes Down syndrome, the most frequent genetic cause of significant mental retardation, which affects up to 1 in 700 live ...births. Several anonymous loci for monogenic disorders and predispositions for common complex disorders have also been mapped to this chromosome, and loss of heterozygosity has been observed in regions associated with solid tumours. Here we report the sequence and gene catalogue of the long arm of chromosome 21. We have sequenced 33,546,361 base pairs (bp) of DNA with very high accuracy, the largest contig being 25,491,867 bp. Only three small clone gaps and seven sequencing gaps remain, comprising about 100 kilobases. Thus, we achieved 99.7% coverage of 21q. We also sequenced 281,116 bp from the short arm. The structural features identified include duplications that are probably involved in chromosomal abnormalities and repeat structures in the telomeric and pericentromeric regions. Analysis of the chromosome revealed 127 known genes, 98 predicted genes and 59 pseudogenes.
Successful treatment of many patients with advanced cancer using antibodies against programmed cell death 1 (PD-1; also known as PDCD1) and its ligand (PD-L1; also known as CD274) has highlighted the ...critical importance of PD-1/PD-L1-mediated immune escape in cancer development. However, the genetic basis for the immune escape has not been fully elucidated, with the exception of elevated PD-L1 expression by gene amplification and utilization of an ectopic promoter by translocation, as reported in Hodgkin and other B-cell lymphomas, as well as stomach adenocarcinoma. Here we show a unique genetic mechanism of immune escape caused by structural variations (SVs) commonly disrupting the 3' region of the PD-L1 gene. Widely affecting multiple common human cancer types, including adult T-cell leukaemia/lymphoma (27%), diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (8%), and stomach adenocarcinoma (2%), these SVs invariably lead to a marked elevation of aberrant PD-L1 transcripts that are stabilized by truncation of the 3'-untranslated region (UTR). Disruption of the Pd-l1 3'-UTR in mice enables immune evasion of EG7-OVA tumour cells with elevated Pd-l1 expression in vivo, which is effectively inhibited by Pd-1/Pd-l1 blockade, supporting the role of relevant SVs in clonal selection through immune evasion. Our findings not only unmask a novel regulatory mechanism of PD-L1 expression, but also suggest that PD-L1 3'-UTR disruption could serve as a genetic marker to identify cancers that actively evade anti-tumour immunity through PD-L1 overexpression.
Targeting self-renewal is an important goal in cancer therapy and recent studies have focused on Notch signalling in the maintenance of stemness of glioma stem cells (GSCs). Understanding ...cancer-specific Notch regulation would improve specificity of targeting this pathway. In this study, we find that Notch1 activation in GSCs specifically induces expression of the lncRNA, TUG1. TUG1 coordinately promotes self-renewal by sponging miR-145 in the cytoplasm and recruiting polycomb to repress differentiation genes by locus-specific methylation of histone H3K27 via YY1-binding activity in the nucleus. Furthermore, intravenous treatment with antisense oligonucleotides targeting TUG1 coupled with a drug delivery system induces GSC differentiation and efficiently represses GSC growth in vivo. Our results highlight the importance of the Notch-lncRNA axis in regulating self-renewal of glioma cells and provide a strong rationale for targeting TUG1 as a specific and potent therapeutic approach to eliminate the GSC population.
Tobacco smoking increases the risk of at least 17 classes of human cancer. We analyzed somatic mutations and DNA methylation in 5243 cancers of types for which tobacco smoking confers an elevated ...risk. Smoking is associated with increased mutation burdens of multiple distinct mutational signatures, which contribute to different extents in different cancers. One of these signatures, mainly found in cancers derived from tissues directly exposed to tobacco smoke, is attributable to misreplication of DNA damage caused by tobacco carcinogens. Others likely reflect indirect activation of DNA editing by APOBEC cytidine deaminases and of an endogenous clocklike mutational process. Smoking is associated with limited differences in methylation. The results are consistent with the proposition that smoking increases cancer risk by increasing the somatic mutation load, although direct evidence for this mechanism is lacking in some smoking-related cancer types.
Adult T cell leukemia/lymphoma (ATL) is a peripheral T cell neoplasm of largely unknown genetic basis, associated with human T cell leukemia virus type-1 (HTLV-1) infection. Here we describe an ...integrated molecular study in which we performed whole-genome, exome, transcriptome and targeted resequencing, as well as array-based copy number and methylation analyses, in a total of 426 ATL cases. The identified alterations overlap significantly with the HTLV-1 Tax interactome and are highly enriched for T cell receptor-NF-κB signaling, T cell trafficking and other T cell-related pathways as well as immunosurveillance. Other notable features include a predominance of activating mutations (in PLCG1, PRKCB, CARD11, VAV1, IRF4, FYN, CCR4 and CCR7) and gene fusions (CTLA4-CD28 and ICOS-CD28). We also discovered frequent intragenic deletions involving IKZF2, CARD11 and TP73 and mutations in GATA3, HNRNPA2B1, GPR183, CSNK2A1, CSNK2B and CSNK1A1. Our findings not only provide unique insights into key molecules in T cell signaling but will also guide the development of new diagnostics and therapeutics in this intractable tumor.
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
DOBA, IJS, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBMB, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
Adult T-cell leukemia/lymphoma (ATLL) is a distinct form of peripheral T-cell lymphoma with poor prognosis, which is caused by the human T-lymphotropic virus type 1 (HTLV-1). In contrast to the ...unequivocal importance of HTLV-1 infection in the pathogenesis of ATLL, the role of acquired mutations in HTLV-1 infected T cells has not been fully elucidated, with a handful of genes known to be recurrently mutated. In this study, we identified unique RHOA mutations in ATLL through whole genome sequencing of an index case, followed by deep sequencing of 203 ATLL samples. RHOA mutations showed distinct distribution and function from those found in other cancers. Involving 15% (30/203) of ATLL cases, RHOA mutations were widely distributed across the entire coding sequence but almost invariably located at the guanosine triphosphate (GTP)-binding pocket, with Cys16Arg being most frequently observed. Unexpectedly, depending on mutation types and positions, these RHOA mutants showed different or even opposite functional consequences in terms of GTP/guanosine diphosphate (GDP)-binding kinetics, regulation of actin fibers, and transcriptional activation. The Gly17Val mutant did not bind GTP/GDP and act as a dominant negative molecule, whereas other mutants (Cys16Arg and Ala161Pro) showed fast GTP/GDP cycling with enhanced transcriptional activation. These findings suggest that both loss- and gain-of-RHOA functions could be involved in ATLL leukemogenesis. In summary, our study not only provides a novel insight into the molecular pathogenesis of ATLL but also highlights a unique role of variegation of heterologous RHOA mutations in human cancers.
•RHOA mutations are common in ATLL and show a unique distribution compared with other T-cell lymphomas.•Depending on patients, functionally distinct RHOA mutations are clonally selected and involved in the pathogenesis of ATLL.
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