All cancers emerge after a period of clonal selection and subsequent clonal expansion. Although the evolutionary principles imparted by genetic intratumour heterogeneity are becoming increasingly ...clear
, little is known about the non-genetic mechanisms that contribute to intratumour heterogeneity and malignant clonal fitness
. Here, using single-cell profiling and lineage tracing (SPLINTR)-an expressed barcoding strategy-we trace isogenic clones in three clinically relevant mouse models of acute myeloid leukaemia. We find that malignant clonal dominance is a cell-intrinsic and heritable property that is facilitated by the repression of antigen presentation and increased expression of the secretory leukocyte peptidase inhibitor gene (Slpi), which we genetically validate as a regulator of acute myeloid leukaemia. Increased transcriptional heterogeneity is a feature that enables clonal fitness in diverse tissues and immune microenvironments and in the context of clonal competition between genetically distinct clones. Similar to haematopoietic stem cells
, leukaemia stem cells (LSCs) display heritable clone-intrinsic properties of high, and low clonal output that contribute to the overall tumour mass. We demonstrate that LSC clonal output dictates sensitivity to chemotherapy and, although high- and low-output clones adapt differently to therapeutic pressure, they coordinately emerge from minimal residual disease with increased expression of the LSC program. Together, these data provide fundamental insights into the non-genetic transcriptional processes that underpin malignant clonal fitness and may inform future therapeutic strategies.
Unravelling spatio-temporal patterns of gene expression is crucial to understanding core biological principles from embryogenesis to disease. Here we review emerging technologies, providing ...automated, high-throughput, spatially resolved quantitative gene expression data. Novel techniques expand on current benchmark protocols, expediting their incorporation into ongoing research. These approaches digitally reconstruct patterns of embryonic expression in three dimensions, and have successfully identified novel domains of expression, cell types, and tissue features. Such technologies pave the way for unbiased and exhaustive recapitulation of gene expression levels in spatial and quantitative terms, promoting understanding of the molecular origin of developmental defects, and improving medical diagnostics.
Breast cancer intra-tumor heterogeneity Martelotto, Luciano G; Ng, Charlotte K Y; Piscuoglio, Salvatore ...
Breast cancer research,
05/2014, Letnik:
16, Številka:
3
Journal Article
Recenzirano
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In recent years it has become clear that cancer cells within a single tumor can display striking morphological, genetic and behavioral variability. Burgeoning genetic, epigenetic and phenomenological ...data support the existence of intra-tumor genetic heterogeneity in breast cancers; however, its basis is yet to be fully defined. Two of the most widely evoked concepts to explain the origin of heterogeneity within tumors are the cancer stem cell hypothesis and the clonal evolution model. Although the cancer stem cell model appeared to provide an explanation for the variability among the neoplastic cells within a given cancer, advances in massively parallel sequencing have provided several lines of evidence to suggest that intra-tumor genetic heterogeneity likely plays a fundamental role in the phenotypic heterogeneity observed in cancers. Many challenges remain, however, in the interpretation of the next generation sequencing results obtained so far. Here we review the models that explain tumor heterogeneity, the causes of intra-tumor genetic diversity and their impact on our understanding and management of breast cancer, methods to study intra-tumor heterogeneity and the assessment of intra-tumor genetic heterogeneity in the clinic.
Uterine adenosarcomas are mesenchymal neoplasms Piscuoglio, Salvatore; Burke, Kathleen A; Ng, Charlotte KY ...
Journal of pathology,
February 2016, Letnik:
238, Številka:
3
Journal Article
The reprogramming of human somatic cells to primed or naive induced pluripotent stem cells recapitulates the stages of early embryonic development
. The molecular mechanism that underpins these ...reprogramming processes remains largely unexplored, which impedes our understanding and limits rational improvements to reprogramming protocols. Here, to address these issues, we reconstruct molecular reprogramming trajectories of human dermal fibroblasts using single-cell transcriptomics. This revealed that reprogramming into primed and naive pluripotency follows diverging and distinct trajectories. Moreover, genome-wide analyses of accessible chromatin showed key changes in the regulatory elements of core pluripotency genes, and orchestrated global changes in chromatin accessibility over time. Integrated analysis of these datasets revealed a role for transcription factors associated with the trophectoderm lineage, and the existence of a subpopulation of cells that enter a trophectoderm-like state during reprogramming. Furthermore, this trophectoderm-like state could be captured, which enabled the derivation of induced trophoblast stem cells. Induced trophoblast stem cells are molecularly and functionally similar to trophoblast stem cells derived from human blastocysts or first-trimester placentas
. Our results provide a high-resolution roadmap for the transcription-factor-mediated reprogramming of human somatic cells, indicate a role for the trophectoderm-lineage-specific regulatory program during this process, and facilitate the direct reprogramming of somatic cells into induced trophoblast stem cells.
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